International Student Mobility Research Articles

International education as an ethical practice: cultivating a care of the self

ABSTRACT Various critical approaches tend to view international student mobility within economic and political frameworks, while governmentality studies focuses on the governing practices that shape individual conduct and govern populations. Yet, these approaches often overlook another crucial element, the ethical relationship individuals have to themselves. Considering the relationship international students have to truth, power, and subjugating techniques of the self acknowledges both the coercive and the constitutive elements of international education and student mobility. It allows for new understandings of identity-making and self-formation during students’ international experiences. This conceptual paper proposes the development of an analytical framework based on Foucauldian ethics for (re)conceptualizing international students as active agents in the construction of their own identity rather than caught up in their own subjugation. This novel approach suggests a move toward ethical internationalization practices, which emphasize reflexive self-formation and the exercise of democratic practices over division, control, and competition.

The transnational in‐between identity of Chinese student returnees from the UK: Mobility, variations and pathways

AbstractConsidering the rising tide of international student return mobility, the UK needs to pay attention to the long‐term circulation and development of international student returnees. This study analyses the mobility, variations and pathways of the transnational in‐between identity of Chinese student returnees from the UK, an under‐researched group in the changing dynamics of international student mobility. This longitudinal study uses original data from 48 semi‐structured interviews to show how student returnees’ identities change over time in transnational sociocultural contexts. This study develops a spider chart comprising multiple manifestations of transnational selves to account for returnees’ intermediary and heterogeneous states of transnational in‐between identities. Based on the empirical evidence, the study finds that transnational in‐between identity is characterised by a ‘self‐in‐between mobility’, seeking compromises and connections between the polar extremes of essentialist and non‐essentialist approaches to identity. In such an identification process, the changing dynamics of agency play a pivotal role in (re)shaping multiple identity pathways as variegated temporal outcomes of mobility. The findings not only advance the theoretical and methodological constructs of identity, but also have implications for relevant concerns in international education.

International Opportunities in Higher Education Promoted by the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of A Three-Country Teaching-Learning Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought challenges and opportunities to teaching in higher education. The sudden pivot from in-person to online education posed unprecedented challenges to both teachers and students. At the same time, the sudden worldwide suspension of traditional ways of lecturing opened a space for experiments with innovative pedagogic approaches and techniques, including various forms of real-time inter-university exchange and student cooperation. COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden and disruptive shift to emergency remote learning and teaching, as well as a simultaneous halt to international mobility of students, faculty and staff. These changes to established modes of teaching and learning in higher education along with the de facto end of all international mobility efforts led global health course directors from York University in Canada and Fulda University of Applied Sciences in Germany to establish a globally networked learning environment involving shared virtual lectures and international collaborative group projects. Students reported benefits of an enriched learning experience through the sharing of different perspectives, approaches and debates with international professors and peers. Coordination relating to time differences and expectations played a key role in success and overcoming challenges for collaboration among students. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that cross-border inter-university teaching and learning is a feasible and beneficial pedagogic option.

Evaluating universal student mobility: contrasting policy discourse and student narratives in Luxembourg

ABSTRACT For decades, Luxembourg did without a national university. Before and after the University of Luxembourg’s founding (UL) (2003), tertiary education and the status of being a Luxembourgish student have been closely linked to international student mobility (ISM). This long-standing tradition was maintained in the new university via compulsory ISM: to bolster elite European networks and internationalization. Focusing on ISM from Luxembourg, based on analysis of policy documents regarding the UL’s foundation and state allowances for students, we show that policymakers strongly favored ISM. We confront this policy agenda with the perspectives and self-identifications of both credit and degree mobile Luxembourgish students. In narrative interviews, students did not always view compulsory ISM as positively as did policymakers. For students, the quality of a stay abroad is far more important: a perspective lacking in the state’s quantity-driven agenda. In the country with the highest ISM rates globally, constraints continue to hinder equity in ISM.

International student mobility tends in Asian countries: Are students moving from the west to the east?

In the PricewaterhouseCoopers report The World in 2050: Will the shift in global power continue?, the authors estimate that in just a few decades, the world will be very different from what it is today in terms of global ranking of national economies and the major drivers of economic growth. The old certainties of western countries dominating the world are being challenged by emerging countries in Asia and Southeast Asia, what the political commentator Fareed Zakaria calls “the rise of the rest.”

