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Scholarly literature on the Internationalization of Education has generated important theories, debates, and insights supporting in-depth understandings of the field, yet we lack comprehensive reviews exploring the design, implementation, and impact of practical approaches. The present review addresses this gap, mapping the literature on international curriculum design, identifying trends and themes across approaches and pedagogies while revealing limitations and lack of attention to issues that inhibit practice in the field. It highlights the privileging of “instrumental,” or quantifiable skills-based curricula, over “transformative” internationalization dedicated to social justice and equity, and observes important disconnects between theory and practice: publications in the field offer critical conceptualizations of what internationalized curricula should achieve and why but with little attention to specific content and teaching practice that would lead to achieving these objectives. The review further analyzes such disconnect in the literature dedicated to decolonial internationalizing pedagogies, while simultaneously illuminating how prevailing decolonial theories of international education erase and ignore parts of the world. It concludes by contending that approaches to the internationalization of curriculum would benefit from increased practical frameworks that could guide educators, practitioners, and students in crucial conversations at the intersections of social justice and International Education.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between labour market requirements in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the 21st century and university graduates’ level of knowledge, skills and aspects of competence (KSAs) qualification benchmark.

The study used a discourse analysis methodology, which is a qualitative and interpretive method of analysing texts. The content for the analysis was extracted from Scopus, Ebscohost, Proquest, Google Scholar, Web of Science, news, publications, thesis papers, dissertations and other research papers. A narrative approach for analysing the content was adopted.

The findings reveal that new graduates often encounter difficulties in searching for jobs due to a lack of awareness of how to conduct an employment search that best aligns their KSA with the requirements and needs of the labour market. The study concludes that to increase the employability of graduates, higher education institutions should reduce the KSAs gap by collaborating with the private sector and providing students with relevant, industry-based job experience before graduation.

This study investigates the gap between graduate KSAs and labour market requirements in the 21st-century UAE. The findings of the study encapsulate the weaknesses and shortcomings of the current educational systems amid the reform agenda in the UAE. It also deliberates upon the state-of-the-art recommendations regarding making the country a knowledge-based economy and society.

The chapter argues that implementing a professional writing program in universities can help students build expertise, confidence, and a strong professional portfolio that can advance their future careers to greater heights. This is achieved through a curriculum directly connected to the industry of the students' disciplines, expert instructors providing extensive feedback, and tips to transform ideas and knowledge into professional writing pieces. Additionally, the chapter highlights the importance of students gaining a comprehensive understanding of communication, being aware of the benefits of professional writing, and having hands-on experience through active engagement in the learning process to improve their craft. The chapter emphasizes that transformative learning implemented through strong writing and communication skills are highly valued by all industries seeking job candidates.

Finally, the chapter provides a strategy for improving students' employability by implementing a professional writing program in universities, which is based on the understanding of the changing career demands and the importance of communication and writing skills in all industries seeking job candidates.

In an ever-interconnected world dominated by discourses on the internationalization and marketization of higher education, concerns related to language and employability have been the focus of recent debates. There is, however, a dearth of research investigating how these dimensions relate to one another in recent comparative and international higher education research. By focusing on how issues related to language and employability have been presented in recent higher education research worldwide, this chapter aims to contribute to our understanding of this concern. To achieve this goal, we conducted a scoping literature review using the Web of Science, Scopus, and the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) databases, considering the years 2011–2020. The findings, perhaps not surprisingly, suggested that language skills are perceived to be valued by both graduates and employers though the discussions predominantly focused on one language, English. The research focus on English for employability in Anglophone contexts is understandable. However, the fact that the trend is observed in contexts where the language is not the primary or official language seems to indicate the influence of internationalization of higher education and global labor markets primarily dominated by English. The literature also suggested that (English) language training in higher education programs needs to move from solely linguistic and qualification-related content areas to a broader sphere of English for communication purposes that cover both specialized disciplinary content and broader generic employability skills. Considering this finding, we suggest that higher education systems and institutions incorporate recent developments in English for occupational purposes in their curriculum. We also recommend that there needs to be a shift from the overwhelmingly English language-dominated discussions to more inclusive research that assesses the impact of other dominant languages on employability-related concerns.

This study aims to undertake a theoretical and technical exploration of the literature on Work Readiness (WR) through the implementation of a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. The present study addresses seven distinct research questions: (1) an examination of the descriptive features characterizing the literature on WR, (2) an analysis of trends in annual scientific publications related to WR, (3) the identification of the most pertinent and high-impact sources contributing to WR, (4) the delineation of the globally cited articles exerting the most influence on WR, (5) the determination of the most relevant countries associated with WR, (6) an evaluation of the outcomes derived from Bradford’s Law of Scattering and Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity in the context of WR, and (7) the identification of the prevailing research avenues that hold significance for future studies on WR.

The present study employed Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis mapping techniques to analyze 521 articles extracted from the Scopus database. The analysis utilized Biblioshiny software and VOSviewer software as the primary tools.

