"Det finns många utmaningar med vetenskaplig publicering, inte minst vad gäller pressen akademiker har att publicera (publish or perish) och olika rankingar mellan lärosäten och länder där publikationer i internationella högrankade tidskrifter premieras (Aprile et al., 2021). Många tidskrifter har sett ett ökat flöde av inskickade bidrag under de senaste åren, så även Högre utbildning. Det har resulterat i en ökad mängd bidrag för redaktörer att granska och hantera. Det ligger i tidskriftens intresse att publicera bidrag av hög kvalitet och relevans för tidskriftens målgrupp. Men det ligger också i tidskriftens intresse att sammantaget ha ett tillräckligt omfattande och varierat innehåll som läses av målgruppen". Läs hela ledaren av redaktörene Maria Weurlander och Per-Anders Forstorp her.

De bidrag som skickas till Högre utbildning har stor bredd. Sammantaget ska stor bredd ses som tidskriftens styrka. Det innebär att olika perspektiv och röster kommer fram i de tre bidragsformer som finns: artiklar, reflekterad utbildningspraktik och fördjupad diskussion. Både läraren och studenten är i fokus i Högre utbildning. Alla dessa perspektiv och röster – läraren, studenten och forskaren – finns representerade i detta första nummer 2023.

Välkomna till det första numret av Högre utbildning år 2022! Efter nästan två års digital undervisning på distans har vårterminen till största del utspelat sig på campus igen, efterlängtat av många, både studenter och lärare. Samtidigt har de högskolepedagogiska konferenserna nästan avlöst varandra, från lokala konferenser på lärosätesnivå till den nationella NU-konferensen med temat ”Att synliggöra lärandet” och den internationella ICED-konferensen under rubriken ”Sustainable Educational Development”, som gick av stapeln i Danmark. Tidskriften Högre utbildning är en del av samtalet mellan lärare, forskare, pedagogiska utvecklare, studenter medflera och bidrar med aktuella perspektiv. En del av texterna i det här numret summerar och analyserar erfarenheter som har gjorts under pandemin, medan andra bidrag rör sig i en vidare högskolepedagogisk kontext.

I detta nummer av Högre utbildning fokuseras huvudsakligen på hur studenter kan engageras i forskning samt lärares skriftliga reflektioner om sin egen undervisning.

In this chapter, we introduce the empirical material and the methodological framework. The empirical material is divided into three groups. First, we have conducted fieldwork at HEIs in different cultural contexts (India, Malaysia, Russia, Norway, Sweden, and the UAE), including opportunities for interviewing faculty. Secondly, we have conducted 90 interviews with international students in Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Malaysia. Third, we have studied texts and documents collected from regions, nations, and HEIs in the countries mentioned as well as from higher education fairs/exhibitions in India and the Middle East. We also explore the methodological conditions for making the analysis, which is done in two consecutive steps. First, through an exploration of the discursive dimensions of the analysis and second through an attempt at interpreting the notion of interference.

This chapter outlines the key concepts and themes addressed in this book: Eduscapes; Imaginaries; Critical Anthropology: Knowledge Society/Economy; Globalization; and Higher Education and Mobility. Eduscape as the core concept in this book will be the vehicle with which to understand institutional practices and the strategies employed by groups and individuals. As an encompassing and eclectic concept, eduscapes can be investigated on various levels and from a number of different aspects: flow of ideas, mobility practices, university and government policies, commodification and massification of higher education, spatial imaginaries, ethnic and gendered student communities, epistemic communities, and virtual and open universities.

The introduction introduces the key argument advocated in this book. It is that the vision of a knowledge society/economy, maintained both by individuals and by institutions, needs to be perspectivized beyond the taken-for-granted conditions and meanings. We wish to take the readers beyond the standard understanding of knowledge society/economy as a techno-political fix in a relatively neutral sense, and to show its cultural embedding (practice) as well as its ideological underpinnings (theory). This chapter further gives an introduction to the outline of the book.

Visuality is a concept that crosses boundaries of practice and meaning, making it an ideal subject for interdisciplinary research. In this article, we discuss visuality using a fragment from a video meeting of television producers at Swedish Television’s group for programming in Swedish Sign Language. This example argues for the importance of recognizing the diversity of analytical and practice-derived visualities and their effect on the ways in which we interpret cultures. These different visualities have consequences for the methods and means with which we present scholarly research. The role of methods, methodology, and analysis of visual practices in an organizational and bilingual setting are key. We explore the challenges of incorporating deaf visualities, hearing visualities, and different paradigms of interdisciplinary research as necessary when visibility, invisibility, and their materialities are of concern. We conclude that in certain contexts, breaking with disciplinary traditions makes visible that which is otherwise invisible.