International student mobility spurs scientific research on foreign countries: Evidence from international students studying in China

• The impact of international student mobility on scientific research in china was explored. • Fixed-effect negative binomial regression and instrumental variable approach were employed. • The inflow of international students contributes to china's publications on origin countries. The international mobility of scientists fosters knowledge exchange by increasing cross-country research collaboration between destination and origin countries. To the best of our knowledge, the mobility of international students, most of whom are not scientists, has not been linked to knowledge production involving both destination and origin countries in previous studies. The question of this research is whether international student mobility (ISM) contributes to science in China. To address this research question, we determined the annual number of international students studying in Chinese universities from 1999 to 2018, from the Concise Statistics of International Students in China compiled by the International Exchange Department of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, and corresponding publication records including the source country names in the titles, from the Web of Science database of Clarivate Analytics. We then used the fixed-effects negative binomial model and instrumental variable approach to explore the linkage from ISM to knowledge production and found that ISM led to the destination countries’ scientific research on foreign countries. The findings shed light on the discussion of the global mobility of talent, and contribute to the understanding of ISM's influence on science, the measurement of which is promising in future studies.

Immobility infrastructures: taking online courses and staying put amongst Chinese international students during the COVID-19

ABSTRACT This paper draws attention to the current and possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the (im)mobility trajectories of international students (IS) and the global higher education landscape. From the perspective of migration infrastructure, this paper specifically focuses on the immobility experiences amongst Chinese international students (CIS) who planned to enrol overseas in 2020 but instead chose to take online courses in China due to the COVID-19. It asks how online courses are both facilitated and constrained by a set of institutional and technological infrastructural forces. Particularly it also explores how some CIS exercise agency to mobilise their infrastructural surroundings and overcome certain infrastructural deficiencies they encounter, with the aim of improving studying/living quality while inhabiting immobilities in a transnational context. As such, this paper challenges the oppositional nature of mobility and immobility, arguing that immobility is not the ‘flip side’ to mobility or an outcome by default, and that being immobile can be affirming and empowering. Essentially, the paper brings this infrastructurally sensitive theoretical approach into international student mobility (ISM) studies, shifting the focus from examining how infrastructures move people to how they enable people to stay, and to how they are lived and reconstructed at an everyday level.

Towards a More Just Canadian Education-migration System: International Student Mobility in Crisis

Education-migration, or the multi-step recruitment and retention of international students as immigrants, is an increasingly important component of both higher education and so-called highly-skilled migration. This is particularly true in Canada, a country portrayed as a model for highly-skilled migration and supportive of international student mobility. However, education-migration remains under-analyzed from a social justice perspective. Using a mobility justice framework, this paper considers COVID-19’s impact on Canada’s education-migration system at four scales: individuals, education institutions, state immigration regimes, and planetary geoecologies. It identifies ethical tensions inherent to Canada’s education-migration from a systems-level and suggests that a multi-scalar approach to social justice can both usefully complexify discussions and introduce unsettling paradoxes. It also stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to reimagine rather than return.

Rethinking international student mobility through the lens of “crisis” at a juncture of pandemic and global uncertainties

ABSTRACT International student mobility (ISM), defined as the movement of students to pursue tertiary education outside their countries of citizenship, has conventionally been understood in terms of micro social actors’ behaviours of cultural capital accumulation and macro-level institutional processes following the logics of neoliberal globalization and knowledge economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has abruptly and severely impacted ISM, plunging the latter into what seems to be a “crisis”. Taking this fluid juncture as an opportunity for reflection and re-thinking, this paper re-examines ISM through the discursive lens of “crisis”. Broadening the “crisis” perspective beyond the pandemic to include a longitudinal view over the twentieth century through to the present, the paper considers the ways in which movement and recruitment of international students may be seen as consequences of as well as responses to “crises” of various natures – geopolitical, economic, and social. The author’s own work on student mobilities in Asia is drawn upon for illustration. The paper ends by briefly considering both the immediate crises confronting ISM, as well as various broader global uncertainties lying ahead.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE ATTITUDE TO INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC MOBILITY OF STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT SOCIO-CULTURAL ADAPTATION

The article presents the results of an empirical study that enlighten the psychological peculiarities of the attitude to international academic mobility of students with different socio-cultural adaptation. Academic mobility of students is seen as a complex process of their personal and professional development. The attitude to international academic mobility is understood in the aggregate of the following components: cognitive (knowledge of the essence, structure, factors and main tendencies of international academic mobility; understanding of its role both in the context of a united European educational space and professional development of future specialists), emotional (feelings and emotions, connected with leaving the country for the purpose of studying at another educational institution for a certain period of time), motivational (the formation of motivation to plan and participate in the international academic mobility programs) and behavioral (accordance of students’ actions and deeds with the requirements of international academic mobility programs). It has been established that in the attitude to the international academic mobility of students with different socio-cultural adaptation there are similar and distinctive features, that are manifested in the cognitive, emotional, motivational and behavioral components. It has been proved that students with interactive, adaptive and conformal types of socio-cultural adaptation have a higher level of attitude components development than students with nostalgic, depressive and estranged types of this adaptation. Moreover, students with the interactive type of socio-cultural adaptation have the highest rates in the attitude to international academic mobility, and students with the estranged type have the lowest.

