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Recently, social innovation (SI) has captured the imagination of a range of actors globally, including in the higher education (HE) sector. This study explores the conceptual domain of SI leadership in HE. Drawing on the insights of 22 experienced practitioners in Canada, it provides a concept map to help guide leadership practice and research.

The study adopted Group Concept Mapping (GCM), a mixed methods approach that provides a structured way to map the “conceptual domain” of a topic from the perspectives of those with close knowledge of it. Using online GCM software, one group of participants generated statements in response to a prompting question about SI leadership. Another group sorted statements into conceptual groups, rating them for importance. The authors then produced a preliminary map using cluster analysis. A third group interpreted that map. The authors analyzed interpretation data to produce a final concept map, which is discussed in light of relevant literature.

GCM methodology resulted in 108 statements about SI leadership, with the vast majority ranked as highly important. The analysis produced a map consisting of nine “clusters” of conceptually related ideas about SI leadership, encapsulated under three interacting areas of focus: individual, relational, institutional/system. Participants confirmed the map reflected key dimensions of practice, noting it indicated important tensions and paradoxes core to their practice. Their interpretations highlighted how the map represented iterative dynamics of leadership over time and across levels; and how different theoretical and practice traditions in SI communities affect conceptualizations of leadership.

The study suggests that an area ripe for study is the navigation of micro-level systems in pursuit of meso-level and macro-level systems change. The map provides an empirically derived set of dimensions for instrument development in future SI leadership studies. The context of conventional academic institutions bounds the results but helps to surface key considerations for researching SI processes in other mature institutions. Comparison of findings with extant leadership theories suggests that, to advance theoretical research on the topic of leadership in SI, bricolage or new theory development will be needed.

The map paints broad themes with concrete, practice-level ideas. It can serve as a touchstone for reflection by experienced practitioners and offers a reference point to orient those new to leading SI.

The scholarly knowledge base about SI has been growing rapidly, but it is still an emerging field of study. There are only a handful of published studies offering perspectives on SI in HE, and none with respect to SI leadership in HE. This study offers original conceptual insights grounded in empirical data gathered through a method aligned with its exploratory purpose.

A variety of problematic administrative, organisational and institutional behaviours exist in the internationalising higher education sector globally. These vexing behaviours need to be addressed to fully realise the desired outcomes of the internationalisation movement. Encapsulating these behaviours under the concept of maladministration, we describe problems with respect to administrative commitment and competence, institutional integrity, academic integrity, abuse of authority and financial control. We then outline a hypothetical educational administration curriculum that could be used to equip higher education administrators to identify and mitigate problems with maladministration in internationalisation processes and contexts. This proposed curriculum has two dimensions: educational governance and institutional, academic and administrative integrity; and human relations, organisational culture and dysfunctional behaviour.

This paper aims to examine graduate student learning experiences and perceptions of quality and the extent to which these learners were living the intended experiences that academic programs are seeking to foster.

Using a multiple case-study design, a three-stage interview protocol used with six PhD candidates across three faculties as well as 25 institutional, provincial and national documents served as principal sources of data. A within-case analysis was performed for each case and compared via a cross-case analysis.

The four principal factors that characterized the PhD candidate learning experience emerged as the significance of intentional individualized guidance; the importance of social interactions and community; becoming an independent scholar; and the transformative nature of learning. Gaps were identified between institutional intent and the learner experience. Recommendations are made regarding the adoption of indicators of quality that focus on student learning and notions of transformation.

This investigation attempts to tell distinct and shared stories of the highly contextualized and complex phenomenon of quality in PhD student learning. With limited information regarding how programmatic development is lived by students, this study’s comparison of institutional characterizations and student perceptions of quality sheds light on existing strengths to leverage, and gaps to invest in, at the institutional and program levels.

