Research On Culture In The Field of Higher Education: The Cultural Readiness of Slovenian Higher Education Institutions To The Internationalisation of Higher Education

The contribution places the concept of culture in the context of (internationalisation of) higher education. Firstly, it discusses conceptually the term ‘culture’ as a set of existing values, attitudes, and behaviours that is shaped and reinforced by the repetitive practices of a group of individuals in a given context (Becher and Trowler, 2001). On this basis, it further elaborates the relationship between culture and higher education in terms of disciplinary and institutional tradition of cultural studies in higher education. Afterwards, it considers the concept of organizational culture as a factor that either stimulates or inhibits the process of higher education internationalisation, and addresses it from the perspective of most influential typologies, models and frameworks as tools for studying the influence of organizational culture on higher education development. In this way, it investigates the concept of organizational culture in relation to the internationalisation of selected Slovenian higher education institutions. With an in-depth analysis of various documentary sources and institutional internationalisation strategies in particular (considering the mission, vision, values, strategic goals, etc.), it firstly places Slovenian higher education institutions in the matrix of four main internationalisation approaches (Davies, 1995) and then, it evaluates specific influences at macro, meso and micro level that either support or restrain the cultural readiness of selected Slovenian higher education institutions for internationalisation by using the model of cultural readiness for internationalisation (Agnew and VanBalkom, 2009). Research was conducted as part of the research programme Research of Cultural Formations, co-financed by the Slovenian Research Agency.