Management and internationalization of research strategies in higher education institutions as a basis of economic well-being

Research and internationalization are the major difficulties confronting most higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region, putting research, innovation, internationalization, and economic and political strain on policymakers. This study is a qualitative and quantitative empirical research of two projects that examines their dominant perceptions and attitudes towards social mobility and internationalization of research strategies in HEIs as a basis of social and economic well-being. The research was conducted at the University of Gjakova “Fehmi Agani” (UFAGJ), through personal interviews and a structured questionnaire, which was carried out by management, academic staff, administrative staff, and students. The results demonstrated that the internationalization of research has a high impact on the increase of the economy and well-being in society. This research presents an analysis of the internationalization strategies employed by the HEIs through two selected projects involving different European and South East European universities. The study is based on a literature review (Almeida, Robson, Morosini, & Baranzeli, 2018; Dewey & Duff, 2009; Levatino, 2017) and the establishment of categories as points of reference and comparison. We look at and compare internationalization strategy focused on international staff and student mobility and internationalization at home (IaH) actions focused on the development of high-quality lectures and sensitive intercultural competencies in students as learning outcomes and strategic goals. Finally, in addition to an ex-post analysis of the ongoing implementation of the internationalization strategy at the UFAGJ, we draw conclusions and lessons learnt for the internationalization and quality of research within HEIs of an emerging economy.

Motives, Problems, and Reforms in Transnational Higher Education: A Case Study of SUCs in The Philippines

This study examines the transnational higher education in the Philippines using sequential exploratory mixed design based on document analysis, and tools to conduct cross-sectional survey. The survey was developed and standardized interview was adopted where results were transcribed and coded for emerging themes. Four research questions guided this study: 1) What are the motives of international mobility of students? 2) What are the problems met by Filipino international students; 3) What actions taken by SUCs to address concerns of mobile students; and 4) What recommendations can be offered to better enhance the transnational higher education in the Philippines. The results exhibited challenges still persist that hinder transnational higher education programs, notwithstanding the long-term consequences of COVID-19. Most SUCs included internationalization in institution’s policies and plans to be compliant with the SUC levelling, quality assurance assessments and responding to the ASEAN regional integration. Adoption of open and distance learning (ODL) as part, or an alternative modality of internationalization of higher education under RA 11448 is timely and pragmatic.

L’Auberge espagnole à la maison ou la médiation numérique au service de la mobilité internationale étudiante

Dans cet article, nous examinons la manière dont les technologies numériques de l’information et de la communication accompagnent une transformation durable de la mobilité internationale étudiante, dans un contexte sanitaire qui a obligé à repenser les séjours à l’étranger encadrés. Nous verrons que ces outils offrent une formidable opportunité de rompre avec l’immobilité dont sont victimes certains étudiants qui ne peuvent pas partir en mobilité à l’étranger. Nous expliquerons comment les dispositifs numériques relevant de l’internationalisation à la maison permettent d’augmenter le capital de mobilité de tous les étudiants. Ce faisant, nous plaidons en faveur d’une hybridation des mobilités physiques et virtuelles, que l’étudiant pourra valoriser dans un parcours mobilitaire, dont nous proposons une définition. Un nouvel habitus mobilitaire est ainsi en devenir.

Центральная Азия перед вызовами интеллектуальной миграции: тенденции и перспективы

Intellectual migration is a key element of migration processes in Central Asia, but this topic remains insufficiently studied. In this article, the authors undertake the first attempt to comprehensively analyze the challenges of “brain drain” for the region’s countries. Conceptually, the research is based on developments in the field of migration studies, in particular on the push–pull approach, as well as the idea of relational and aspirational factors of intellectual migration. Methodologically, the study relies on discourse and documentary analysis, systems approach, statistical and survey methods. The authors discover that the topic of intellectual migration in the regional research discourse is presented fragmentarily, as its attention is mainly concentrated on international students mobility trends in the region. It is argued that state regulation of the intellectual migration in Central Asian countries has its own specific features – some are trying to use intellectual migration to stabilize the situation on national labor markets, to contain domestic protest potential, others are looking for an adequate model for turning the “brain drain” trends into “brain gain”, especially through the use of their diaspora’s resources. At the same time, the scale of educational emigration from the region shows growth patterns, which generates serious challenges for the Central Asian states, since a large proportion of foreign universities graduates from the region do not want to return to their countries. Based on the analysis of current trends, it is concluded that Central Asian states have all the economic and socio-political motives for intellectual emigration. In this context, out of the three scenarios for the development of international migration processes in Central Asia presented by the authors – a favorable scenario, a status quo scenario and a negative scenario – the latter seems to be the most probable at this stage. Accordingly, without systematic reforms and a serious approach to the problem of intellectual migration, the prospects for the implementation of the development strategies of the region’s countries will become vague, which is a challenge for their societal stability and national security.

