The study explores Iranian college women's intentions and goals in pursuing higher education degrees and empirically examines what might explain their disproportionate levels of representation within the work force despite their overwhelming representation in universities and their desire to work outside the home.

Survey questionnaires were administered to college-going women and men in four universities in Tehran to explore the reasons women chose to pursue higher education and their professional aspirations after university. The quantitative data found that women pursued higher education to improve their skills in their field and to learn about the things that interest them, and least of all to get away from the home environment, to find a spouse, due to job availability, or because "there was nothing better to do." Both women and men indicated very strong parental support of their educational pursuits (with women scoring higher) and varied reactions to their parents' expectation that they work (with men scoring higher).

The qualitative portion of the study comprised interviews with college women to ascertain the above, as well as what factors may contribute to their aspirations and efforts. Some of the motivations for pursuing higher education were similar to the quantitative findings such as increasing social status and learning about the things that interest them. Others were starkly different, such the desire to find a spouse, having nothing better to do, or simply because it was considered the only possible course of action to take. The findings found women faced many obstacles and barriers both within the university setting as well as in their efforts and desire to secure employment, such as an unsupportive university setting, unrealistic and unfair societal expectations, and an unsafe or unwelcoming professional environment. The study also presents a new Iranian feminist framework that builds upon precedented feminist theories, but more effectively speaks to the complexity of the education/occupation divide in Iranian women's unique case. The framework's robustness is supported by the data and argues that in considering educational and career aspirations of university women in Iran, the following must be taken into account: The outlier women who successfully enter the work force, especially within prestigious professions and positions; societal perceptions; national policies; economic climate; institutional and workforce climate; globalization; family; and women's perceptions of all of the above.

Under the slogan of internationalization, Korean universities have opened international colleges that promise an educational experience on par with elite universities anywhere in the world. These colleges conduct their classes in English and hire Western faculty members as a way to create campus settings that better attract and accommodate foreign students. What is the meaning of "international" in this context? Based on 12 months of fieldwork, my dissertation offers an ethnographic study of an international college in South Korea to uncover underlying assumptions and meanings in the internationalization of higher education.

By using an international college as a point of entry, I argue that internationalization reforms equate to the adoption of Anglo-Saxon academic paradigms by which Korean universities have been modeled after in the internationalization of higher education more broadly. With international colleges in particular, the kinds of research activities that count as international are not just being adopted, but the knowledge workers themselves--"imported" faculty members from the United States and Western Europe--are brought into a Korean university setting as a way to attract as many foreign students as possible. However, the majority of students who enroll at an international college are not foreign but Korean, and thus, what these international colleges have turned into are actually domestic alternatives for Korean students who would otherwise study abroad. What is created when Anglo-Saxon academic paradigms confront a primarily Korean student body is a Third Space of hybrid pedagogical practices, languages, and social interactions that I explore and analyze. At the same time, meanings of international take on racialized and paradoxical undertones whereby Western faculty members are strategically appropriated as a commodity for an international college while the Korean students who attend struggle to integrate within the larger Korean university because their affiliation with an international college positions them as outsiders. The tensions and contradictions that a Korean university faces in its internationalization agenda speak to a broader conception of how South Korea sees its place within a multicultural landscape.

One of the challenges that Russian higher education system faces today is the integration in the global academic community. In the last few years, the task for the Russian universities to become more globally competitive has turned into a national imperative. The 5 – 100 Russian Academic Excellence Project, introduced in 2012, has become the most noticeable initiative aiming to maximize the competitive position of a group of the leading Russian universities in the global market of educational services and research programs. To achieve the goal of becoming more competitive on the international higher education arena, universities have engaged in various internationalization initiatives that include but are not limited to: inward and outward academic mobility, publishing in international research journals, establishing inter-university research collaborations with foreign higher education institutions, introducing dual degree programs with universities abroad and others. Depending on the institutional profiles, objectives and available resources, different universities choose different paths to internationalization.

Based on 18 months of fieldwork, which included conducting case studies of four universities using document analysis and semi-structured interviews, this dissertation unveils the relationship between globalization challenges and higher education institutional responses. Furthermore, it explores how Russian universities develop in the context of globalization and internationalization of higher education. These case studies include one 5 – 100 participant and three regional universities that are not taking part in this governmental program. Since this dissertation focuses on the universities organizational development and change that are triggered by globalization conditions and imperatives, in my research I rely on two theoretical orientations: globalization theory and organization development theory.

