International students in transnational mobility: intercultural connectedness with domestic and international peers,institutions and the wider community

International students’ connectedness with their peers, institutions and the broader community significantly affects their learning and wellbeing. It is important to understand their multiple desires for intercultural connectedness in order to nurture it. This paper analyses the motives and nature of international students’ intercultural connectedness. It is based on a study that includes more than 150 interviews and fieldwork with international students and staff from 25 vocational education colleges in Australia. Drawing on Blumer’s symbolic interactionism theory as a conceptual framework, the study found international students’ motivation to engage in intercultural connectedness is linked to not only their desire for respect and recognition for intellectual, cultural and linguistic capacities and diversities but also for employment aspirations. The research shows various dimensions in which intercultural engagement is seen to encompass not only empathy, sociability and equity but also employability. The findings suggest meaningful interaction is essentially bound to reciprocal learning.     

国际学生流动趋势及风险防范

随着国际学生流动的规模迅速扩张,由此带来的人才流失风险、预期收益风险、教育服务质量风险、安全风险和声誉风险也日益显现。学生跨境流动的风险是客观存在,不确定因素多,波及面大。为了规避和最大程度地降低各类风险的发生概率,无论是学生个体还是高校及政府,都应积极采取应对的措施。     

Globalisation,transnational academic mobility and the Chinese knowledge diaspora: an Australian case study

The master discourses of economic globalisation and the knowledge economy each cite knowledge diasporas as vital ‘trans-national human capital’. Based on a case study of a major Australian university, this article examines the potential to deploy China's large and highly-skilled diaspora in the service of Chinese and Australian scientific and technological development. It finds that at a time when much of the world is deeply mired in a global financial crisis, this treasured resource of highly-skilled intellectuals assumes even greater significance. Meanwhile, there are key challenges to be confronted to fully utilise China's overseas talent. It argues that the Chinese knowledge diaspora are a modern kind of cosmopolitan literati, and could contribute actively to higher education internationalisation in both Australia and China.     

博洛尼亚进程中的欧洲国际学生流动

为打破欧洲各国的高等教育边界,欧洲各国于1999年签署了《博洛尼亚宣言》,由此启动了博洛尼亚进程。目前,欧洲各国教育部长们在推动旨在促进学生流动的学习项目方面达成了共识,一方面,吸引欧洲以外的学生到欧洲国家修读学位项目,另一方面促进欧洲内部的短期学生流动。虽然该政策的效果评估面临各种问题,但有些大体趋势依然可见。首先,博洛尼亚进程有助于促使欧洲以外的学生到欧洲学习,但对促进欧洲内部的学生流动作用不大。其次,到毕业为止,学生频繁向外流动的情形超出了很多学者的预期,但也因国家而异。最后,由于学生流动的排他性式微,其价值逐渐减小。     

The evolution of student identity: A case of caveat emptor

Engaging students has been seen as the key to promoting their achievement in higher education institutions. However, there is an important stage prior to this: the development of a positive student identity which influences students’ motivation to engage. As the student body has evolved from full-time, on-campus students entering university straight from school to embrace adult, part-time and online learners who are also in employment, the transition to a student identity has become less transparent. To encourage part-time students undertaking an undergraduate degree in Social and Health Care Management to engage with each other, the course team piloted peer assessment within the programme for a year. This paper informs the debate by providing insight into the students’ approach to learning and attainment. It is argued that the culture of compliance and the technocratic approach to task completion increasingly required within the social care and learning sector is antithetical to deep learning. For students to make the transition they need to commit to a student identity in which participation in reflection and critical debate are valued. The challenge is for universities to enable this by addressing the barriers and stimulating a positive identity for non-traditional students.     

