Internacionalização da educação superior: um estudo sobre o Programa Doutorado Sanduíche no exterior (PDSE) na Universidade Federal da Paraíba

Abstract

The present research aims to analyze the implementation and functioning of the Sandwich Program Abroad (PDSE) of the Federal University of Paraíba. It also intends to investigate the scholarship holders' perceptions of the contributions, difficulties and/or facilities found during the Program in the institution, as well as their perception of the internationalization process in the UFPB. The theoretical foundation is based on university discussions and the process of internationalization of higher education. This is a qualitative approach to case-study research, with descriptive and exploratory characteristics. For its accomplishment and data collection, the following technical procedures were used: bibliographic review, analysis of documents and structured online questionnaires performed by Google Docs – forms, sent by e-mail to the doctoral fellows. Data analysis was performed using the content analysis developed by Laurence Bardin. The results indicated that from January 2014 to December 2015 period, the UFPB postgraduate program sent 45 doctoral students abroad through the Sandwich Doctoral Program. According to the large areas of knowledge determined by CAPES, 50% of them are concentrated in Applied Social Sciences, Human Sciences and Health Sciences areas. The other 50% are distributed in the remaining areas. In the perception of scholarship holders, the main contributions of their sandwich internship abroad is the expansion of the analysis capacity of research objects, interaction with another culture and expansion of the world view. In addition, the internationalization of higher education is an opportunity to integrate produced knowledge from several countries and research cooperation between centers all over the world. The data also indicated that the PDSE contributes, even timidly, to the internationalization process of the UFPB.