In this chapter, we focus on the gendered dimensions of student mobility in different national and educational contexts. With examples from Sweden, Iran, India, Pakistan, Russia, and Norway, we will illustrate commonplace gendered themes in the educational biographies that we have collected since the early 2000s. In the educational biographies that we have gathered and built our analysis upon, we have come across various forms of sexism, expressions of patriarchal dividends, and gender conservatism in general. These gendered dimensions are often key motivational 'push' factors to start thinking about or beginning an education somewhere else, for leaving a homestead and finding a less pressing educational environment in terms of gender normativity and sexuality.

Particular universities and other HEIs act both autonomously and according to grand plans designed by aggregated authorities. This is visible for instance in the marketing of higher education by these actors, at the web, in brochures and catalogues, in advertisements, and in 'designed journalism'. In this chapter, these attempts at marketing and promotion of a particular institution will be at focus of the analysis inspired by critical marketing studies, yet the overarching goal is to contribute to an understanding of the eduscapes of the institutions.

This book examines transnational scapes and flows of higher education: arguing that the educational and political vision of a national, regional and global knowledge society needs to be perspectivized

In this chapter we will apply the concept of eduscape to processes of regionalization and globalization within the EU. The EU is just one among many regional actors that regard improved quality and access to higher education as primary measures of building a knowledge society. Through close readings of policy papers, white papers, and guidelines used in implementing policy, the ideological framework of higher education and globalization will be articulated. Comparative dimensions will be introduced in order to illustrate the ‘unique ordinariness’ of EU policy in this domain.

Internationalization is a contemporary buzzword in higher education. The values and benefits anticipated through internationalism in international academic exchange and student mobility is widely recognized and represented on regional, national, institutional and individual levels. Internationalization as a key signifier serves multiple meanings and functions: as symbol, criteria of quality, and as carrier of content, often reaching far beyond the field of higher education. Internationalization is taken for granted as a quality but what kind of quality does internationalization represent? The purpose of this chapter is to unpack the notion of internationalization through an analysis of interviews with administrators and coordinators working in the service of intercultural outreach in higher education in the Barents Euro-Arctic region. The analysis will move beyond simple assumptions about reality and transparency derived through interviews and will problematize the epistemic and ontological conditions of "what we talk about when we talk about" something. It will be explored how internationalization becomes a concept with multiple functions and meanings, serving needs and expectations at various institutional levels. The international coordinator in academic exchanges programs is precisely the person who professionally negotiate this multidimensional concept and it's derivate to individual students, to institutions and its political constituency. Meaning and internationalization intersect at many semantic and practical levels. Internationalization is an instrument/metaphor (a means) for accomplishing something else. It is also a concept with multiple interpretations (meanings) and it is decisively important (meaningful) for the "missionaries" of internationalism of higher education institutions. The general purpose of the paper is to contribute with critical interpretations of a key concept in contemporary higher education discourse.

International student mobility is a complex sociocultural process involving the interchanges and translations of pedagogy and mobility. An exchange of learners and learning takes place, meanwhile mobility and exchange as processes of acculturation also become objects of learning. These learning and mobility processes forms key experiences for individuals doing exchange, and needs to be analyzed from the perspective of these actors (students, faculty, administrators and coordinators) participating in international exchange. In such analysis should also be taken into account not just individual biographies and learning trajectories but also the culture specific academic traditions that constitute contextual conditions for exchange. The cultural-academic conditions for exchanges within the Barents region, between Norway and Russia, is at the focus of this chapter based on interviews with the above mentioned actors. The analysis is also based on field studies of academic cultures in the two countries, and on a selection of institutional histories. The analysis specify the problem in cultural analytic and epistemic terms, then contribute to an inventory of similarities and differences between academic contexts based on styles of learning and teaching characteristic of institutional styles. A key focus will be on documented issues of contestability between these academic traditions such as “plagiarism”, language proficiency, and perceptions of student work load. The implication of this analysis is that an understanding of different academic cultures based on respect and mutual trust is beneficial in order to avoid narrow minded ethnocentric judgments of qualities of academic performance.

‘Knowledge society’ and ‘knowledge economy’ are current buzzwords in the visions of the future made by nations, regions and federations on a global scale. A concrete outcome of this is the globalisation and intensification of higher education and research. The visions based on a knowledge component should be treated as expressions of an ideology. In this article we use the notion of ‘eduscapes’ and ‘imaginaries’ as analytics for an understanding of such visions as these are expressed by individuals and institutional actors involved in educational landscapes. The argument is made that this notion is less ideological and more apt for an analysis of globalisation of higher education.