Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2025 (AHCI, SSCI, Scopus)
English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has become a glocal phenomenon, particularly in non-Anglophone contexts (Macaro, E., S. Curle, J. Pun, J. An, and J. Dearden. 2018. “A Systematic Review of English Medium Instruction in Higher Education.” Language Teaching 51 (1): 36–76; McKinley, J., K. Sahan, S. Zhou, and H. Rose. 2024. “Researching EMI Policy and Practice Multilingually: Reflections from China and Turkey.” Language and Education 38 (1): 5–22), reflecting a broader trend of internationalisation through Englishization (Coleman, J. A. 2006. “English-Medium Teaching in European Higher Education.” Language Teaching 39 (1): 1–14). Northern Cyprus, however, remains an understudied case where EMI implementations are entangled with sociopolitical challenges (Selvi, A. F. 2022. “English-Medium Instruction in Northern Cyprus: Problems, Possibilities and Prospects.” In English as the Medium of Instruction in Turkish Higher Education, Multilingual Education. Vol. 40, edited by Y. Kirgoz and A. Karakaş. Cham: Springer.). As a politically unrecognised state by international law, Northern Cyprus has strategically positioned itself as an üniversite adası (a university island), where EMI serves not only as a tool for internationalisation but also as a major driving force for the local economy and a soft power mechanism of resistance against political isolation and economic sanctions. This exploratory qualitative case study (Yin, R. K. 2014. Case Study Research Design and Methods. SAGE) extends EMI scholarship to emerging contexts beyond growth hotspots (Curle, S., H. Rose, and D. Yüksel. 2024. “English Medium Instruction in Emerging Contexts: An Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue.” System 122:103262), by investigating the complex relationship between macro-level policies and meso-level practices in the local EMI-driven higher education landscape in Northern Cyprus (comprising 24 institutions). Our findings reveal how the convergence of permissive macro-level policies and aggressive meso-level market opportunism has transformed the EMI-driven higher education ecosystem into powerful revenue-generating mechanisms spearheaded by private institutions. This transformation raises critical concerns about the long-term sustainability of the higher education ecosystem and its ‘university island’ mission.