Glocalization

in Higher Education
Hasan Kettaneh

kettanehh14@mytru.ca

Introduction:
With the increase of internationalization in higher education, there
come many challenges for students and instructors . Curriculum and
pedagogy place learners in a situation that mostly engages and
empowers local learners leaving international ones feeling vulnerable,
(Texas State University, n.d)

isolated, and culturally shocked. International learners therefore face
assimilation, frustration, and sometimes failure.

Methodology:

Glocalization, the blending and connecting of local and global contexts

This study will employ a mixed methods design. The data needed

while maintaining significant contributions of different cultural

will be gathered through focus groups, surveys, and interviews

communities, serves to prevent learner assimilation in host country,

which focus on international students at TRU who will be

enriches learning and empowers learners, improves academic

recruited through TRU World.

achievement, and makes learning more authentic.
The quantitative data will be analyzed by conducting a statistical
Research Questions:
 What are the perceptions of faculty and students towards

comparison between faculty and students using SPSS. The
qualitative data will be analyzed for dominant themes after
transcribing and coding the recorded interviews and feedback.

glocalization at Thompson Rivers University?
 How can student classroom engagement and inclusion be improved?

References:
Bielefeld University. (2014). International portal [Online image].
Retrieved March 05, 2015, from http://www.unibielefeld.de/(en)/International/IO/
Brooks, J. S. & Normore, A. H. (2010). Educational leadership and
globalization: Toward a glocal perspective. Educational Policy,
24(1), 52-82. doi: 10.1177/0895904809354070
Marginson, S. (2011). Including the other: Regulation of the human
rights of mobile students in a nation-bound world. High Educ, 63,
497–512. doi:10.1007/s10734-011-9454-7

Existing Literature:
 School leadership for the 21st century requires a new
conceptualization that blends local and global realities and issues
(Brooks and Normore,2010).
 “The world’s three million cross-border international students are
located in a ‘gray zone’ of regulation with incomplete human rights,
security and capabilities” (Marginson, 2011, p. 497).

Patel, F., & Lynch, H. (2013). Glocalization as an alternative to
internationalization in higher education: Embedding positive
glocal learning perspectives. International Journal of Teaching
and Learning in Higher Education, 25(2), 223-230.
Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity. In
M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global
modernity (pp. 25-44). London: Sage.
Texas State University [Online image]. SDI - Office of Student
Diversity and Inclusion. Retrieved March 05, 2015,
from http://classroom.synonym.com/cite-picture-taken-internetapa-2154.html

 Glocalization in higher education, as opposed to dated, negative, and
deficit models of internationalization is a holistic perspective that
advocates for the removal of ethno-centric and culturally relativist
political agendas in higher education (Patel & Lynch, 2013).
 It might well be preferable to replace globalization with the concept
of glocalization. The latter concept has the definite advantage of
making the concern with space as important as the focus upon
temporal issues (Robertson, 1995).

(Bielefeld University, 2014)