The last ten years have seen the deepening and expansion of the process of internationalization in relation to higher education. This process is multi-faceted and has included the development of education 'brands' as governments and educational institutions become increasingly entrepreneurial in their approach to higher education. The number of students who choose to study abroad has also increased considerably.Although there is a growing academic literature on the internationalization of higher education, students' own perspectives -on their motivations, objectives and experiences -are sorely lacking. Student Mobilities, Migration and the Internationalization of Higher Education is intended to address this gap. Its strong empirical focus, drawing on case studies of mobile students from East Asia, mainland Europe and the UK, helps to develop an in-depth understanding of both the commonalities and differences in the experiences of students from different parts of the world who choose to move abroad to pursue a higher education. It discusses the implications of their movement for contemporary higher education and for our understanding of migration more generally.

Researching Young People's Lives provides an overview of some of the key methodological challenges facing youth researchers and an introduction to the broad repertoire of methods used in youth-orientated research.

Word count: 6,616Johanna Waters is a lecturer in Geography at the University of Liverpool, with degrees from the universities of Oxford and British Columbia. She has published widely on issues relating to transnational migration, family strategies and education.Rachel Brooks is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of Surrey. Her interests include young people and higher education, lifelong learning and citizenship. She is author of numerous books and articles on these topics. AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the British Council for funding this research and Helena PimlottWilson for all her help with the data collection. Two referees provided helpful comments on a draft of this paper. We are also very grateful to all those that gave generously of their time to participate in this project. AbstractTo date, scholarship on international students has generally focussed on flows from nonWestern economies to the main English-speaking destination countries (such as the US, UK and Australia). In contrast, we draw on a qualitative study of 85 UK students, who have either completed or are considering undertaking a degree programme overseas. We found that, in opposition to a common image of 'international students', UK students are not overtly motivated by 'strategic' concerns. Instead, they are seeking 'excitement' and 'adventure'from overseas study and often use the opportunity to delay the onset of a career and prolong a relatively carefree student lifestyle. Despite these ostensibly 'disinterested' objectives, however, UK students remain a highly privileged group and their experiences serve only to facilitate the reproduction of their privilege. The paper calls for a more critical analysis of the spatially uneven and socially exclusive nature of international higher education.

A recurrent theme in the literature on transnational mobility -and particularly that pertaining to the young and/or highly skilled -is the individualised nature of such movement, as people move to take advantage of opportunities in an increasingly interdependent world. Drawing on research with 85 young adults who had moved overseas for their higher education, or were seriously contemplating doing so, this paper subjects this claim to critical scrutiny. Indeed, it suggests that while internationally mobile students are clearly only a subset of the broader category of transnational migrants, they nevertheless demonstrate important ways in which mobility is often socially-embedded, grounded within networks of both family and friends. It then points to the socially reproductive nature of such ties, and discusses their implications for the development of 'mobility capital'.

Previous studies of higher education (HE) choice have tended to draw a strong contrast between the decisions made by young people from working class backgrounds and those of their middle class peers. This paper draws on a qualitative, longitudinal study to argue that such assumptions about social class homogeneity overlook the very different ways in which students from a similar (middle class) location come to understand the HE sector. It also suggests that while families have a strong influence on young people's conceptualisation of the sector, friends and peers play an important role in informing decisions about what constitutes a 'feasible' choice. Indeed, this paper shows how rankings within friendship groups were, in many cases, transposed directly onto a hierarchy of HE institutions and courses. On the basis of this evidence, it concludes that a two-step interaction between family and friends best explains the decisionmaking processes in which these young people were engaged.2

AcknowledgementsThis research was funded by the British Academy Larger Research Grants Scheme (2007)(2008). The authors would like sincerely to thank Helena Wilson for her help with the collection of data and Sandra Mather, at the University of Liverpool, who created the maps used here. We would also like to thank the 85 respondents who were interviewed as part of the project, and participants at workshop on Student Mobilities held at the University of

This paper draws upon the findings of a recent project examining the motivations of UK students seeking higher education overseas, to argue that notions of fun, enjoyment and the pursuit of happiness abroad featured strongly in young people's stories. Several students wanted to escape the UK, particularly the rigidity of British higher education; the perceived flexibility of a liberal arts education in North America was extremely appealing. Others saw education overseas as a chance for personal reinvention. In contrast to recent media, academic and policy accounts, which have forcefully stressed the negative effects of education-related pressures upon young people, in this paper, we argue that it is possible to see 'education' as offering up new possibilities for fun and excitement. Our research shows that, for many British students, the strategic accumulation of cultural capital was not a primary concern. Rather, perceptions of an international education were closely tied to the anticipation of excitement, fun, adventure, and escape. 2Youthful escapes: British students, overseas education and the pursuit of happiness

A common theme within the literature on higher education is the congested nature of the graduate labour market. Researchers have highlighted the lengths to which many students now go, in response to this congestion, to ‘distinguish themselves’ from other graduates: paying increased attention to university status; engaging in a range of extra‐curricular activities; and pursuing postgraduate qualifications. Studies that have focused on the strategies of Asian students, specifically, have pointed to the important place of studying abroad as a further strategy in this pursuit of distinction. Given that there is now some evidence that the number of UK students enrolling on a degree programme overseas is increasing, this article explores the extent to which an overseas education can be seen as part of a broader strategy on the part of British students to seek distinction within the labour market and whether such an education does indeed offer tangible employment benefits.