Towards the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space: the Case of Latvia

Abstract

Language issues within the higher education sector have taken the central position in view of the current internationalization trend. Language policy in European higher education institutions is impacted by current trends in commerce, science, and culture, as well as the guidelines provided in numerous documents issued by the Council of Europe emphasizing the centrality of languages within higher education curricula. Therefore, the research topicality is determined by the indispensable and urgent necessity to explore the potential and the actual state of internationalization process implementation in the sector of higher education in Latvia placing language issues (global and local language/-s) as the main research focus.

The article reports the findings of the survey conducted applying the questionnaire and focus- group discussion as data collection methods stating the strengths and challenges of Latvian internationalization scenarios focusing on issues related to language studies for both students and academic staff.