Student mobility plays a major role in contemporary higher education at educational, policy and research levels.
The millions of students on the move worldwide has sparked interest in the academic, demographic, psychological and socio-cultural variables that characterise student mobility in higher education, bringing about a plethora of publications, resources and professional forums. However, this host of new publications has not been accompanied by appropriate theorisation of student mobility as an area of study and professional practice. This is particularly notable in European higher education.
Given this backdrop, this chapter outlines the conceptual lenses for approaching student mobility comprehensively from a theoretical standpoint. To this end, I propose a fourfold conceptual diagram to account for the variables characterising student mobility in European post-secondary education. This conceptual diagram is organised into four macro descriptors which also correspond to the chapter sections: (1) Learning domains abroad, (2) Variables informing study abroad, (3) Global student dynamics and higher education internationalisation and (4) Long-term impact of study abroad. Each descriptor unfolds into variables or research foci that build from a range of disciples and subject areas to produce an interdisciplinary account of student mobility in European higher education. Summary vignettes will be provided across chapter sections to systematise the variables informing the conceptual descriptors.
To conclude, a summary of the main key points is provided. This is followed by a number of reflective questions and/or points that will help readers apply the chapter ideas to their own contexts and review their work or professional practice (see Box 1.6).
Student mobility: a kaleidoscope of different images
Like a kaleidoscope that produces multiple images by means of mirrors reflecting constantly changing patterns, student mobility calls for multiple perspectives.
The different modalities of student mobility and the complexity of the study abroad experience requires transcending the limits of disciplinary boundaries and normative reasoning through a wide-angle lens that captures the polymorphous nature of this phenomenon. Not that disciplinary boundaries are unimportant, but they may confine how wide our reading lens is.
In this book I make the case that while the ideologies shaping disciplinary discourses and knowledge presentation are a prerequisite for examining social phenomena, they may as well restrict the cross-fertilisation of perspectives, theories and ideas. One of the major goals of this book is to develop an awareness of the multifarious disciplines and theories informing knowledge about student mobility. Ultimately, I seek to show to the reader how and why such interconnectedness should become part of an expanded agenda for theorising student mobility.
Although the call that I advocate here is not exactly new, it is generally forgotten in specialised publications about the internationalisation of higher education, in general, and student mobility, in particular. From a research standpoint, throughout the two past decades or so scholars from different scientific fields and geographical contexts stressed the need to theorise and/or approach academic mobility (student and staff) from different perspectives (e.g., Barber, Altbach, & Myers, 1984; Byram & Dervin, 2008; Murphy-Lejeune, 2002, 2008; Streitwieser, 2012; Teichler, 1996; Wächter, Lam, & Ferencz, 2012; Whalen, 2012). And yet, the question of how student mobility can be analysed more comprehensively remains to be answered. The present chapter aims to provide sustained responses to this question while the chapters in the second part of the book offer practical applications of this interdisciplinary approach. To this end, I now lay the conceptual foundations for understanding student mobility comprehensively, turning to its educational and methodological underpinnings in Chapters 2 and 3, respectively. Before laying the conceptual groundwork, another few words of contextualisation are needed.
In the Western world, the demand to understand student mobility in collaborative and multi-modal ways has been emphasised at either side of the Atlantic. From a North American–based perspective, in 1984, Barber and colleagues called upon practitioners, policy-makers and academic researchers to combine forces in examining foreign study and its ramifications in more complex ways. More recently, in Canada, Larsen (2016) proposed a theoretical framework based on spatial, network and mobilities theories to shift from a linear account of higher education internationalisation to a multi-centred one. This analytical shift underlines the spatial and relational dimension of student mobility. Similarly, in Europe, Van Mol (2014) employed a systems approach theory (of migration) to provide a relational understanding of the nexus between social context and individual agency in intra-European student mobility.
Earlier, in Europe, Teichler (1996) voiced the urge for systematic research on the international dimension of higher education and academic mobility. Twelve years later, the interculturalists Michael Byram and Fred Dervin edited two volumes to develop a more focused field of study concerned with student and staff mobility (Byram & Dervin, 2008; Dervin & Byram, 2008). In the former book, Murphy-Lejeune’s (2008) chapter argues that student mobility is a transdisciplinary domain where different disciplinary voices may be heard. She exemplifies with ‘voices’ from sociology, international politics, economics and social anthropology; that is, the first generation of studies (in the 1990s) about student mobility in European higher education.
In 2012, the monograph series of the Academic Cooperation Association, in Brussels, released a book (Wächter et al., 2012) underscoring the need to avoid a ‘single-issue view’ of international higher education by tying together academic mobility, excellence, social inclusion and funding. In that same year, Streitwieser (2012) edited a special issue, in the Journal of Research in Comparative and International Education, warranting more articulation between international and comparative education to approach global student mobility in theoretical and empirically sound ways. In this same issue, the founding editor of the first academic journal on study abroad (Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad) called for more scholarly analyses of education abroad to advance the field (see Whalen, 2012).
While international education matters and study abroad are active areas of professional practice and research inquiry, its knowledge base is scattered among a bewildering plethora of specialised and non-specialised resources. An overview of specialised resources is provided in Box 1.1.
Inquiries about student mobility can also be found in non-specialised outlets, includi...