The case studies reveal how universities in a given national context develop and undergo specific transformations in their structure, organization and governance that are caused by the pressures produced by globalization processes. Furthermore, throughout this research I take a closer look at the challenges that universities are facing throughout their internationalization efforts, the ways the institutions find to overcome those and their prospects on the success in the global university competition. Finally, this study uncovers the differences in the approaches to internationalization and globalization challenges between regional universities and those located in the major Russian cities.

In this dissertation I aim to advance political narrative theory by exploring the use of political narrative on Facebook and the possibility for Facebook to be used among Palestinian youth for political change. To examine the concepts of political narrative and political change, I developed a model for political change based on the changing political narratives which in part prompted the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The model, Political Narrative Perspectives (PNPs), identifies individual and reported collective beliefs regarding the relationship and responsibilities associated with government and citizenry, and may be used to track political change as a byproduct of changing beliefs. To explore this model within the Palestinian context, I conducted a multiple-case case study in which I followed the Facebook activity of 14 Palestinian youth (7 male, 7 female; aged 18-27) for one year (January 1--December 31, 2011), coding 10 percent of their Facebook posts (N=1,371 of 13,710 posts) using content analysis. I combine this research with interviews to contextualize the content analysis. The youth participants of this study were selected for their similarity on several measures to the Egyptian youth leaders who spearheaded political change efforts on Facebook: 1) university-educated, 2) of the Millennial generation, 3) internationally traveled, 4) politically concerned, and 5) fluent in English.

The Facebook posts were coded and analyzed according to type, content and language as well as by the four PNPs which I outline in this dissertation: External State Political Narrative (ESPN), Internal State Political Narrative (ISPN), External Citizen Political Narrative (ECPN) and Internal Citizen Political Narrative (ICPN). PNPs were analyzed initially through what I have termed "direct" PNP use: participants post political opinion comments about Palestine on their Facebook wall which reflected a PNP. Following this, I conducted a secondary analysis in which I analyzed posts according to what I have termed (1) "indirect" and (2) "passive" political narrative perspectives; that is, (1) participants posted Palestine-related news stories on their Facebook wall which reflected a PNP, or (2) participants posted content on their Facebook wall unrelated to Palestine which reflected a PNP.

The results of this study indicate that PNPs in total comprised 15.3 percent of all participants' Facebook posts. The remainder (84.7 percent) of Facebook post content reflected topics such as hobbies, music, technology, literature/quotes, religion, relationships, and personal stories and anecdotes, suggesting that these youth in many ways use Facebook like other youth their age. While 15.3 percent may seem a relatively low number of PNPs for politically-concerned participants, 86 percent of participants noted that they felt restricted on Facebook, most notably by the Israeli and Palestinian authorities (which monitor and at times punish for certain Facebook content), but also by family and friends and by religious and social mores. Without these restrictions, 64 percent of participants stated they would critique Israel, 57 percent of participants stated they would critique the Palestinian government, and 49 percent stated they would critique Palestinian society.

The prospects for using Facebook for political change in Palestine, as in Egypt, seem relatively dim given the perceived and actual restrictions that Palestinians encounter when using Facebook. The prospects for change seem dimmer still when we consider that Egyptian citizens faced one governing oppressor--the Mubarak regime--while Palestinians face political and social oppression from both the Palestinian government (whether by the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Hamas) and a U.S.-backed Israeli authority. The PNPs do offer some hope, however, as well as help to shed light on the political change process. Unlike in Egypt, where an initial change in Internal Citizen Political Narrative (ICPN), a secondary change in External Citizen Political Narrative (ECPN) and a tertiary change in Internal State Political Narrative (ISPN) ultimately resulted in a change in External State Political Narrative (ESPN), in Palestine, it appears the opposite direction would be most effective to bring political change. In other words, in Palestine, it appears the External State Political Narrative (ESPN) would do well to change first, resulting in a subsequent change in Internal State Political Narrative (ISPN), External Citizen Political Narrative (ECPN), and Internal Citizen Political Narrative (ICPN). It appears the moral image which Palestinians appear to use to win the war for comparative moral high ground with Israel may indeed be hindering them from achieving political change. While these results offer potential insights into possibilities, the Political Narrative Perspective (PNP) model will need further testing and development through future research.