The Contribution of International Student Mobility to Human Development and Global Understanding

International student mobility has been an important indicator for the degree of internationalisation in higher education. Today, international student mobility has moved from unorganised or self-organised study abroad to a variety of mobility forms organised within programmes. It has also become an issue of economic competitiveness, like attracting best talent, wealth creation and brain drain. This paper focuses on mobility as a limited period of study abroad （typically between six and 12 months） and not on mobility for the purpose of studying a whole degree programme abroad. Meanwhile, it takes ERASMUS program in Germany for example, analyzes the barriers to student mobility and possible solutions, and draws conclusions that widening participation and broadening geographical scope.     

The geographies of collective identity in the Chilean student movement

Abstract

This article is about collective identity, learning processes and political agency in the Chilean student movement. The geographies of collective identity are constituted through engaging with emotions interwoven with the political learning process by making mistakes that enabled student activists’ agency to undergo transformation between 2006 and 2011. Space articulates an identity politics as the bio-politics of existence through which life itself becomes a political action and animates a radical imaginary of politics as being-in-common. This meaning of politics is interwoven with the production of territorial assemblies in 2011 through which the Chilean student movement reasserted the space–time of the political demand for free education in spatial rather than temporal terms by reimagining a collective vision with others. This represents the main legacy of the movement and becomes a condition of possibility for envisioning free education as an alternative project that seeks to contest neoliberal common sense.     

The impact of political factors on international student mobility

International student mobility contributes to a knowledge-based economy and forms an important component of a highly educated migration. This paper aims to identify how far political factors—including political discrimination, restrictions, freedom, UK migration policies and social cultural norms and policies—enhance or inhibit individuals' capabilities to become mobile. It offers a novel conceptualisation of mobility, drawing on structuration theory and the capability approach, to reveal the link between structure, capability and agency in the mobility process. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 40 PhD students, two professors from Turkey in the United Kingdom and three international education experts. A capability list established shows how mobility occurs when students' capabilities (freedoms) fail to flourish and they lose their power (capacity) to influence society due to the political environment in the home country. ‘Impo-mobility’, derived from the word ‘imposed’, is proposed to refer to highly educated people having to become mobile as a result of impositions placed upon them by home and host-government political practices. An appealing political environment is necessary if Turkey is not to lose highly educated individuals and the United Kingdom is to remain a global player in international higher education.     

Armed with real guns: student unions,student identity,and violence in Côte d’Ivoire

ABSTRACT

African higher education has been the site of repeated contestations over identity. Higher education institutions, as spaces made up of individuals claiming a diversity of identities, are susceptible to conflict when identities are influenced by politicians and paramilitary groups seeking to advance their political agendas on campus through the use of ethnic, religious, and nationalist rhetoric. This qualitative case study of a university in Côte d’Ivoire explored how students engaged in violent political student union activities on campus constructed and enacted their identities through the lens of self-authorship. Findings suggest that student identities are context-dependent and change according to the observer; that self-authorship is difficult due to highly politicized external formulas and social structures; and that, without student support services, vulnerable students may succumb to violent identity enactment and discourse mechanisms.     

The student experience and subject engagement in UK sociology: a proposed typology

This article is a contribution to the sociology of an expanded and newly diversified UK higher education system. How differentiated is the student experience? How sharply is the system polarised? Drawing on interviews and questionnaires conducted in five sociology departments in a variety of pre‐1992 and post‐1992 universities, it examines students' views on ‘what they learn’ and their orientations to study. It explores differences in curriculum content and organisation and the extent to which student narratives and identities vary with differences in institutional context. A typology of student experiences and subject engagement is advanced that as well as capturing institutional differences also locates a range of student orientations – and worthwhile student experiences – in all five departments that suggests a somewhat greater commonality of experience and outcome across institutions than the extreme polarisation of institutional experiences and outcomes sometimes suggest.     

Professional identity among student teachers of physical education: the role of physicality

In this study, we investigate the role of physicality in the professional identities of physical education (PE) student teachers. Twenty PE student teachers participated in semi-structured interviews during their final teaching practice. Data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis and typologies. The results showed substantial diversity in the student teachers’ conceptions of physicality and the ways these conceptions were embedded in their developing professional identities. The results also brought to light criticism directed at traditional notions of the body and physicality in PE and PE teacher education (PETE). We suggest that conceptions of the body and physicality represent a central element of PE teachers’ professional identity. The results also indicate a relationship between conceptions of physicality and pedagogies implemented in the future. Time and place for student teachers to discuss body-related matters should be provided in PETE.     

