Higher Education Studies in a Global Environment

From 2004 to 2012 young, open-minded persons from all over the world joined the Master Programme Higher Education Research and Development (MAHE) at the University of Kassel. In 2012, a first volume (Barbara M. Kehm and Ulrich Teichler, eds. Higher Education Studies in a Global Environment. Vol. 1. Kassel 2012; Werkstattberichte, No. 74) presented the highlights of eight master theses written by students graduating from this programme. This second and final volume presents the highlights from 13 further master theses which have been rated unanimously as “very good”. The authors of these articles come from ten different countries. Most articles address specific issues of higher education in a single or in two countries – among them often the authors’ home countries.

Since the programme offered the students the challenge of bringing together prevailing concepts in higher education research and dominating discourses in higher education in their own countries or in other countries they developed an interest in, the master theses mirror the tensions between the assumptions of worldwide pressures and worldwide valid concepts on the one hand, and the experience of varied situations on the other.

Claudia Müller inspects efforts to motivate and support socially disadvantaged students in Germany, Gulinuer Maimaiti analyses the situation of ethnic minority students in China, Guanzi Shen investigates the governmental policies of China in enhancing the quality of select universities to become ‘world class universities’, Sarah A. Ooro the overall setting governance – including the role of international actors – affecting higher education in Kenya, Tamara Arutyunyants studies the phenomenon of participation in internships after graduation in Germany, and Ekaterina Piotrowski compares technology transfer systems in Germany and Russia. Various master theses focus on internationalisation in higher education: Vi Than Son analyses internationalisation policies of the government and the higher education institutions in Vietnam, Madonna Maroun addresses the internationalisation strategies of the individual universities in Lebanon, Queenie K. L. Lam compares the website information and marketing policies of leading universities from different countries, Carmen Nicoleta Mureşan takes stock of the support services of a German university and their impact, Andrea Cuenca discusses the controversial discourse on ‘brain drain’ with emphasis on Colombia, and Sandy Matthias-Mui aims to establish the professional value of mobility in the case of students and young employees from Hong Kong having spent a period of study or an internship in Germany. Finally, one master thesis addresses higher education research: Elena Schimmelpfenning examines changing higher education research themes as visible in journal articles published by scholars from India and other regions of the world.