Multiple dimensions of English-medium education: Striving to initiate change, sustainability, and quality in higher education in Sweden

Book chapter, 2025

English-medium education (EME) has traditionally been associated with attracting international students – one-way mobility – in combination with English L1 speaker norms due to the prestige and global hegemony of English. The implications of using EME go beyond mere communication, since they also affect ways of thinking, seeing and practising the disciplines and this has been reflected in public controversies in Sweden. University leadership has to consider the pedagogical, linguistic, and cultural implications of internationalization and the impact of Englishization. This chapter offers a partial governance overview of EME in Swedish HEI and exemplifies EME interpretations with two case descriptions, where one focuses more on EME and the other more on the internationalization of the curriculum.