The effect of tuition fees on student mobility: the UK and Ireland as a natural experiment

We exploit changes in student funding policies across the four UK nations and the Republic of Ireland to conduct a natural experiment investigating the marginal effect of differing tuition fee levels on students' enrolment behaviour. Whilst previous international research suggests increases in fees suppress demand and disincentivise cross‐border educational migration, some studies in North America and Germany find an element of inelasticity of demand. In the UK, various commentators have predicted marked shifts in student mobility in response to variation in tuition fee prices by country, trends expected to sharpen following substantial planned rises in tuition fees from 2012. After outlining tuition fee policies in the UK and Ireland, we analyse data on student enrolment destinations across the five countries for the period 2000–2010. We find little evidence to support the notion that student mobility is driven by economic ‘rationality’. Enrolment rates have risen despite increases in tuition fees and there is a long‐term trend for students to stay at home. Students seem not to be ‘pushed’ out‐of‐country by higher fees, but may be discouraged from moving if fees are lower in‐country. Student mobility within the UK and Ireland follows well‐worn paths from and to specific countries and institutions. Finally, we consider the implications of our findings for student mobility in general and forthcoming changes to UK student funding policies in particular.     

International study in the global south: linking institutional,staff, student and knowledge mobilities

ABSTRACT

The international mobility of institutions, staff, students and knowledge resources such as books and study materials has usually been studied separately. This paper, for the first time, brings these different forms of knowledge mobilities together. Through a historical analysis of South African higher education alongside results from a quantitative survey of academic staff in three international branch campuses in South Africa, the paper suggests three things. First, it points to the importance of regional education hubs in the global South and their role in South–South staff and student mobilities. Second, it points to the importance of reading these mobilities as outcomes of historically attuned policymaking – educational, migratory and political. Finally, the paper points to the theoretical possibilities that arise by bringing institutional, staff, student and knowledge resource mobilities in place and suggests new avenues for further research.     

Getting in,getting on: fragility in student and graduate identity

ABSTRACT

Over a period of three years this longitudinal study explored new approaches to consider student identity during the transition from university to employment. Students were followed through a new portfolio-based final year course and beyond university into the workplace. With universities increasingly recognising the employment aspirations of their students, facilitating self-awareness of graduate attributes and the development of employability skills are becoming integral to the higher education proposition; however the impact of employability initiatives is not well understood. The aim of the study was to examine changes in self-identification through the development of a portfolio of work using Holmes’ Claim Affirmation Model of Emergent Identity as the conceptual framework. Data were collected through student questionnaires and graduate interviews. The study uncovered the ways in which role models, developmental networks, and imaginings of a possible self were used in identity work. A fragile reconstruction of identity was observed as graduates faced the labour market, with this fragility continuing to be experienced while navigating an uncertain work landscape. We used these findings to allow us to refine Holmes’ Model by (a) adding a dynamic element and (b) grounding it on longitudinal data.     

The Grand Duchy on the Grand Tour: a historical study of student migration in Luxembourg

Since Luxembourg became independent in 1839, practically the entire political, economic and intellectual elite of the country has been socialised abroad. It was only in 2003 that the Grand Duchy set up its own university; before then, young Luxembourgers had to study in foreign countries. Over the past 150 years, Luxembourg has thus experienced exceptionally lively student migration. This migration is almost unique in Europe; however, academic research has paid little attention to the consequences of the migration experience of whole student generations on Luxembourgish society. The data presented in this paper demonstrate that migration has opened up chances for participation and access to positions of social power, while at the same time the networks of students became an instrument of social exclusion. Thus, the migration experience over the past 150 years not only led to a strong degree of social–cultural cohesion within the national elite; paradoxically, international student mobility has also had deep effects on the preservation of national identity.     

