ITALIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION

“Internationalization” became a key theme during the 90’s in higher education policy debates. Higher education European policy tends to highlight the fact that the future of each individual institution of higher education in Europe – and in the Mediterranean area – grows in a process of internationalization within the common framework of the European Higher Education Area. The internationalization process press European and Mediterranean universities towards new challenges that are accompanied almost everywhere by decreasing of public funds as well as by conflicting demands: this coincidence has given raise on the one hand to the introduction of NPM strategies for institutions’ governance, on the other to the emerging of new forces capable of influencing internationalization such as the business community, NGO’s, multilateral organizations. This paper focuses mainly on the conflicting demands involving the increase of students’ mobility in an area that comprises European Union countries as well as the Euro-Mediterranean ones.