Internationalization of higher education in emerging contexts: recent production in theses and dissertations in Brazil

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to profile the themes of scientific works concerning the globalization of higher education in developing contexts. The quantitative information panel of the theses and dissertations catalog on the Portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Brazilian Higher Education Personnel served as the venue for this systematic review of the literature, which was conducted through the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. The adjectives “internationalization of higher education”, “developing contexts”, and “global south” were used in the search to uncover a total of 135 publications, which were broken down into 47 theses and 88 dissertations published throughout the period of 2017-2022 for the education sector. From the total number of works found, eight theses and three dissertations that dealt exclusively with the topic under study were chosen for this research. Four major themes that are pertinent to these works − public policies, interculturality and multiculturalism, socioeconomic concerns, and quality assessment − have been identified as a result of the analysis. All of these topics were covered in the internationalization conversations that centered on south-south cooperation and sought to construct the topic as a whole from a decolonial epistemological standpoint. Finally, the findings of this study revealed fresh avenues and plans for the global south’s higher education that are oriented on intercultural considerations, invest in the generation of local knowledge, and conduct research and studies to address the problems of Brazilian reality.

Keywords
internationalization of higher education; globalization; emerging contexts; south-south cooperation