Undergraduate student mobility: Mercosur regional cooperation

• Grant number: 09/09703-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2009
• End date: September 30, 2010
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Denilde Oliveira Holzhacker
• Grantee: José Maria de Souza Júnior
• Host Institution: Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco (FIRB). Fundação de Rotarianos de São Paulo (FRSP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The internationalization of education represents a challenge to the current globalization and to the policymaking of States. This issue includes the mobility of students and researchers. It also can be faced as a way of promoting integration among countries. We intend to study the mobility of undergraduate students through the student exchange in the Mercosur as a way to promote integration in the region. The exchange programs of the Educational System of Mercosur (SEM) will head our research. Examples of these programs are the MEXA (accreditation program) and MARCA (mobility program). The research aims to raise and pile up the numbers which represent the volume of the exchange that has been realized since the "re-launching of Mercosul" in 2003. Having such numbers, we intend to do a theoretical analysis using the ideas of Functionalism and Neofunctionalism. We aim to verify whether the educational cooperation through the undergraduate student exchange constitute a source of functional cooperation in Mercosul and if this cooperation triggers cooperation in other areas. In other words, if the ramification process is verified starting from the cooperation carried out by the exchange of undergraduate students. This project meets the existing cooperation between the Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco and the Memorial of Latin America. The cooperation aims to raise information about academic mobility in Latin America. (AU)