Internationalization of Higher Education in Russia: Globalization or Sovereignization?

The article focuses on the substantiation of the directions of sovereignization of internationalization from the position of recognizing the need to include a national trend as a leading one in international higher education. The specifics of Russian internationalization practices are considered and the directions of conceptualization of Russian sovereignty strategies are fixed: the use of international educational communications as a resource of “soft power” or the rejection of neo-globalism while maintaining a response to global challenges through internal internationalization. The author substantiates the priority of conceptualization of internal internationalization over external and suggests the directions of institutional restructuring of higher education to maintain it. The article is considered sovereign internationalism in the context of the decentralization of the global space and the rejection of the unconditional acceptance of foreign institutional models in the direction of understanding the provision of their own institutional and socio-cultural foundations for the transformation of higher education. The authors believe that in the context of global turbulence, internal internationalization will allow achieving a synergistic effect from internationalization not only on national and local, but also on international tracks, and will ensure a balance between global challenges and sovereignization.

As a methodological basis for conceptualizing internal internationalization, along with the traditionally used instrumental and institutional approach, the article uses a socio-cultural approach, since sovereignty enhances the importance of the influence of the socio-cultural context on the seemingly “universal” institution of internationalization and the tools for its implementation. In order to conceptualize internal internationalization, it is proposed to consider this process in various segments of the educational space of academic and extracurricular activities involving all participants in international interaction. These spatial segments should form interconnected networks of real and virtual communicative subject-subject interactions. The necessity of developing two trajectories of competence formation for effective interaction between foreign and Russian participants in internal internationalization is emphasized – theoretical and practical. In practical terms, it is proposed to pay attention to the formation of a behavioral attitude of responsible application of theoretically mastered competencies of intercultural interaction and motivation for mutual responsibility, as well as conviction in the permissibility of other value orientations without abandoning one’s own values

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