EMI-cum-acceleration policy in the contemporary transnational HE market
Experiences of Saudi engineering students
Conceptualizing EMI-cum-acceleration policy in a transnational HE market as the regulation and
institutionalization of language practices through a chronometrical approach to time for the sake of global economic competition
and social mobility, this qualitative case study explores the experiences and enactments of such a policy by six engineering
students at Manar University (a pseudonym) in Saudi Arabia. The data were gathered from analysis of policy documents, individual
interviews, and a group interview. The findings reveal that the ways in which each student negotiates, resists, and desires such a
policy suggest that an individual has some temporal resources and autonomy to make sense of “the acceleration experience” within
the broader “structural forces of acceleration” (
Vostal, 2016, p. 117) created at the
university. It was also found that students are positioned in a double-bind-between the capitalist logic of accumulation and
competition (speed), and the democratic value of equity in the EMI program.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Neoliberalizing education and the social theory of acceleration
- 3.Social theory of acceleration and EMI policies in transnational HE contexts
- 4.Research site and methods
- 4.1Manar University (MU) and its EMI policy
- 4.2Participants of the study
- 4.3Methods, data sources, and analysis
- 5.Findings and discussion
- 5.1EMI-cum-acceleration policy as a governing principle at MU’s College of Engineering
- 5.2Pressures emerging from an EMI-cum-acceleration policy
- 5.3Negotiating, resisting, and desiring EMI-cum-acceleration policy
- 5.3.1I am not a hapless victim of an EMI-cum-acceleration policy
- 5.3.2From fast to fragile EMI learner
- 5.3.3I am a neoliberal subject but not flexible
- 5.3.4The ‘cultural phenomenon of zapping’ in trans/international textbooks and materials
- 5.4Students’ suggestions for the EMI programs
- 6.Concluding remarks
-
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