Academic Identities and International Learning Experience

The lived experience of the author led to the §question of changing nature of academic identities §in international educational settings. In this §sense, the author s initial attitude towards the §topic stemmed from a genuine interest to find out §the extent of the benefits of international §experience to the personal and professional §development of academics. The research highlights §that such kind of learning experience can be one of §the important factors for re-shaping the academic §selves which leads to emerging new hybrid §identities as the combination of the past and §present academic lives. The book §respectively will be of great relevance to §the higher education reforms taking place in her §country, Georgia (Caucasus) because of its strong §connection to academic development which makes it §both an educational priority for Government, and §influences the daily lives of academics. In terms of §the latter, it is hoped that the project will help §to simplify many of the complex issues that arise in §this area into terms more familiar to §educationalists, and more generally to those with an §interest in this field.