In 2005, four high school students and their teacher (the author of this dissertation) began developing a nonprofit organization for the purposes of coordinating and leading educational travel programs for youth. The educational trips were intended to raise awareness about social justice issues, particularly manifestations of inequality, human exploitation, and oppression, in both local and global contexts. This philosophy developed over the years into a theoretical framework termed "critical travel pedagogy," and its first full implementation was on a two-week educational program to Thailand in 2008 with six high school students and one college student. The primary objective of this dissertation is to provide the first insights into the development, experiences, and outcomes of critical travel pedagogy as an emerging theoretical framework. Specifically, this research describes the theoretical conceptualizations and development of critical travel pedagogy and explores its implementation during the trip to Thailand. Individual interviews conducted two years after the trip with the founders and organizers of the organization and participants of the educational program to Thailand and a follow-up group dialogue with several of the trip participants provide the foundation for a phenomenological approach to the research. Through the voices of the founders, organizers, and trip participants, this dissertation describes the sequential development of critical travel pedagogy, the experiences of the participants during and subsequent to the trip to Thailand involving manifestations of exploitation and oppression, and the ways in which involvement in the development of critical travel pedagogy has impacted their views and lived experiences. The results suggest that there have been tangible consequences for the founders, organizers, and trip participants in their development of a critical consciousness, which have long-term implications regarding their views of the world and their relationships and roles within the world, particularly in terms of their altruistic values and global awareness. Lastly, results provide guidance for further evolution of and research about critical travel pedagogy.

The school, France's traditional vehicle for integrating diverse populations into a national culture and fostering civic participation, has encountered difficulties in fulfilling its central mission as demographic shifts have given rise to competing conceptions of religious, cultural, ethnic, political and national identity. For French society the relevance and adequacy of a universal, liberal, assimilationist approach to integration has come into question. On pedagogical and curricular levels, an impersonal "banking model" of instruction and inflexible respect of disciplinary boundaries have impeded civic empowerment. Rooted in the emancipatory and progressive educational theories of Paulo Freire and John Dewey and the multicultural theories of James Banks, this study examines spaces in contemporary France, inside the school and out, where youth of diverse backgrounds are engaging in transformative citizenship education. Within the school, the research put forth here specifically targets history as a discipline that could be uniquely positioned to facilitate transformative citizenship. The study's findings should ultimately contribute to the establishment of educational structures and curricula that allow all students in heterogeneous societies to work together to express themselves politically and culturally, actively shaping the civic culture while expanding equality, access and participation.

Along with the development of China’s economic and military power, China is perceived by its competitors as a threat to the international system. In order to have a “peaceful rise” and to project a benign national image to the world, China began taking a series of actions to market itself. The Confucius Institute project is one of the public diplomacy actions in education in response to Beijing’s “peaceful rise” slogan.

The Confucius Institutes are non-profit public institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China whose stated aimsare to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.The increasing number of Confucius Institutes has received world-wide attention. This phenomenon has also precipitated an important debate in America on Chinese’s soft-poweragenda. According to Joseph Nye, the founding father of “Soft-Power Theory,” soft-power is the power of attraction without coercion. Nonetheless, results from this study suggest that the Confucius Institutes create mutually beneficialconsequences for both China and America, andtend to promote educational opportunities and social justice in America.

This multiple case study is comprised of data from four of the Confucius Institutes in different geographiclocations in America (one from the Southwest, one from the Northwest, one from the East Coast, and the other one from the Midwest). Further data were also collected onother Confucius Institutes in the United States. Through document analysis, informal interviews, participant-observation, and semi-structured interviews, I primarily focused on the perceptions and beliefs from key personnel based in America, who set up and/or work for the Confucius Institutes in America.

My inquiry is guided by the following research questions: 1) What is the nature of the Confucius Institute? 2) Why would aU.S. host institution want to house a Confucius Institute? 3) What trends are evident toward this Confucius Institute in its host institution?The study aims to find out what the Confucius Institutes at American universities do, to what extent they serve as a political tool for China, what benefits are there for host institutions in America, and what the future trends of the Confucius Institutes are in America.

Across all four sites, staff members and key personnel suggested that the political influence from the Confucius Institutes is limited, as the programs offered by the Confucius Institute are low level; additionally, American Directors appointed by host institutions are in absolute leadership positions, ensuring the purpose and contents of Confucius Institute programs are strictly guided by the host institutions. This dissertation argues that the Confucius Institutes create a win-win situation for both China and the U.S. However, while the number of Confucius Institutes is growing aggressively in America and worldwide, the future of the Institutes abroad remains unknown. Its lack of self-sustainability, under-developed management from Hanban (the Confucius Institutes’ headquarters in Beijing), and unstable policy/funding resources from the Chinese government are the key issues that could hinder the Confucius Institutes’ longevity.

