Israeli college students' perceptions of internationalisation

In the last two decades, higher education institutions have invested significant resources to internationalise, due to economic, political, academic and cultural pressures. Students play a dual role in this process: as customers, selecting institutions based on respective reputations (including the international dimension) and as outputs of institutional internationalisation processes aiming to produce internationally oriented graduates. Universities aspire towards integration of international, global and intercultural dimensions as main aims of higher education, reflecting the upsurging prominence of cosmopolitan capital among their future graduates. Indeed, cosmopolitanism is increasingly considered desirable on individual and institutional levels. Using data from a student survey (n = 1650) gathered at seven geographically and otherwise diverse colleges in Israel, this paper investigates Israeli college students' perceptions of internationalisation and estimation of their institutions' internationalisation activities. Parents' education, previous experiences abroad, proficiency in English and institutional efforts to internationalise were found to positively impact students' perceptions of on-campus internationalisation initiatives and characteristics. Such differences were also found to relate to the university's general status and context. This paper presents the findings of the survey and discusses possible implications for policy and practice at institutional and national levels.