Education Abroad

Bridging Scholarship and Practice

Anthony C. Ogden, Bernhard Streitwieser, Christof Van Mol, Anthony C. Ogden, Bernhard Streitwieser, Christof Van Mol

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138364288
• eBook ISBN: 9780429776052
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Recent decades have seen unprecedented growth in the number of students travelling abroad for the purpose of short-term academic study. As such, attention is turning to the role that education abroad can have in enhancing student learning and producing global-ready graduates. This volume provides a succinct and accessible analysis of the existing research and scholarship around the world on a range of important areas related to contemporary education abroad, providing practitioners with important implications for programming and practice.

Focusing on fourteen key topics relating to education abroad, this accessible desktop compendium not only synthesizes what is already known, but also indicates which topics need further research and how the existing literature can be applied to daily programming and practice. Extending beyond student learning outcomes to look at essential topics such as institutional outcomes, program models, and host community outcomes, this volume covers major trends in contemporary research as well as an assessment of the methodological and design challenges that are common to education abroad research. The fourteen distinct topics address the broad themes of participation, programming, student outcomes, institutional outcomes and societal outcomes, and include chapters from a broad range of widely acknowledged and respected international experts.

Bridging the gap between scholarship and practice, this accessible guide is essential reading for anyone working in higher education today and involved in shaping and managing education abroad programs. It is useful for all who want to understand and leverage existing research to inform education abroad programming and practice.

Part 1

Participation

Globally, there is a dominant discourse among policy makers and in international offices focusing on an increase in the absolute numbers of students who participate in education abroad. Such discourses are often informed by ideas that education abroad provides higher education students with skills and competences that are necessary to be competitive in global knowledge economies. As a consequence, across the world ambitious benchmarks are put forward, at the supranational level (e.g., the European Union, which has a benchmark of 20% of all graduates in EU countries to have experienced short-term or full-degree mobility by 2020 (Council of the European Union, 2011)), the national and regional level (e.g., Flanders in Belgium, with a 33% benchmark of all graduates by 2020 (Vlaamse Regering, 2013)) and the institutional level (e.g., 50% of all graduates at the University of Sydney). However, if these benchmarks are to be met, a first and essential step is to get insight into why higher education students move abroad and what makes them decide to do so.

Similarly, there is increasing attention among policymakers to the inclusion of students from disadvantaged groups in education abroad. Examples include Proyecta 100,000 in Mexico and Generation Study Abroad in the United States, as well as recent discussions about promoting the participation of students from disadvantaged groups in the Erasmus+ Programme in Europe. Indeed, many studies across the world indicate how education abroad is a selective process, which might increase or sustain existing social inequalities (e.g., Netz and Finger, 2016, Salisbury et al., 2009). As such, besides gaining a better insight into the education abroad decision-making process, it is also essential to grasp how social markers influence the mobility process. The two chapters in this section of the volume specifically address these two issues.

In Chapter 1, Rachel Brooks and Johanna Waters focus on the decision-making process and how this process is embedded within micro-, meso- and macro-level structures, including students’ individual characteristics, attitudes, dispositions and interests, higher education institutions and the wider economic and political contexts in which higher education students are situated. Importantly, the chapter underlines that although education abroad is often conceptualized as a “free” choice for students, the individual agency of students is significantly constrained and enabled by their surrounding environments. Depending on the specific contexts in which higher education students are situated, participation in education abroad may or may not be available as an option.

The second chapter then dives deeper into different axes of inequality in education abroad programs. Nicolai Netz, Daniel Klasik, Steve R. Entrich, and Michelle Barker clearly show that – across the world – students who participate in education abroad are most likely young, female, from the ethnic majority population and from higher socio-economic backgrounds. As such, they point to the role that selectivity plays in education abroad, an issue that is also important when assessing the outcomes of education abroad (see Part III of this volume). Their chapter clearly highlights the need to establish policies that address these inequalities in participation, since the current situation tends to increase or at least reproduce existing inequalities.

Together, both chapters highlight the need for research and practice to go beyond individual motivations when analyzing the determinants of education abroad or designing education abroad programs. They clearly indicate that we cannot fully understand education abroad, or adequately design education abroad programs, without taking into account the embeddedness of education abroad decisions within wider contexts or existing social inequalities.