University sports have grown and become bigger throughout their existence, creating an industry that is profoundly involved with revenue, making it difficult to manage and maintain. This created different levels, rankings, and divisions within sports to separate large and small scale universities. This created a gap and discrepancies between well-off schools within the same levels and divisions. However, some schools that are not well off have been able to thrive and continue building up their athletic programs while others have continued to struggle. It is important to understand what factors separate one from the other so that more schools can have and build successful athletic programs. This paper will outline how these factors operate and then discuss how having a strong college sports team built on these factors help the university as a whole because they expose the university to the public, generate revenue, bring a sense of community to universities and towns, enhance student recruitment and create a sense of prestige for any university.

In this dissertation, I explore the reasons behind general education reform in Chinese universities from a global and local perspective; I look at the status of general education in two top-tier universities, and, examining faculty members' participation in general education policy development and their experiences with general education practice on their campuses, I try to understand the difficulties of implementing general education in the Chinese university context. Theoretical frameworks include theories of globalization and the interaction of the global and the local, institutional theories from Meyer et al., and Weick's organizational theory of viewing an organization as a loosely coupled system. This study adopts a qualitative case study approach, and two top-tier Chinese universities were selected as cases. For each university, four to five administrators were interviewed to understand the university's general education reform process and its current status. Three to four faculty members from the Chinese departments and chemistry departments were also interviewed in order to understand faculty members' participation and experience in the university's general education reform.

The findings include the following: General education reform in top-tier Chinese universities is part of these universities' response to changing local and global contexts, and is tied to the universities' need to broaden undergraduate curriculum and the goal of becoming world-class universities. The reform at both universities was a top-down initiative and most faculty members did not participate in the policy making and implementation process. Because of the lack of involvement in policy making and implementation, faculty members lack a shared view with the university administration sector as to what general education is trying to accomplish. Faculty members' participation in general education practice is mainly reflected in teaching general education courses. Because of the current faculty promotion criteria and the tradition of emphasizing one's specialty, faculty members usually are not interested in teaching general education courses unless they are really passionate about general education.

This study offers a more comprehensive perspective for looking at the larger context of general education reform in Chinese universities and helps to understand connections with the larger national and global background. It offers its reader a more inclusive understanding of how different shareholders on campus have participated and experienced the reform as well as some of the barriers that have hindered general education practice in the two institutions. The study presents valuable experiences to other Chinese universities that are trying to pursue general education reform. Since an increasing number of Chinese students are studying for graduate degrees in other countries, this study also introduces readers from English-speaking countries to the Chinese university's system of undergraduate education, its recent reform, and how it is connected to the larger global higher education system.

The number of international students on U.S. campuses has increased more than 84 percent over the past decade (IIE, 2016). Although it has been well-established that interaction and friendship with local students is a key element for international student adjustment to a foreign university, few studies have grappled with how these intercultural relationships develop, and even fewer have studied intercultural relationships from the domestic students’ point of view. This dissertation uses a qualitative case study approach to add to this small, but growing, body of literature. Grounded in a conceptual framework consisting of Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis and its more recent updates by Pettigrew, Tropp, Wagner, and Christ (2011), and the principles of social identity theory (Brown, 2000; Tajfel, 1981) this study sought examine relationship development between domestic students and international students over the course of an academic year. Ten first-year domestic students with at least one international student roommate in a residential hall at UCLA were interviewed twice over the course of the year to gain insight into their intercultural interactions on campus, particularly the relationship(s) with their international roommate(s). The findings indicate that domestic students perceive and experience intercultural interaction and friendship as a complex process with multiple layers of facilitating and inhibiting factors. While the experience of living with an international student did offer domestic students a direct opportunity for intercultural interaction and friendship, sharing a living space alone was not enough to guarantee meaningful interaction or the development of any type of relationship. Multiple layers of facilitating and inhibiting factors played a significant role in the development of intercultural friendships. Perceived cultural similarity seemed to be the most salient of the facilitators, and perceived cultural distance the most potent of the inhibitors. Despite the lack of relationship development in some of the pairs, many participants did demonstrate signs of intercultural learning, at least conceptually, over the course of the year. However, many participants were still unsure how to apply the abstract concepts associated with diversity and interculturalism that they learned in concrete ways. The findings presented here suggest that in order to better facilitate intercultural interaction and friendship among a diverse student body, institutions may need to be more deliberate in their programming to offer students not only ways to increase their intercultural knowledge, but also opportunities to practice and develop their intercultural skills.