PhD Defence Pouneh Eftekhari

We are pleased to announce that Pouneh Eftekhari will defend her PhD thesis 'Disciplinary Culture and the Internationalization of the Curriculum at Home' on 11 June 2026 in the Auditorium of Campus Fryslân, Wirdumerdijk 34, 8911 CE Leeuwarden.

It is possible to follow the defence online via the livestream.

Programme:

• 13:30 - Layperson’s talk

• 14:00 - PhD defence

About the thesis

Whether internationalization is driven by student mobility or the assumption that English-medium instruction and the presence of international students are the only alternatives to travel, Internationalization of the Curriculum at Home (IoCaH) offers a more inclusive framework. By prioritizing the purposeful reform of the formal curriculum for all, IoCaH ensures that global education benefits the entire student body, not just the "mobile few." However, while universities may champion this vision, faculty adoption remains inconsistent across disciplines.

The central challenge is that top-down internationalization policies often fail to resonate with faculty in diverse fields. Through a global mixed-methods investigation, I confirmed that disciplinary culture—the unique ways of thinking, pedagogical norms, and professional values within a field—impacts if and how faculty engage with internationalization. While "soft-applied" fields like business and education are often the most explicitly engaged, my findings reveal that "hard-pure" sciences like physics—frequently dismissed as the least engaged—practice internationalization "invisibly." These faculty members, for example, may regularly embed and assess global competencies within their courses but never use the formal administrative label of internationalization.

Crucially, my research shows that a faculty member’s discipline is not their destiny. Engagement is heavily mediated by institutional and national contexts. To be effective, university leadership must adopt "discipline-aware" strategies to support faculty engagement with IoCaH. This involves empowering academic leaders, such as deans and department heads, to act as "translators" who bridge the gap between abstract university goals and the practical professional realities of each field. By tailoring support to these specific disciplinary needs, we can ensure a truly inclusive global education for every student.

You can read the entire dissertation here.