Inclusion through Access to Higher Education. Exploring the Dynamics between Access to Higher Education, Immigration and Languages

A key feature of the 21st century is undoubtedly the increased flow of people across the world. Whether chosen or forced, these displacements have nurtured new forms of interconnectedness and opened new spaces. They have also led more traditional spaces to adjust. Higher education is a case in point: it can provide an array of answers to people experiencing chosen or unchosen displacement while taking hold of the specific challenges raised by their diversity. Across different nations however, the ability of HE systems and institutions to adapt to new forms of internationalization and widening participation has proved challenging, all the more so as immigration logics and language issues also come into play. The edited book presented at this GCHE seminar explores the three intertwined thematic perspectives of access to higher education, immigration and language issues under the cross-cutting theme of inclusion. Through a variety of approaches such as policy analysis, social network analysis, ethnography or bio narratives, the chapters offer multidisciplinary insights into the various barriers and opportunities which people on the move face when they try to access higher education in different national settings across the world. My talk will provide an analytical overview of those barriers and opportunities while putting into perspective the key role that HE can play in the sustained inclusion of people on the move.