This study explores the production, dissemination, and reception of the discourse of educational excellence and internationalisation in Japan's Designated National University Corporation System. The study frames the policy initiative within the longstanding goals of the Japanese government and demonstrates how the work of Michel Foucault helps…

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer a strategy for supporting educational change and bringing researchers and practitioners into meaningful engagement around pressing issues. Whereas traditional research models often position researchers in hierarchical relationships with those who take part in their projects, RPPs aim to shift power…

A university president's preparation for a crisis is paramount to the wellbeing of a campus community and ultimately to the longevity of their tenure as the institution's leader. How do university leaders determine what constitutes a crisis for their institution, and once that decision has been made, whether or not to respond, and further, how to…

In this paper, I address Jacque Lacan's theory of the four discourses, namely, master/slave, university, hysteric and analyst. The four discourses are explored via interviews with five postgraduate business students from a leading Irish business school. Three of the students were prepared to abdicate responsibility for career decision-making to…

Power relationships between undergraduates and academics are frequently overlooked. This article explores the construction of a 'traditional' power relationship between undergraduates and academics, through the theorisation of systemic and constitutive power and considers the prevalence of this dynamic within a higher education (HE) context. I…

Purpose: In this paper we contribute knowledge to the postgraduate supervision discourses by reflecting on our socio-spatial experiences of being supervised by colleagues, a process that we refer to as colleague postgraduate supervision (CPS). Design/methodology/approach: We followed a duoethnographic research design by dialogically presenting and…

This paper investigates the power landscapes within Chinese universities, against the larger backdrop of China's attempt to build modern university governance systems for developing world-class universities. Drawing upon Fairclough's three-dimensional conceptions of discourse and informed by Pierre Bourdieu's key conceptual notions of field and…

The current study examines gender representations in Dummett et al. (2016) EFL textbook, Keynote, at Middle Eastern University in the Middle East. Keynote is an EFL textbook that is used to teach students in English for Business I and English for Business II courses. The study followed Fairclough's (1989, 1995, 2001, 2015) three-dimensional models…

To maximize the advantages of virtual learning, the present study highlights the potential for Internet meme design and creation in English language learning (ELL) courses as an innovative activity that raises student agency, increases multimodal literacy, inculcates intercultural communication, and teaches idiomatic expression. Memes resonate a…

In 2004 China began establishing Confucius Institutes at universities around the world with the aim of promoting Chinese language and culture. At their peak, more than 100 operated at universities in the United States. Questions surrounding Confucius Institutes have existed since they first began to proliferate, and in 2018 the federal government…

This paper provides a critical discussion of internationalisation in Higher Education (HE), and exemplifies a process of uncovering the investments in power and ideology through the partial analysis of four strategic internationalisation documents at two Scottish Higher Education institutions, as part of an ongoing international study into the…

The colonial nature of South African universities remains a source of debate among students and academics. Decolonization as rethinking academic institutional practices seems less controversial; the specificity of how to decolonize the academia is the core of divergent arguments and contesting ideologies. Consequently, many suggestions and methods…

This paper investigates mainland Chinese students' experiences of learning English as a second language (L2) in a multilingual university in Hong Kong, with particular attention to their negotiation of participation and identity. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews with a group of mainland Chinese students, the study revealed that their…

Colleges and universities use language (i.e., talk and text) to represent diversity and inclusion in community engagement. Diversity refers to individual and social or group differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, national origin, social class, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability), while inclusion is the intentional and ongoing…

We examine how discourses of leadership and responsibilisation are used in contemporary universities to deepen neoliberal administration and further the corporate university's business plan by restructuring and redescribing academic work. Strategically, responsibilisation discourse, promoted as "distributed leadership", is a technology…