A PhD In motion: Advancing a critical academic mobilities approach (CAMA) to researching short-term mobility schemes for doctoral students

ABSTRACT

Short-term mobility has been neglected in the higher education mobilities literature, which tends to focus on longer stays such as study abroad or entire degrees. Short-term doctoral mobility schemes are relatively low-cost, potentially high-value investments in the development of early career researchers. Doctoral mobilities research – and the field of academic mobilities research more broadly – is characterised by a positivist, often atheoretical orientation; this article responds to this by introducing a critical academic mobilities approach (CAMA). This approach is rooted in the ‘mobilities paradigm’, and involves (i) questioning the status of mobility as a universal good; (ii) exploring the subjectivity of mobile subjects as dynamic and shifting, but also structurally determined; (iii) a commitment to researching mobility processes as well as investments and outcomes. The article explores ‘autoethno-case studies’ of two doctoral mobility schemes funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): Overseas Institutional Visits (OIV) and the PhD Partnering Scheme (PPS).     

Tug‐o‐where: situating mobilities of learning (t)here

This article explores ‘mobilities’ as a research framework for learning not so much in terms of what has to be done to enhance learning using mobile technologies. Instead it focuses on our embodied ways of knowing and learning by ‘being mobile’ in physical and mediated spaces. It reviews current mobility frameworks used in mobile learning research and other technology integration studies. It proposes a practice‐based mobility agenda for learning by ‘setting in motion’ not just technologies, but also bodies and spaces from a sociological perspective and a phenomenological standpoint. It seeks to understand what is being done – the re‐configurations of bodies, spaces and technologies in a mobile society that is increasingly characterised by media convergence and ubiquitous connections and communication. To move educational research, a conceptual framework that articulates body‐types in relation to technologies is discussed.     

Both here and elsewhere: rural girls’ contradictory visions of the future

Girls' studies have made an important contribution to the literature on subjectivity and schooling in neoliberal times; however, girlhood studies within Western contexts remain predominantly urban in focus. This article brings an analysis of place to debates about gendered subjectivity formation by exploring gendered patterns within rural students' imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research with grade 7/8 students in rural Ontario (Canada), the analysis demonstrates how girls construct contradictory future narratives envisioning urban femininities while insisting they will remain living in the country. I argue that this tension must be explored in relation to the gendered context of rural social space, as well as post-feminist discourses of ‘girl power’. The analysis contributes to the fields of rural education and girlhood studies by foregrounding the significance of place within the gendered formation of student subjectivities and future aspirations.     

Time well spent? Temporal dimensions of study abroad and implications for student experiences and outcomes under the UK Turing Scheme

This paper reflects on the importance of ‘time spent’ in understanding the international student experience. Short-term mobility programmes (involving stays of between 1 week and 2 months) attracting less privileged students, such as the relatively new Turing Scheme in the United Kingdom, have been hailed as a potential ‘solution’ to the fact that, traditionally, wealthier individuals have been far more likely to engage in study abroad. However, we do not yet know how short-term and longer duration programmes compare in terms of the value they confer to students (in relation to their experiences and outcomes). How likely is it that short-term mobility at undergraduate level is as valuable, according to different measures, as mobility lasting 6 months to several years (as with degree mobility)? This paper reviews some of the evidence to date on shorter duration mobility, addressing how value in international study is constructed and conferred and how this relates to ‘time spent’. The paper concludes by arguing that the picture is mixed: although short-term mobility will be beneficial to students, those engaging in longer term exchanges (usually more privileged students) are likely to derive greater benefits.