Regional internationalization of Turkish higher education: Turkey's higher education policies towards Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina


Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: SERVET KÖKSAL

Danışman: YAŞAR KONDAKÇI

Özet:

This study aimed to investigate the scope of the educational relations between Turkey and the three Balkan countries, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to identify the expectations of these countries from Turkey and the rationales behind Turkey's practices realized towards these countries in a comparative perspective. In this regard, cross-border higher educational activities of Turkey were investigated under the concept of internationalization. The study was designed as a general qualitative study. Interviews, fieldnotes and document analysis were implemented as data collection techniques. Purposeful sampling was used for the selection of the participants. A total of 53 participants were interviewed from government, non-government and academic institutions. In this context, the study displayed the level of cooperation between Turkey and the countries concerned as insufficient and the educational relations to be in slow progress. In addition, it was identified that the expectations were mainly related to the aspects of internationalization (mutual recognition of the education systems, facilitating the student mobility etc.). Finally, analysis of the data revealed that the higher education policies of Turkey were not pioneered by academic rationales only, but also were motivated by various political, economic and social/cultural rationales. Based on these findings, it is concluded that Turkey and these countries build their internationalization policy and practices on different rationales, they attribute different meanings to their relationships in education.