International and Intra‐national Student Mobility: Trends, Motivations and Identity

Abstract

This paper provides a critical review and discussion of the literature on intra‐national and international student mobility. Although student mobility is gaining attention from social geographers, much research is still needed to address the complex and diverse geographies of student mobility. The literature indicates that current trends in mobility within higher education in the UK challenge traditional assumptions of student mobility. Although there is a growing trend of ‘immobility’ among students in the UK, international student mobility is on the rise globally. This paper will focus primarily on international student mobility and will discuss trends, motivations and student identities. The current body of work on student mobility focuses on mobilities within, and to, the Western world with an absence of work on mobilities from the North to the Global South. I suggest that future research should explore student mobilities to the developing world as well as the impact of place and mobility on students' personal, national and global identities.

Geographies of purpose built student accommodation: Exclusivity, precarity and (im)mobility

“…“Student geographies” has emerged as an internationally pertinent body of work (Smith, 2009) and has been the focus of previous papers within this journal (see Holton & Riley, 2013; Nakazawa, 2017; Prazeres, 2013; Russo & Tatjer, 2007; Waters, 2012). Central to much work on student geographies is student accommodation, an area that has attracted increasing scholarly interest over the last 15–20 years.…”

Spatial structures of student mobility: Social, economic and ethnic ‘geometries of power'

“…There is work on the flows of students across geographic localities and countries, both inter nationally and intra nationally, which has picked apart the extent and nature of these movements. There is a large body of work on the international flows of students; outward from particular regions, such as Europe and East Asia; and more global in scale (Christie, ; Findlay, King, Smith, Geddes, & Skeldon, ; Holdsworth, ; Prazeres, ). In the UK context, research on the outward international movements of UK students has evidenced links between international student mobility and the reproduction of social class advantage (Brooks & Waters, ; Holloway, O'hara, & Pimlott‐Wilson, ; Waters & Brooks, ).…”

Disability, special educational needs, class, capitals, and segregation in schools: A population geography perspective

“…These processes are socio‐spatially constituted and intersect with other “axes of power,” including class and capitals, in school spaces. As a key institution of social reproduction, population patterns and processes of schools have resonance for population geographers; nonetheless, increasing critical interest in geographies of and in schools (Collins & Coleman, ; Holloway, Hubbard, Jöns, & Pimlott‐Wilson, ; Nguyen, Cohen, & Huff, ) has not fully filtered into population geographies, although studies of mobility and migration for education have (Prazeres, ; Smith, Rérat, & Sage, ; Waters, ).…”