The findings reveal that WR constitutes a steadily expanding subject discipline, showcasing a notable 9.12% annual growth in scientific production spanning from 1975 to 2023. Australia, the USA, and Canada emerged as the most productive countries within the field of WR, as evidenced by their cumulative scientific production. The thematic map of keyword analysis suggests several burgeoning pathways for future researchers in the WR domain, including workplace learning, functional capacity evaluation, graduate WR, digital literacy, blended learning, resilience, and curriculum.

This study contributes to the WR discourse by providing a comprehensive literature review. The findings of this study hold significance for graduates, universities, employers, the higher education industry, and the broader community.

This paper aims to describe how the multidisciplinary studies in the special issue expand and enrich the framework of authentic talent development in sociocultural context.

The study presents a framework of authentic talent development in sociocultural context and identifies key themes from the seven interdisciplinary studies of the special issue to enrich and expand our understanding of sociocultural barriers to authentic talent development for individuals from low-income and minoritized communities, including women.

The studies included in the special issue illustrate several ways in which social identity ascription truncates the talent trajectory of individuals from low-income and minoritized groups. They also show how ascription processes can be mitigated through policy, reformed organizational structure and practice and growth fostering relationships.

The findings of this paper have implications for developing strategies to mitigate social identity ascription in talent development in the domains of public policy, schooling and the workplace.

The special issue brings together contributions from multiple disciplines to holistically understand the nature of social identity ascription in talent development across the life course. Collectively, the contributions identify a number of complimentary tools at several levels that might allow effective mitigation of social identity ascription processes, facilitating authentic talent development for individuals from low-income and minoritized communities.

In a world teeming with concurrent processes and associated chaos, organizational working procedures have adapted to new trends; employees must keep up with everything while maintaining their mental health. Spirituality lends a person's life significance. Spirituality in the workplace can both physically and psychologically engage employees. Spirituality in the workplace is reflected in the organizational culture, which is founded on fundamental values such as trust, honesty, appreciation, innovation, care, respect, and loyalty. Workplace spirituality encompasses the pursuit of one's ultimate purpose in life, the development of a solid connection to colleagues and other people associated with work, and the consistency or alignment between one's fundamental beliefs and the organization's values. To have a competitive advantage and attract the best personnel, an organization's working environment must be based on strong ethical and spiritual values such as compassion, integrity, respect, harmony, trust, teamwork, and forgiveness, among others.

This paper discusses the challenges that two doctoral researchers faced while researching religious minorities and women in a culturally sensitive society such as Pakistan. Their shared interest in sensitive topics related to gender and minorities in Pakistan led both researchers to collaborate in this study to provide a better understanding of issues in qualitative research in the same research context. They discuss the challenges of interviewing participants within the educational context. They also suggest some ways to overcome such challenges.

Based on Foucualt's writings on regimes of truth, discourse and systems of exclusion, the authors in this study analyze how patriarchal and faith-based regimes of truth constrain some discourses that affect participants’ willingness and insights to reflect on the issues freely.

While reflecting on their experiences in data collection, authors report that qualitative researchers struggle to access participants to investigate issues related to gender subjectivities and minority faiths in educational contexts in developing societies like Pakistan. Researchers face a variety of problems, from their own positionality to participants’ access to their responses. The reason for this is patriarchal and religious regimes and also their intersecting relations that restrict participants’ ability to reflect on their issues. Minorities in Pakistan are often prevented from expressing their views freely by blasphemy fears. The discourses of gender are also sensitive. Therefore, the study suggests that in societies such as Pakistan, where religion and gender are emotive terms, the problem can be handled by counter-discourses that challenge truth regimes by conceiving research as a transformative practice. Moreover, such societies require a policy for protecting researchers and participants in the interest of knowledge production and dissemination.

This study is originally based on the primary data used in two doctoral studies.

This chapter presents an analysis of gender equity messages in textbooks and official educational documents in Mexico. For that purpose, critical pedagogy, understood as a framework to dissect power dynamics and gender relations in educational settings, is employed. From the point of view of critical pedagogy, stereotypes and imbalances of power are learned through everyday discourses and narratives and have been shaped by a long history of dominance and suppression; they are part of a system erected precisely to exercise control and limit possibilities particularly of those groups in the margins of society: poor, women, addicts, indigenous peoples, etc. Schools are regarded as spaces where inclusiveness is encouraged but also places where the reproduction of the status quo also occurs; in that sense, schools reflect whatever occurs in society at large, not only the positive cases but the bleak instances as well. Our main intention was to identify and examine books and documents on educational policy, guidelines, contents, or learning outcomes, which have been expressed to promote gender equity and respect for diversity. The idea is to identify whether the content that promotes equity is being communicated or if, on the contrary, gender stereotypes continue to be reinforced, the theme is avoided, or it is not considered relevant. We identified texts (activities and instructions) and images embodying messages connected to gender equity, or inequities, and even discourses that, proactively or by omission, perpetuate the transmission of gender stereotypes. The textbooks of Civic and Ethical Education of the final three grades of primary education are analyzed. A perusal of legal documents and official textbooks suggests that mixed messages that include both explicit statements of equity between binary gender options and implicit messages of superiority and authority attributed to men are somehow transmitted. In particular, the iconography let through implicit messages, probably unintentional but nonetheless powerful, in conveying stereotypes and imbalances of power.