International cooperation and collaboration in teacher education

Current trends of globalization are partly caused by migration and flight to Europe, particularly from the Global South and West Asia. Academic education takes account of the resulting heterogenization by intensification of international teaching and cooperation offers which are combined with reflection of implicit hierarchies and neo-colonialism. This reflection must be theoretically based as well as it has to be integrated in direct collaboration and communication relationships. This article describes the collaboration between a university of the Global South and a university in Germany and examines, whether the cooperation reproduces (neo-)colonial hierarchies or emerges postcolonial collaborative relationships free of Eurocentric hierarchizations and stereotypes. The study is based on three interviews with the heads of the internationalization department and the heads of coordination of international projects at both examined universities. Identifiable tendencies of participatory collaboration, but also of neo-colonial inclusions, are to be examined in detail in follow-up studies.