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The Internationalization of the US Academy: A Disciplinary Perspective

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Scholars in the Changing American Academy

Abstract

US academics are much less likely to see an international dimension in their teaching and research when compared to their foreign counterparts. This chapter explores the factors that dispose US academics to see their work as internationally linked. The data suggest that internationalization in teaching activities may be relatively independent of internationalization in research activities and furthermore that internationalization as an attitudinal characteristic may be independent of actual behaviors, such as collaborative publication with foreign scholars and teaching abroad.

This chapter was prepared in collaboration with Olga Bain of the George Washington University.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, only 55% of the US sample agreed that “connections with scholars in other countries are very important to my professional work” in contrast to Germany where 78% agreed, Japan where 88% agreed, the Netherlands where 81% agreed, or Russia where 89% agreed.

  2. 2.

    Note in this table, the values for all the indicators have been recoded so that a more “international” response is given a higher value.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Leadership, The George Washington University, 2129 G Street, NW, Room 303, Washington, DC, 20052, USA

    William K. Cummings

  2. Department of Education Leadership, Management and Policy, Seton Hall University, Jubilee Hall, Room 418 400 South Orange Avenue, South Orange, NJ, 07090, USA

    Martin J. Finkelstein

Authors
  1. William K. Cummings
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  2. Martin J. Finkelstein
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Correspondence to William K. Cummings .

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© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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Cummings, W.K., Finkelstein, M.J. (2012). The Internationalization of the US Academy: A Disciplinary Perspective. In: Scholars in the Changing American Academy. The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2730-4_6

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