Performing mundane materiality: Actor-Network Theory,global student mobility and a re/formation of ‘social capital’

ABSTRACT

Social capital is a puzzling actor; made real by its allies. It has been ‘out-there’ in the form of scientific publications for decades. Although some characteristics are common to all elaborations of this theory (networks, trust, and norms), there remains confusion in determining a ‘coherent concept’ of social capital. In this paper, we make use of such ‘incoherence gap’ to open an experimental theoretical and, subsequently, analytical space. Based on empirical research with mobile students and assemblages of non-human actors, the paper offers two investigative gatherings. First, the Bourdieusian approach to ‘social capital’ is discussed, allowing relational ontologies to enter the scene. Second, consideration is given to issues of performativity and the relevance of materiality for empirical social capital investigations. Despite the degree of ontological security social capital has managed to achieve, we question the disregard for the performative role of non-human entities in the context of global student mobility.     

Becoming artist,becoming educated,becoming undone: toward a nomadic perspective of college student identity development

In this article, I place my ethnographic project among undergraduate university art students and their professor in dialog with Rosi Braidotti’s figuration of the nomadic subject and her reflections on the importance of creating theoretical alternatives for mapping the embedded and embodied social positions that we inhabit. As educational interlocutors, college students must negotiate expectations and categorizations about age-appropriate relations, career paths, and identity passageways, which are always already framed by Western psychological development discourses. Interested in loosening the grip of these closure-seeking and normalizing discursive practices, I argue for a revision of identity development grounded in a nomadic theory of the subject and engage my data through an alternative analytic of arts-informed assemblage in light of Braidotti’s ideas. In so doing, I uphold my feminist commitment to do theory as both critique and creativity, bringing into view poetic-enough writing and imagery as a response to the question how is it to be in the process of becoming?     

Assessing the professional identity of primary student teachers: Design and validation of the Teacher Identity Measurement Scale

This study aimed to design and validate the Teacher Identity Measurement Scale (TIMS) for assessing primary student teachers’ professional identity. Based on identity theory and a systematic review into quantitative instruments of teacher identity, teacher identity was decomposed in four first-order constructs: motivation, self-image, self-efficacy, and task perception. This resulted in a measurement scale consisting of 46 items. The factorial design was examined by administering the TIMS to first- and second-year primary student teachers. In phase 1, involving 17 students, qualitative scale development methods were used to assess the construct validity. In phase 2, its second-order factor structure was tested and confirmed among a sample of 211 students. In phase 3, this structure was cross-validated among a new sample of 419 students. The instrument may contribute to understanding primary student teacher’s professional development and can be used as a tool to support the process of developing a professional teacher identity.     

Fees,flows and imaginaries: exploring the destination choices arising from intra-national student mobility

ABSTRACT

Are intra-national student flows driven by the same forces as international student mobility? This paper addresses this question by analysing cross-border student mobility in the UK. The paper identifies four principles that one might expect to drive the destination choices of students from Scotland enrolling in English universities. Following a statistical analysis of student destination choices, it is argued that cross-border moves from Scotland to England are stimulated by some of the same global forces as international student mobility (such as a desire to accumulate cultural capital), but in terms of destination choice the imaginaries held by Scottish students of ‘good’ places to study in England to accumulate cultural capital are constructed differently from the imaginaries of international students.     

Constructing an institutional identity in university tea rooms: the international PhD student experience

This case study profiles eight international PhD students and describes the process of the construction and negotiation of their social and institutional identities in an Australian university. Audio-recorded informal conversations of the students highlight the role of social membership, staffroom interactions and language in the construction of institutional identities. The impact of multiple identity transitions experienced by new international students is described. The data analysis uses a sociocultural perspective of second language in use, which reflects the negotiation of power, space and identity in informal multicultural institutional encounters. The article provides insight into the ways transitions are experienced by international postgraduate students. Findings also include a critique of the negatively loaded stereotype of the ‘international student’ in Australian universities and the way it underplays the heterogeneity of student experience.