Contexts, Challenges and Communication Trends in the Internationalization of Higher Education: A Systematized Review.

The internationalization of higher education is a process that has led to substantial changes in universities. It has gone from being a reactive issue, as in its beginnings, to a proactive issue of great strategic relevance (Brandenburg and De Wit, 2011). Within this context, and through the analysis of the different models and strategies of internationalization, it becomes clear that communication is a fundamental element in the process of integrating the international dimension into the foundation of institutions (Davies, 1992; Van Dijk and Meijer, 1994; Rudzki, R, 1993; Knight, 1994; De Wit, 2002; Haug and Vilalta, 2010). However, progress in this area is limited (Gacel-Avila, 2018), and the binomial internationalization and communication is presented as an opportunity to contribute from research, for the theory and practice of communication as a strategy for the internationalization of universities.

In the present study we analyzed the scientific production articles that discuss this binomial, with the aim of identifying the contexts, challenges and trends, as well as gaps and opportunities for research. The methodology used was a systematized literature review of 215 articles published from 2015 to 2020, in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The methodology used was the ReSiste-CHS Framework proposed by Codina (2018) for systematized reviews in Human and Social Sciences. This framework led us to validate the articles through the inclusion/exclusion criteria based on two aspects: the pragmatic or relevance criteria of the documents found, to avoid false positives, and under the criteria of the quality of the research conducted (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). The findings show a greater number of publications in the countries of China, Russia, UK and the United States, mainly in the sectors of education, management, information technology and marketing. It concludes with possible lines of research for future investigations.

Palabras clave