| Abstract [eng] |
This master's thesis draws attention to the relevance of implementing the internationalization at home policy in higher education, aiming to enable all local students to develop intercultural competence without the need to travel abroad for study purposes. Based on the assumption that of all the stages of educational policy implementation (problem identification, formulation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation), policy implementation poses the most challenges, this paper aimed to investigate how the internationalization at home policy, in developing students' intercultural competence, is implemented at Vilnius University. The theoretical part emphasizes that to implement internationalization at home at the university, internationalization at home must become an integral part of the university's strategy, be expressed through documents regulating the university's activities and be promoted on a "bottom-up" basis. To enable internationalization at home, in developing students' intercultural competence, the curriculum must be formed and implemented with high awareness. In the empirical part of the master's thesis, using qualitative research methodology and case study-based data collection, the internationalization at home, which is formed and implemented at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Vilnius University, to develop students' intercultural competence, was analysed. During the document analysis, it was discovered that although internationalization at home is not distinguished as a separate direction of internationalization of studies, the necessary conditions for the implementation of internationalization at home, which develops students' intercultural competence, are ensured. Due to the differences in the study directions offered in the faculties, internationalization at home, which develops students' intercultural competence, is implemented differently. In the Faculty of Philosophy, the application of foreign literature, classes by guest foreign lecturers and international examples as the main practices of internationalization at home dominate, while in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, a greater variety of practices is used - reflexive tasks, group presentations, experiential learning, discussions as a way to develop students' intercultural competence. However, it was noted that the diversity of internationalization at home practices is characterized by classes offered to international student groups. The development of intercultural competence in the studies of educational sciences and business management, carried out in homogeneous Lithuanian groups, corresponds to fewer curriculum components that develop intercultural competence. Thus, when implementing internationalization at home, equal conditions for all local students to develop intercultural competence are not ensured by both faculties. |
