In this article, we look at the barriers to international student mobility, with particular reference to the European Erasmus program. Much is known about factors that support or limit student mobility, but very few studies have made comparisons between participants and nonparticipants. Making use of a large data set on Erasmus and non-Erasmus students in seven European countries, we look at the barriers for participation. Results reveal the overall impact of financial barriers but suggest that it is personal barriers that help us to better differentiate between Erasmus and non-Erasmus students. The analysis suggests a two-pronged approach to increase participation: one focusing on better information and communication and the other stressing the benefits of Erasmus mobility.
Over the last decades, there has been increasing interest in the topic of international student mobility (ISM). However, there is surprisingly little analysis of the ways in which different characteristics and types of short-term ISM or the importance of host education systems and labour markets may affect early career outcomes of formerly mobile graduates. Therefore, in this study we explore, first, the relationship between participation in ISM at the Bachelor and Master level and graduates' wages and the duration of education-to-work transitions. Second, we investigate variations in ISM labour market outcomes according to the type of mobility: study, internships, or combinations of both. Third, we examine the relationship between labour market outcomes of formerly mobile students and the country of destination's position in higher education international prestige hierarchies and labour market competitiveness. We use the Dutch National Alumni Survey 2015, a representative survey of higher education graduates in the Netherlands, conducted 1.5 years after graduation. Before controlling for selection into ISM, the results suggest the existence of labour market returns to ISM and that the heterogeneity of ISM experiences matters as labour market outcomes vary according to the level of study, the type of mobility, and the positioning of the country of destination in international prestige hierarchies. However, after controlling for selection into ISM through propensity score matching, the differences in early career outcomes between formerly mobile and non-mobile graduates disappear, suggesting that they cannot be causally attributed to their ISM experience. We explain these results with reference to the characteristics of the Dutch education system and labour market, where restricted possibilities for upward vertical mobility limit returns to ISM in the local labour market.
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The article argues that current discussions about governance through data in education can be fruitfully extended through: (1) the establishment of connections with wider debates about the role of commensuration processes and governmentality in the recreation of education systems; (2) greater emphasis on the 'artefacts' through which data-increasingly in the form of digital data-is collected, displayed and retrieved; and (3) the strategies of alignment and resistance that social actors adopt to deal with the increase in data availability and capacity for the automated interrogation of that data. The article concludes that these artefacts and strategies are providing a wide set of 'active' social actors with new resources in, and arenas for, their struggles for economic as well as social advancement, processes of self-monitoring and also, crucially, of self-formation. The article focuses on the interplay and tensions between governments and bureaucracies, private companies, education institutions, and various types of 'active' individuals (the individual customer, the individual manager and the individual worker) in the process of surveillance and recreation of education through digital data.
Young people's views of the outcomes of non-formal education in youth organisations: its effects on human, social and psychological capital, employability and employment.Abstract: This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of youth organisations in enhancing the employability of young people through the development of different forms of capital: human, social and psychological. Instead of asking questions about who access extra-curricular activities that may provide young people with positional advantages in the labour market and the class biases that arise in access, the article explores whether the benefits obtained from participation vary by socio-economic background. We make use of the Youth organisations and employability (YOE) database, which contains data from over 1000 young people in more than 40 European countries on the effects of involvement in youth organisations on different forms of capital: human, social and psychological. We find positive effects of involvement on all three forms of capital. The analysis suggests that the characteristics of the involvement in youth organisations are better predictors of its outcomes than are personal characteristics, and find no significant effects of socio-economic background on the reported benefits of participation in our sample. Policy implications are derived from these findings, calling for greater policy support to increase opportunities for the involvement of young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds in youth organisations and for better informing young people of the benefits of sustained involvement with youth organisations.
This article explores (1) the degree to which immigrants can be considered dominant groups in the area of validation of non-formal and informal learning and are subject to specific validation measures in 33 European countries; (2) whether country clusters can be identified within Europe with regard to the dominance of immigrants in the area of validation; and (3) whether validation systems are likely to lead to the inclusion of immigrants or foster a process of ''devaluation'' of their skills and competences in their host countries. Based on the European Inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning project (chiefly its 2014 update) as well as a review of 124 EU-funded (Lifelong Learning Programme and European Social Fund) validation projects, the authors present the following findings: (1) in the majority of European countries, immigrants are not a dominant group in the area of validation. (2) In terms of country clusters, Central European and Nordic countries tend to consider immigrants a dominant target group for validation to a greater extent than Southern and Eastern European countries. (3) Finally, few initiatives aim to ensure that immigrants' skills and competences are not devalued in their host country, and those initiatives which are in place benefit particularly those defined as ''highly skilled'' individuals, on the basis of their productive potential. There is, thus, a ''low road'' and a ''high road'' to validation, leading to a process of polarisation in the recognition of the skills and competences of immigrants. Resumen Migración y validación del aprendizaje no formal e informal en Europa: >inclusión, exclusión o polarización en el reconocimiento de competencias y habilidades? -El artículo explora (1) hasta qué punto los inmigrantes pueden ser considerados un grupo dominante en el área de la validación del aprendizaje no formal e informal y disponen de medidas específicas para la validación de sus competencias en 33 países europeos; (2) si es posible identificar grupos de países dentro de Europa que compartan enfoques comunes en relación a la priorización de los inmigrantes en el área de validación; y (3) si los sistemas de validación contribuyen al proceso de inclusión de los inmigrantes o, por el contrario, a un proceso de ''devaluación'' de sus habilidades y competencias en sus países de acogida. Utilizando información del Inventario Europeo sobre la validación del aprendizaje no formal e informal (principalmente de su edición de 2014), así como una revisión de 124 proyectos en el área de validación financiados por la Unión Europea (por medio de su Programa para el Aprendizaje a lo Largo de la Vida y el Fondo Social Europeo), los autores presentan los siguientes resultados: (1) en la mayor parte de los países Europeos los inmigrantes no son un grupo dominante en las iniciativas sobre validación; (2) en términos de grupos de países, los países del Centro y Norte 586 M. Souto-Otero, E. Villalba-Garcia
123de Europa tienden a considerar a los inmigrantes un grupo dominante e...
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