International Comparative Studies in Education

Global Germany in Transnational Dialogues presents original research work from contributors in a cutting-edge collection of case and monograph studies in humanities, business, economics, law, education, cultural studies and science. It offers concise yet in-depth overviews of contemporary ties between Germany and nations in flux, such as Afghanistan, Korea, and Israel, as well as societies with long-standing ties to the Federal Republic. It serves as an arena for both scholars and practitioners to apply comparative and interconnected research outcomes connected to topics such as educational policies, Muslimness, refugee integration, nation branding and digital societies to other transnational contexts. This series is an interdisciplinary project to offer a fresh look at Germany's relations to other countries in the 21st century. The bilateral concept is anchored in a renewed interest in Germany's innovative stance on identity politics, fiscal policies, civil law and national cultures. The series caters to a renewed interest in transnational studies and the actors working across the boundaries of nation states.

The Institute for Advanced International Studies at the University Laval (HEI) celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2014. This represents an exceptional moment to reflect on the past, present and future of International Studies in Québec, the francophone sphere, and beyond, and most particularly to discuss the interdisciplinary evolution of this field of study and research. In the context of interdisciplinary institutions dedicated to graduate education in International Studies, the topics of continuities and discontinuities are particularly important at such points of juncture. For example, the transition from “International Relations” to “International Studies” is promising increasing integration of related disciplines, previously considered unrelated. Up to which point is this interdisciplinary integration can move and mark a departure from the previous field of International Relations? What are the epistemological, ontological, and administrative challenges that this integrative trajectory has generated, is generating and will generate? The goal of this workshop is to share our past experiences and to advance future solutions to these questions.
At the University Laval, the institutional change from the Centre Québécois des Relations Internationales (CQRI) to the Institut Québécois des Hautes Études Internationales (HEI) in 1994, and the following transformations in the HEI education programs, underlines the gradual construction of a field of “International Studies”, which originates from the field of “International Relations”. Beyond this specific case, the challenges of interdisciplinarity in International Studies appear under multiple guises. These challenges are for example associated with the transformations in the object of study associated with International Studies, the connexions between multiple fields of study and research, the specific development in Québec and the francophone sphere, the organization of education programs at multiple academic levels, and the management of academic institutions with a specific interdisciplinary mission in International Studies.
During the workshop, discussions on these perspectives could benefit from a comparative approach as well as epistemological, sociological, and historical analyses. By going beyond the traditional historiography of the academic field of International Relations, this workshop will enable us to situate the history of the HEI and other education institutions dedicated to International Studies in the local and institutional context as well as the major regional and global developments of the field in the last decades. By highlighting the role of the HEI and similar institutions in Québec, Canada, the francophone sphere and beyond, this project will finally echo the increasing interest toward the analysis of specific research institutions, practices, and education programs in the development of the field of International Studies.
Proposals about integration experiences between diverse disciplines in the study and research of major topics such as institutional design, the agri-business field, conflicts associated with natural resources, etc., will be particularly appreciated.