Building bridges between cosmopolitans and populists

For decades, the trend towards more internationalisation in higher education seemed unstoppable. There appeared to be ever more mobility, ever more collaboration and, in some countries, ever more funding.

With the rise of right-wing populist movements and parties, that trend has become much less clear. Some scholars have described a new social and cultural fault line, between the drivers and beneficiaries of globalisation and a protest movement of people who fear for their social positions and traditional ways of life.

In this analysis, a cosmopolitan, highly educated upper-middle class person is a major actor in, and beneficiary of, the rise of the transnational knowledge economy and at the same time champion of a hegemonic discourse of cultural openness and diversity.

The anger of both well-to-do traditional conservatives and of social groups who fear losing socio-economic status is directed against this cosmopolitan class. Right-wing populist parties poke, use and articulate that anger in political terms.

Why does that matter for international educators and funding agencies?

Well, we have ourselves helped to create the very class of internationally connected cosmopolitans whose self-concept and lifestyle are now the target of populist anger. Study abroad, proficiency in foreign languages and intercultural experience are part of the cultural capital ‘cosmopolitans’ use to distinguish themselves from those who do not share their international outlook and who dislike the lifestyles and values of global modernity.

To acknowledge this is not to give up the case for international openness and mobility. Yes, we still want to strengthen European cohesion through the Erasmus programme. Yes, we still want to help create international networks and early involvement in them through international mobility and cooperation. Not only for graduates to have better employment opportunities, but also for them to act responsibly in a globalised world.

More than ever, we want young people to learn about, and appreciate, different perspectives while studying abroad. This always implies putting into perspective the views and values they brought from home.

Defending a culture of welcoming outsiders

This is certainly not the time for international educators to cave in. We will continue to defend a xenophile-welcome culture. Lacking it, Europe and its universities would become unattractive for students and researchers from across the world. Of course, we stand up for tolerance, equality, diversity and academic freedom.

But the rise of populists is a reason to wonder where, unintentionally, we might have contributed to social divisions and what we can do to overcome them.

If internationalisation can contribute to the creation and censure of a privileged social class, it is even more important to open access to international experience more widely. Students from poorer families, the children of migrants, minorities and people with special needs, in some countries also women, are still strongly underrepresented in study abroad.

More inclusion is also an important orientation for the next generation of European education programmes. The Academic Cooperation Association or ACA and its Belgian, German and Norwegian member organisations held a well-attended conference and published a reflection paper on the topic last spring.

In a position paper, ACA pleaded for the new European University Networks not to be another North West European elite project but to be open to students from the most diverse backgrounds and to include universities all across Europe.

Reaching local communities

We also need to find new ways to carry international experience more effectively into local communities. The German initiative Europa macht Schule – Europe meets School – is a fine example, with Erasmus students from other countries going into secondary schools and talking to pupils about their countries and their experience in Germany.

In the multiple crises of the European project, from the Euro to migration to Brexit, I had hoped that the ‘Erasmus generation’, now in the millions, would raise their voices in a cross-border debate about the future of the European Union. We have heard such voices all too rarely. Could we do more, as international educators, universities and funding agencies, to create spaces and platforms for such debates?

More than ever, universities today have a (‘third’) mission to communicate scientific findings and insights to society, not only to businesses. Through cooperation and exchange, we facilitate international experiences and comparisons that may help to make our cities more liveable for citizens from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds or give new impulse to disadvantaged rural areas.

More dialogue with society also requires more openness to views and positions that we may not like. There is no need for ‘politically correct’ echo chambers beside the populist ones. We should seek rational argument and be self-confident while also preserving a modicum of modesty. That implies being prepared to understand other positions and interests and to expose our own convictions to criticism, to defend or revise them.

Public engagement

Last, but maybe not least, international education professionals and agencies will need to advocate our concerns in the public sphere. In some countries, like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, under the pressure of populist politics, funding for internationalisation has already been cut or more aggressively streamlined towards perceived national interests.

International educators have built bridges around the globe for decades. They will also be able to contribute to driving social cohesion and rational dialogue in their own societies.

Ulrich Grothus is the president of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), the European umbrella organisation of internationalisation agencies. The opinions expressed in this article, a previous version of which was published in German on the website of OeAD (the Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research), are his own and not necessarily those of ACA.

Professor Hans de Wit, director of the Center for International Higher Education or CIHE based at Boston College in the United States, issued a call to readers and contributors to University World News to send him essays of between 800 and 1,200 words on what went well and what went wrong in internationalisation of higher education over the past 25 years. This is one of the essays he received. De Wit selected essays to be published by University World News and is bringing the essays together in a book this year marking the 100th edition of CIHE’s publication International Higher Education.