Programmes of international educational exchange are not only carried out for educational purposes, but form an important part of modern-day public diplomacy. Through exchange programmes education and research are linked with foreign policy interests, which then in turn should affect the international contacts of universities and research…

Initially emerged in 1978, higher education research institutes (HERIs) in Mainland China have experienced rapid expansion and have become a major force in higher education reform in the last three decades. The development of these research institutes is closely related to the substantive growth of the higher education system itself as well as…

Cedefop had successfully managed study visits for vocational education and training (VET) experts for over 20 years, building up a reputation for visits of high quality both in terms of content and organisation. Wishing to draw on this experience and know-how, the European Commission invited Cedefop to coordinate the new much larger consolidated…

Lack or complete neglect of international experiences among social studies teachers leads to superficial understanding of the importance of the development of global competences among students, neglect to very important themes in citizenship education, or even informal taboo on some critical controversial topics that address sensitive questions of…

At the intersection of the topics of migration and diversity in higher education lies the experience of people who grow up overseas, or who go overseas for education or military service, and then return as college students. This article addresses their experience, drawing from a series of exploratory interviews conducted--as part of a broader…

Recently, the use of children's picture books to teach English has been increasing in Japan. An advantage of these books is the high proportion of basic vocabulary they include. Can picture books also be useful for teaching Japanese students Italian and increasing their motivation? The present study analyses the effectiveness of employing a…

In an increasingly global age, university students need to prepare themselves to be competitive in both domestic and foreign labor markets. This involves the acquisition of foreign languages, experience of a variety of educational and professional settings, and becoming part of influential networks. The case of Tomsk Polytechnical University…

As research on the effectiveness of study abroad programs continues to evolve, the author notes a gradual shift in focus from "Is study abroad effective?" to "What can be done to improve the quality of the study abroad experience?" (e.g., Pederson, 2010; Shaheen, 2004). The author writes that he believes this broadened…

There is a broad consensus in international debates that the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services is inextricably linked to the professionalisation of its workforce. In particular, the importance of providing ECEC practitioners with continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities has been increasingly recognised in…

This edited volume contains 11 short papers selected from the 2017 Innovative Language Teaching and Learning at University conference (InnoConf), which took place on the 16th of June at The Open University. The theme of the conference was "Integrating Informal Learning into Formal Language Education." The aim of the conference was to…

This article presents how, in the social dynamics of two classrooms involved in an exchange programme, young learners provide their peers with asynchronous feedback taking place in the digital medium. Within two Call Triangles that interact thanks to Computer Mediated Communication tools, teachers sharing the same methodological precept on…

This study examines the role of international exchange programs on the transformative learning of English-speaking students. A student exchange program at a South Korean university is used for this case study. It explores how learning experiences are translated by participants onto their perceptions about the host country. An analysis of a pre-…

Academic exchange programs provide students and teachers with the opportunity to study or work temporarily at educational institutions abroad. For exchange programs to be successful in promoting intercultural education, they must be designed with their participants in mind. The present study constitutes an investigation of attitudes and…

Institutional isomorphists and other proponents of world culture theory argue that schools around the world are converging in many ways, whereas anthropologists and others question this conclusion, often arguing that local cultural differences belie superficial similarities. These viewpoints are not merely academic explanations of the spread and…

In October 2011, five selected Western Australian teachers took part in a teacher mentoring project in Tanzania. The teachers spent a month embedded in local primary and secondary schools, working collaboratively with their Tanzanian counterparts. As a strategy for making sense of their experiences, each teacher was asked to maintain a reflective…