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INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION – NUMBER 64 SUMMER 2011 Pages 6-7.

Internationalization of Higher Education: Nine Misconceptions

Hans de Wit

Hans de Wit is professor of internationalization at the School of Economics and

Management, Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences,

Netherlands. This is an abridged version of his public lecture in Amsterdam, April

6, 2011. E-mail: j.w.m.de.wit@hva.nl.

Internationalization in European higher education has developed over the last 20

years, from a marginal point of interest to a central factor—also called a

mainstreaming of internationalization. Indisputably, globalization of our societies

and economies has expanded the influence of competition and market processes

on the manner in which internationalization is implemented. Internationalization

distinguishes many motives and approaches. The mainstreaming of

internationalization assumes a more integral process-based approach, aimed at a

better quality of higher education and competencies of staff and students. Reality

is less promising, however, although the international dimension takes an

increasingly central role in higher education. Still, there is a predominantly

activity-oriented or even instrumental approach toward internationalization,

which leads to major misconceptions about the nature of this development.

Nine misconceptions will be described (two of them coinciding with a myth as

described in IHE by Jane Knight in “Five Myths About Internationalization,” no.

62, winter 2011), whereby internationalization is regarded as synonymous with a

specific programmatic or organizational strategy to promote internationalization—

in other words, where the means appear to have become the goal.

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