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Universities throughout Europe are engaged in a process of harmonization through the Bologna Process, which aimed at creating a European Area of Higher Education by 2010, making its higher education more compatible, comparable, competitive and attractive for students and scholars within Europe and from other parts of the world. Given the increasing number and diversity of international students, this doctoral project has explored an important development in higher education today: the intercultural dimension. The prefix “inter-” implies dynamic and transformative interactions and intermixing of entities in encounters between cultures. In our case, it specifically refers to the confrontations and interactions between international students and people from the host culture. Intercultural practices on the campus, therefore, are under the expectation that the institution not only provides supportive programmes and services to help international students to accommodate to the new context, but also transforms itself and improves its practices in view of the experiences, needs and expectations of international students. In this respect, the concept of dialogue takes a central place both in educational researches and practices. Ideally, it is marked by an atmosphere of open and joint participation by any of its participants leading to the discovery of new insights and the creation of meaning. However, in reality its implementation in multicultural contexts is far more complex than it appears at first sight. We need to deal with issues such as the power imbalance between majority and minority cultures, people’s attitudes and communication skills related to establishing and carrying on dialogues, and so on. Accordingly, this Ph.D project attempts to explore the current situation of institutional practices vis-à-vis international students, to analyze practical opportunities and challenges, and to provide suggestions for future improvement. At the same time, it also aims at developing our understanding of the implementation of intercultural education/learning/communication on the campus, with reference to the concept of dialogue. In particular this concept frames the positioning of international students vis-à-vis other actors, and defines the conditions for and obstacles to establishing sustainable learning and education processes. Qualitative case study methodology has been employed in two case study units respectively: one investigating institutional services and counselling for international students; and the other dealing with pedagogical transformation in a multicultural classroom. I have especially elaborated the following issues in this thesis:· The quantity and quality of encounters among international students and the host culture representatives· Both students and institutional personnel’s intercultural competence in cross-cultural situations·   Our understanding and applications of dialogue in face of the asymmetric power structure on the campus As a conclusion, I would say that the existence of a diverse body of students on the campus is neither self-evident nor self-fulfilling in terms of interculturality. There is a dominant perception of dialogue as an instrument to reinforce the compensational approach vis-à-vis student diversity, according to which, the differences between international students’ home experiences and the host system/practices are considered “problems” or “deficits” that would lead to their academic failures and/or socio-cultural isolation from the local community. Thus the institution should develop relevant programmes/services to support their adaptation; while at the same time, the other side of transformative learning, wherein the host system should also adjust to international students to decrease its limitations and to broaden its horizons to educational reforms, innovations and practices of other regions of the world, tends to be ignored. The creation of sustainable dialogues in European higher education vis-à-vis student diversity and interculturality, therefore, calls for attention to various and interrelated factors in the change process, which not only refer to the organizational and managerial structure of the institution, but also deal with people’s intercultural competence and personal commitment in the process of inte

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• Reference Manager
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• Reference Manager
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• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)