Equity in Education: Enhancing Cultural Competencies among Lecturers for Equal Learning at UCN, Denmark - A review of studies 2003 to 2017

As part of a 2 year study currently being carried out at University College Northern Denmark (UCN) within internationalization of higher education, this paper draws up the first phase of the research in which a thorough review of literature has been carried out. The focus of the overall study is centred on enhancing cultural competencies among lecturers as a way of striving for better equity in the education and learning outcomes for students across nationalities and backgrounds, and as part of internationalizing UCN. The lecturer is thus considered an important change agent within internationalization, which has been supported by some previous studies (Tange, 2010, 2012, 2016; Shavellar, 2013, Hellstén, 2013). The objective with this paper is to outline and critically review studies carried out in the field of Internationalization of higher education. Concepts guiding the state-of-the-art review are; Teacher agency, Inequality in education, Internationalisation of higher education, Internationalising the curriculum, Intercultural pedagogy and Equity in education. The review will, as we go through it, be divided into themes based on a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) in which theory is developed based on the themes identified in the review, which will serve as further guiding the data-collection, which also determines choice of theory. This state-of-the-art paper systematically reviews the empirical and theoretical research on Internationalization of higher education in peer-reviewed academic journals and in well-known research databases. We proceed by analyzing and re-arranging current empirical and theoretical research to categorize it and to determine the state-of-the art as part of our thematic approach. To our knowledge, such a review within current studies of internationalization of higher education is nonexistent within studies of internationalization of higher education. Our aim is to enhance specific focus, and identify gaps in literature, specifically related to Scandinavian contexts, and aid in identifying theoretical tools for the further study proposed by using grounded theory as well as hermeneutical reasoning. This paper is therefore a facilitating paper serving to enable structure and in identifying relevant research questions. Furthermore, it will facilitate in tailoring the research design further, in order to plan ahead and prepare for the data-collection, identify themes and work within a grounded theory approach, as we argue is the case in this paper.