Uluslararası Yükseköğrenim Öğrencilerinin Temel Sorun Alanları: Azerbaycan Uyruklu Öğrenciler Üzerinde Nitel Bir Çözümleme

The international student mobility, aiming to create and sustain international integration has been an essential part of the education market in the 21st century. However, while such international student exchange programs contribute to the students and the cities hosting them, they bring along some problems. The aim of this study is to identify the main problem areas that international university students are likely to encounter. By applying the qualitative research method, the phenomenological research design was used in the study since it aims to reveal the problems of students based on their individual experiences. In-depth interviews were conducted with the Azerbaijani students studying at Akdeniz University selected as the research sample, which were then descriptively analyzed. The main problems were identified as “economic problems, inability to understand the local language, problems with accommodation, feeling cheated and intimidated, being inexperienced, lack of knowledge about the formal procedures, cultural diversity, lack of support, and exclusion”. The problems regarding finance and accommodation emerged as the most frequently mentioned problems. The main strategies to overcome these problems are also discussed.

Mobility across One Belt One Road Regions: Influencing Factors towards Internationalization and Practices of Foreign Students at China

Aim of the current research study is to identify influencing factors for the mobility of international students, issues with consideration of potential prospects to China across One Belt One Road Regions. Employing qualitative research method, 27 international students studying at two universities in Wuhan, China were selected- data collected through convenience sampling based on thematic via semi-structured in-depth interviews. Analysis of results identified student's scholarships, compatibly available quality education and academic resources, proximity and cultural ties, and friendly policies observed strong attributes towards mobility. Results suggesting a few other factors for mobility include affordability, community linkages, and- recommendations by friends and family. Lack of language and communication proficiency was noted as a major issue. Based on the research findings, addressing experiences and issues of mobile international students- argued of confining academic and social life; required to enhance the quality of education and language restraints by government and higher education institutions in China.

Time, temporality, and (im)mobility: Unpacking the temporal experiences among Chinese international students during the COVID‐19

AbstractFrom the perspective of migrant times/temporalities, this paper focuses on the temporal experiences among Chinese international students (CIS) who planned to enrol overseas in 2020 but instead chose to stay in China due to the COVID‐19. Specifically, it adopts 'sticky and suspended times' and 'asynchronous and precarious times' to investigate how they encounter a set of temporal disruptions at both everyday and life course levels while staying put in China. Particularly, the paper asks how CIS exercises agency to navigate through temporal dissonances and enhance their immobile state and capital accumulation. Critically, the paper develops a temporally sensitive framework to unpack the multiple kinds of temporalities CIS confront during the pandemic, further advancing studies on 'international student mobility' and 'time in migration'. Additionally, existing studies have largely focused on how time shapes people's mobility and this paper provides an empirical case on the potential of the temporal approach to understanding immobilities.

Understanding the Attraction of the Microcampus

As collaborative transnational education models are increasing in number globally, this study provides a snapshot of motivations for newly enrolled students at microcampuses in China, Cambodia, Jordan, and Indonesia. This research centers on the influence of country choice for students. We apply Nye’s (1990, 2004) concept of soft power on student motivations and conduct quantitative analysis to trace enrollment influences. Mainly, in this case we find that U.S. soft power potentially influences students abroad to enroll in dual-degree programs. Other motivations related to cost and U.S. culture are apparent influences. Furthermore, findings provide greater insights into emerging trends in international student mobility. Our study also identifies strategies to sustain transnational education ventures in the face of challenges. Implications of this research are especially of use to university stakeholders, faculty leaders and policymakers who are working to advance U.S education on an international platform.

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

Factors affecting the migration of qualified specialists in the framework of the export of education

The mobility of qualified specialists is a trend in the modern economy. In addition to the brain drain, the concept of brain circulation has emerged, the source and constituent of which is the export of education and the international student mobility programs. Based on the systematization and analysis of scientific publications in international scientometric systems, the article highlights the factors influencing the decision of students participating in study programs abroad to stay in the host country or return home after the studies.