The various faces of internationalization: comparative analysis between two Community institutions from the south of Brazil

Abstract

The article reflects the internationalization of higher education as a major concern of universities and certain policies of international organizations (OECD, World Bank, Unesco) and national agencies (Capes, CNPq). In addition to presupposing interculturality, the integration of research and knowledge, solidarity among peoples, is also characterized as a space for debates and clashes between actors in the field itself and in the intercession of the social fields involved. In these areas of dispute there are speeches that reveal the different faces of internationalization. The objective is to analyze the sense of internationalization contained in the documents of two community universities in Southern Brazil. The research is characterized as bibliographical, documentary, analytical and comparative cut. The research universe is two community universities in the South of Brazil that are analyzed and compared from their documents, above all, the Institutional Development Plan (IDP) and the Institutional Internationalization Plan. In both universities, it is evident the understanding that internationalization is the way to consolidate research, teaching and extension with a view to competitiveness, productivism and the logic of global employability. However, both institutional policies of internationalization are recent and obey legal norms not being clear the objectives and interests of internationalization to strengthen the mission of these universities. It is important to highlight that only one university already has the Institutional Internationalization Plan.