Internationalisation of higher education in a South African university: A phenomenographic study of students' conceptions

This paper concerns the internationalisation of higher education, and presents specifically the results of an empirical study of postgraduate students at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. The work uses a qualitative methodology - phenomenography - that aims to explore the qualitatively different ways in which a group of people experience a specific phenomenon, it? this case internationalisation of higher education. Four qualitatively different ways of experiencing it are described, constituting the phenomenographic outcome space. The results are discussed in terms of a model that has been devised. grounded in Bernstein's concepts of domains of socialisation. The aim of the work is to inform and influence a holistic policy for internationalisation at the University by relating these experiences to the context of the university, thereby creating an enhanced teaching and learning environment.