Internationalisation of High Education: the intercultural dimension and the institutional support in the academic mobility evaluation

Abstract:

To the developing countries, the internationalisation, educational as well, is a defying process to the sovereign insertion in a globalised world. Being academic mobility one of the possible ways to internationalisation, it becomes imperative to define the national and institutional objectives of this mobility, so that the criteria for this quality process could be clearly defined. In this paper, we will discuss this process highlighting the intercultural dimension in the academic mobility as one of its qualitative pillars. Beyond briefly commenting the academic mobility in Brazil and also in one of its major universities that is prominent in internationalisation policies, we will present an exploratory study that employed documental analysis and a questionnaire, designed to learn about students' satisfaction with mobility as well as the university's actions to promote academic excellence. Our conclusion is that the institutional actions that promote the quality of student incoming mobility in classroom as well as in other students' activities and academic extension programmes are fragile and incipient.

Key words:
Internationalization; Academic mobility; Intercultural education