Spheres of Influence: Ventures and Visions in Educational Development*3-6 July, 2002 AbstractGlobalization of higher education - an evaluation of Sweden's National Agency of Higher Education's investment in an international teachers' exchange programmeMarie-Louise Annerblom, Department of Education, Sweden Around the world today there is a movement towards increased globalization. Above all, this means a development from centralization towards increased decentralization. The market has also come to play an important role in the development. Higher education's reaction to these trends is, among other things, a strong movement towards internationalization. Sweden's National Agency of Higher Education implemented a liberal exchange programme where approx. 300 university lecturers and an equal number of foreign lecturers worked, for a number of weeks, at each others universities. Their experiences have shown a number of positive results when it comes to their professional development including an increase of language knowledge, new insight pertaining to teaching, exchange of ideas within research and in some cases an establishment of an extended teacher and student exchange programme between the countries. A negative effect that might arise in a situation like this is that there may be a sense of there being a divide among university lecturers into an A and a B group, where those lecturers that have had the possibility of progression through exchange programmes of this nature also possess a ticket to the train of globalization that rushes through the world, whilst others are left behind in their local situation without this opportunity of further progression. In many contexts, internationalization and globalization show that these A and B groups are often equivalent to groups of men and women who, as a group, have different opportunities of participating in this development. This imbalance, being disadvantageous to women, does not apply when it comes to the National Agency of Higher Education's investment in international exchange. This exchange has instead had a large number of women participants from university sectors that are predominantly female. It is therefore especially interesting, from a democratic point of view, to evaluate these observations. The long-term effects of the teacher exchange programme are presently being analysed in a follow-up evaluation project and will be presented at the conference. Key words: Objectives, outcomes and activities: Marie-Louise Annerblom has a doctor's degree in pedagogy including a dissertation titled Changing gender roles: A feministic perspective to the debate pertaining to gender roles at day care centres (-83), followed by research in the field of the child care system with a women's studies approach. "The family day nursery project" (-90). Have held lectureship in pedagogy as well as pedagogy and social science. Worked as a consultant of pedagogy for the regional social insurance offices with a support organization for women who have reported in sick, as well as done research within this field. Presently working with an evaluation of The Swedish National Agency of Higher Education's international teachers' exchange programme (-02). Contact: Marie-Louise Annerblom, email: marie-louise.annerblom@pi.oru.se |