Internationalization through the Lens of Curricula : A Study of Knowledge-Power relations in Reading Lists of Swedish International Master’s Programs in Education

Sammanfattning

In a higher education environment strategically steered by internationalization policies, the internationalization of curriculum is marked by tensions between normative ideals and practical implementation, between inclusivity and hierarchy, between transformation and reproduction. While the literature has extensively researched the internationalization of curriculum, it has paid less attention to how its relation to knowledge materializes in curricula, particularly, in reading lists. Pedagogy matters, as scholars teach, they actively construct what counts, as legitimate knowledge within a field. Given the centrality that knowledge plays in the internationalization of curriculum, this thesis presents an empirical mapping of knowledge, as manifesting in the assigned literature within seven Swedish Education international master programs. The study is based on a dataset comprised of the 49 course reading lists, 805 references in total. A bibliometric and thematic analysis of geographical orientation of the full dataset and thematic orientation of a sub-collection of the assigned literature reveal a strong geographical concentration of epistemic authority within the assigned literature. The curricula are dominated by authors affiliated with institutions located in the Global North, particularly in the United States, Sweden and the United Kingdom, while the thematic orientation characterizing the data pictures the prominence of sociological and critical traditions. The thesis concludes with a discussion on the extent to which the literature can be therefore defined as “internationalized”.