Space, place and internationalisation of higher education: Exploring everyday social practices in the ‘international’ classroom

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to use a spatial approach to tease out implicit understandings of what is perceived as the ‘good’ student, the ‘right’ pedagogies and ‘legitimate’ knowledge in higher education internationalisation practices. We do so by attending to the social practices in the ‘international’ classroom and explore how such practices are shaped and impacted by students' various backgrounds, educational paths, prior knowledges and at the same time by structural, cultural and national characteristics of the host institution and the lecturers teaching there. The paper combines both lecturers' and students' perspectives and details the complex relationality of people and places connected through movement and performances of internationalisation. Inspired by critical internationalisation studies, we demonstrate how everyday practices and discourses in the ‘international’ classroom produce and reproduce global inequalities; thereby, we show some of the uneven geographies of higher education internationalisation.