Numerous countries have implemented excellence initiatives designed to establish world-class universities, boost research productivity, build up staff capacity, and thereby reform doctoral education systems as part of this agenda. To date, the relationship between excellence-driven initiatives and leading universities' doctoral education…

Neoliberalism is becoming more dominant in education internationally. In Hungary, the marketisation of education is well illustrated by the government's 'Vocational Training in the Service of the Economy' development concept and the amendment of the vocational law. My main question is how the capitalist system reproduces itself through vocational…

A political discourse would comprise terminology related to economic development, social welfare, national identity, international relations, and security. The purpose of this study was to determine the function of political discourse and study its role as a mass media that shapes public opinion, and to prove through discourse that political…

This article employs critical discourse analysis of the Spear's Schools Index of 'the best private schools in the world', the first such global ranking of schools, to understand representations of elite education in globalised societies. It argues that the Index is a powerful text that exemplifies a global gaze -- an imagined perspective from…

This study investigates how talent cultivation contributes to creating world-class universities in China from the perspectives of characteristics, problems, and choices. A policy discourse perspective is applied to examine the overall landscape of policy formulation and implementation, relatively. It explores the policy discourse analysis of…

The Western-style internationalisation of Russian universities, which guided the evolution of the country's higher education sector for over three decades, has been challenged by Western sanctions following the 2022 Russian 'Special military operation in Ukraine'. The authors show through the prism of constructivist theory how the norm on the…

This article discusses new philanthropy participation in public education in the context of the broader transnational policymaking landscape. Drawing on data published by the Lemann Foundation on its official Twitter, now known as X, along with previous research from the authors, this article examines how policy problems are framed for the general…

This study aims to critically and systematically investigate the contemporary discourse within scholarship on world-class universities in different higher education context. It applies critical discourse analysis to review articles from some top higher education academic journals and books published between 2000 and 2019. Exploring the notion of…

The emergence of ChatGPT, a Generative AI program, has sparked discussions about its teaching and learning value, and concerns about academic integrity in higher education (HE). An extant review of the literature indicates that a scarcity of research exists on GenAI, specifically a synthesis of the official views, guidelines and articles of…

As the disseminator of information, news media play a vital role in the public speech community. Especially the mainstream English media in China, which not only carefully design the topic, content, and framework of news to broadcast information but also construct cultural identity and build China's image. Exemplified by a piece of news from…

Most studies on branding in higher education focus on external branding or image-building towards external stakeholders such as students. Internal branding is an underexplored topic, even though it should be considered as important as external branding. Internal branding is about achieving the necessary internal support for the external brand.…

Inclusion is seen as an ethical obligation, grounded in notions of equity and social justice for all groups and at all stages of education, with higher education (HE) representing a distinctive space where the inclusion agenda is becoming more influential. However, inclusion is also increasingly recognised as an ambiguous concept that might have…

This paper examines the use of linguistic devices in a Chairman's Statement to foreground a positive self-image and background references to financial shortcomings in times of financial distress. Drawing on impression management theory and critical discourse analysis, we reveal the systematic use of language to portray an organization as a…

This article is a call to action for English teachers and an invitation to think both critically and creatively about language that has infiltrated the English teaching profession in recent years. Specifically, the article explores the use of the words 'bottom', 'clinical', 'evidence', 'rigour' and 'rubric', and the ways in which their attendant…

Why have regimes and societies that would otherwise argue for their distinctiveness and sovereign decision-making caught 'ranking fever' in HE? Why are they willing to give up their sovereignty in the field of HE, and why do they accept the requirement of homogeneity to succeed in global university rankings? This paradox is explored in the case of…