Abstract:Research on international students' post-study plans centres on factors influencing migration and career decisions. However, few studies have considered the impacts of individual institutions on students' aspirations and their subsequent transitions after graduation. In this paper, I employ the notion of institutional habitus in order to explore the extent to which higher education institutions expand or limit the range of options that international students could envisage or realise. Drawing on semi-structure… Show more
“…In the Netherlands, the environment was described overall as very international, open, and inclusive of foreigners. Some participants mentioned that although they or other colleagues from the Global North do not face substantial cultural problems or barriers, their colleagues from the Global South do (Lee, 2021). Although they did not specify these problems, our interviewees used their ‘non‐Western’ colleagues as a counterexample to their own situation, which is perceived as less difficult, indicating a certain ‘Western’ privilege that goes beyond being a citizen of an EU member state (Lan, 2011).…”
Section: Findings: Places and Mechanisms Of Belonging And Exclusionmentioning
Intra‐EU doctoral migrants are doubly privileged: as EU citizens they enjoy free movement rights and as academics their intra‐EU mobility is promoted by the EU's measures to establish a European Research Area. This paper takes a closer look at these favourable conditions by examining intra‐EU mobile doctoral academics in different places. To understand the experiences of migrating into academic spheres abroad and being on the threshold of entering the academic workforce, our theoretical approach brings together theories of distinctive practices resulting in exclusion and theories of belonging. We consider the knowledge resources, including language abilities, that are required for the doctoral migrants' inclusion in the academic workforce abroad by using a comparative view on places. Our empirical analysis focuses on graduates in the social sciences and humanities who moved from Germany to France or the Netherlands during their educational trajectories. Suggesting a place‐based comparative approach, we contribute to the debates about barriers to intra‐EU academic migration. We explain (i) place‐specific obstacles due to differing understandings of ‘appropriate’ knowledge and language abilities in higher education that affect social and academic life and (ii) how these barriers result in the doctoral migrants being in‐ and excluded in academic environments abroad.
“…In the Netherlands, the environment was described overall as very international, open, and inclusive of foreigners. Some participants mentioned that although they or other colleagues from the Global North do not face substantial cultural problems or barriers, their colleagues from the Global South do (Lee, 2021). Although they did not specify these problems, our interviewees used their ‘non‐Western’ colleagues as a counterexample to their own situation, which is perceived as less difficult, indicating a certain ‘Western’ privilege that goes beyond being a citizen of an EU member state (Lan, 2011).…”
Section: Findings: Places and Mechanisms Of Belonging And Exclusionmentioning
Intra‐EU doctoral migrants are doubly privileged: as EU citizens they enjoy free movement rights and as academics their intra‐EU mobility is promoted by the EU's measures to establish a European Research Area. This paper takes a closer look at these favourable conditions by examining intra‐EU mobile doctoral academics in different places. To understand the experiences of migrating into academic spheres abroad and being on the threshold of entering the academic workforce, our theoretical approach brings together theories of distinctive practices resulting in exclusion and theories of belonging. We consider the knowledge resources, including language abilities, that are required for the doctoral migrants' inclusion in the academic workforce abroad by using a comparative view on places. Our empirical analysis focuses on graduates in the social sciences and humanities who moved from Germany to France or the Netherlands during their educational trajectories. Suggesting a place‐based comparative approach, we contribute to the debates about barriers to intra‐EU academic migration. We explain (i) place‐specific obstacles due to differing understandings of ‘appropriate’ knowledge and language abilities in higher education that affect social and academic life and (ii) how these barriers result in the doctoral migrants being in‐ and excluded in academic environments abroad.
“…For instance, Tan and Hugo's (2017) study of Chinese and Indian students in Australia emphasized the significance of attractive immigration policies in influencing international students' poststudy mobility aspirations. Lee's (2021) study shed light on the significant role that universities play in shaping international postgraduate students' perceptions and experiences of future possibilities. Others may break the stay/return binary by moving to another country after graduation.…”
Section: Education‐migration Nexus and Lifestyle Mobilitiesmentioning
This study challenges the assumption that international students from the Global South migrate to advanced Western economies primarily for economic gain and social distinction. Through temporally focused interviews with Chinese student switchers in the United Kingdom, that is, migrants who moved from China for university and remain working in situ after graduation, we examine how lifestyle factors may come into play in evoking and accommodating (im)mobilities. Our findings reveal how participants' experiences before, during and after international education are narrated as an entanglement of affective and rational concerns. We highlight how their migration decisions are driven by the search for a desired lifestyle that features work–life balance and a perceived release from a work‐oriented and socially pressurized life in China. Yet, their final emplacement remains an open question due to familial responsibilities in China and Chinese citizenship regulations. The study provides an original conceptual amalgamation of student migration and lifestyle mobility, and sheds further light on the importance of life courses in international student migration literature and lifestyle mobility studies.
“…In terms of financial barriers, in addition to the costs outlined above, they also point out that many students work during the summer months to support their studies, and this is when many study abroad schemes take place, thus excluding those individuals who are, out of necessity, engaged in employment. ‘Habitus’ (after Bourdieu, 1984) has been shown to be important in the wider literature on student mobility, impacting the likelihood that an individual will undertake study abroad (e.g., Lee, 2021; Xu, 2017). As Simon and Ainsworth (2012) write:‘… high socioeconomic status parents possess the habitus that is most likely to encourage study abroad.…”
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.
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