This chapter reviews the challenges facing educational research and knowledge production, in the independent post-Soviet Central Asia through examination of the case of Tajikistan. The chapter revisits issues discussed in Niyozov and Bahry (2006) on the need for research-based approaches to with these challenges, taking up Tlostanova’s (2015) challenge to see Central Asian educational history as repeated intellectual colonization, decolonization, and recolonization leading her to question whether Central Asians can think, or must simply accept policies and practices that travel from elsewhere. The authors respond by reviewing Tajikistan as representative in many aspects, if not all particulars, of the entire region. Part one of the review describes data sources, analyses, and our positionalities. Part two reviews decolonization in comparative, international, and development education and in post-Soviet education. Part three describes education research and knowledge production types and their key features. Thereafter, the authors discuss additional challenges facing Tajikistan’s and the region’s knowledge production and link them to the possibilities of decolonization discourse. The authors conclude by suggesting realistic steps the country’s scholars and their comparative international education colleagues may take to move toward developing both research capacity and decolonization of knowledge pursuits in Tajikistan and Central Asia.

This essay provides an overview of key contemporary issues researched by scholars of Language Issues in Comparative and International Education. The authors present this scholarship around three main themes: L1-based multilingual education; language revitalization and education; and the power dynamics between dominant and non-dominant languages in educational settings. Research in all three themes challenges the view of monolingualism as the norm and invites the view that all languages are resources. These perspectives are relevant to the goals of educational development, particularly to equitable access to quality schooling. Recent research examines some stakeholders’ resistance to supporting and sustaining local languages and cultural practices. While language-in-education policy change may be slow, there are promising directions in research on how educators and communities exercise agency in transforming educational institutions to support plurilingualism and intercultural understandings. Scholars highlight the ideological, pedagogical, and policy-level supports needed for sustainable development of multiple languages, literacies and learning across contexts.

This chapter reviews and synthesizes three major strands of recent research, alongside discipline-specific research design, from scholars of Language Issues in Comparative and International Education. The first strand is mixed methods research on the policy and practice of L1-based multilingual education programs, and their contribution to raising educational quality and addressing equity and inclusiveness worldwide. The second strand is qualitative, community-based research of educational programs aimed toward revitalization of minoritized, indigenous, and/or endangered languages. The third strand is empirical and theoretical research that seeks to document, contest, and reconceptualize the dynamics among dominant and non-dominant languages within and between international contexts. The authors explore points of synergy between studies, examine publication in the field from a meta-perspective, and suggest encouraging directions of future research, while highlighting the value of non-dominant languages as resources for education and life.

The religious tradition of male circumcision has come increasingly under attack across a number of European states. While critics of the practice argue that the problem is about children’s rights and the proper relationship between secular and religious traditions, Jews tend to see these attacks within the longer history of attempts to assimilate and remake them according to the norms of the majority. Using the 2012 German legal controversy concerning the issue as my vantage point, I explore how contemporary criticism of male circumcision remains entangled with ambivalence toward Judaism and the Jews as the “other.” Through a close reading of the arguments, I show how opponents use the seemingly neutral language of universal human rights to (re)make Jewish difference according to the norms of the majority. I conclude by arguing that such an approach to this issue runs the risk of turning Jews once again into strangers at a time when cultural anxieties are troubling European societies.

The role of discipline in achieving higher academic and workplace performance is receiving increasing attention; however, research into student discipline has historically centred on schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore how university students from multiple faculties and at different stages of academic progression understand discipline in higher education, with the aim to investigate how graduates could become more disciplined and more work ready.

This study adopted a qualitative exploratory approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with university students and analysed using thematic analysis.

The students viewed discipline as internally driven as opposed to being enforced externally, which is often the case in schools. Five main themes were identified as discipline dimensions: “focus”, “intention”, “responsibility”, “structure” and “time” (F.I.R.S.T.).

A new concept of discipline is presented, underpinned by a conceptual framework comprised of self-determination, goal-setting, self-efficacy, self-regulation and time management principles. A “Threshold Concept of Discipline”, a hierarchical four-layered concept that develops over time for every individual with the ultimate level being “Creative Discipline”, is proposed. These findings illuminate learning strategies that higher education institutions can use to further enhance learning and increase the work readiness of their graduates. Such strategies can empower students who aspire to perform at a higher level and to become true professionals.