References

Council of the European Union (2011). “Council conclusions on a benchmark for learning mobility.” Official Journal of the European Union, 2011/C 372/08.

Netz, N., & Finger, C. (2016). “New horizontal inequalities in German higher education? Social selectivity of studying abroad between 1991 and 2012.” Sociology of Education, 89 (2), 79–98. doi:10.1177/0038040715627196

Salisbury, M. H., Umbach, P. D., Paulsen, M. B., & Pascarella, E. T. (2009). “Going global: Understanding the choice process of the intent to study abroad.” Research in Higher Education, 50(2), 119–143.

Vlaamse Regering (2013). Brains on the Move. actieplan mobiliteit. Brussels: Departement Onderwijs en Vorming.

Chapter 1

Decision-making

Spatio-temporal contexts of decision-making in education abroad

Rachel Brooks and Johanna Waters

Highlights:

• A decision to study abroad is rarely an individual one; instead it is usually strongly influenced by the surrounding social context.
• Decisions are typically influenced by students’ social characteristics, particularly their social class.
• The institutional setting and wider economic and political context can also often have an important bearing on decisions whether to study abroad at all and, for those who do go, their destination.

1.0 Introduction and chapter overview

On University College London’s education abroad pages, students and staff are able to view the ‘vlogs’ of those who have returned from a short period (a term to a year) overseas, as part of their ‘British’ undergraduate degree programme. From Japan to Sweden, Singapore to Australia, a range of destination countries and ‘equivalent’ institutions are available to students wanting to experience some time living and studying in another country. The institution is able to convert, on students’ return, the courses they took overseas into ‘credit’ for their British degree course. The students are effusive in their tales of excitement, fun, love and culture shock, captured in the vlogs. When difficulties arose, they were overcome, and the students emerged stronger and better able to cope with the world as a result. And yet, under a third of the college’s total undergraduate student body (29.3% for 2017/2018) actually take this opportunity (open to all students with the necessary academic grades). This specific vignette leads us to ponder some interesting questions about the decision-making process underpinning education abroad.¹

An increasing number of students within the European Union and more widely are being given the opportunity, as part of a higher education degree programme, to study for a period (usually between one term and one year) abroad (Seal, 2018; Sidhu and Dall’Alba, 2017). These programmes include Erasmus, summer schools, ‘study China’ programmes and international volunteering partnerships arranged through home universities. These trends necessarily prompt various intellectually driven questions about the decision for education abroad, and how it is realised. From the perspective of some students, in many ways, the decision may seem like no decision at all – the opportunity to spend some time overseas in an institution of roughly equal global standing, with often subsidised fees and living costs, seems too good to be true. However, it is clear that this ostensibly individual, individualised ‘decision’ represents, inter-alia, a longer (socialisation) process and a wider (social, political and institutional) context than the individual student (Brooks and Waters, 2011). As reflected upon by McCormack and Schwanen (2011):

Despite the ease with which decisive moments can be identified and accounted for retrospectively, the decision remains a spectral event, difficult to pin down or isolate as a bounded moment. Equally, while often assumed to be taken by an individual, the decision is not so easily located within the limits of a self-contained, sovereign subject, emerging instead as a distributed, relational process … In this context it becomes all the more important to address the question of where, when, and how decision-making takes place and the practices and techniques that aim to facilitate this process towards different political and ethical ends. Equally importantly, it becomes imperative to examine how practices of decision-making are implicated in space-times–that is, to examine how decision-making takes place in particular spatio-temporal contexts … (McCormack and Schwanen, 2011, pp. 2801–2802)

This chapter focuses on the particular spatio-temporal contexts of decision-making around education abroad. It considers decisions students make about whether or not to engage in short-term international mobility and also, for those who do decide to study abroad, how they choose a country and institution. Reflecting the biases inherent in wider literature on which it draws,² the chapter focuses largely, although not exclusively, on migration to the Global North and to Anglophone nations in particular.

2. Key questions to be addressed

There are many theories of decision-making that have informed work on international student mobility, such as: ‘rational choice theory’ (e.g. Lörz, Netz and Quast, 2016), ‘expectancy theory’ (Sánchez, Fornerino & Zhang, 2006), and the ‘theory of planned behaviour’ (e.g. Presley, Damron-Martinez and Zhang, 2010). These studies show that decision-making is not an unfettered process – an exercise in free will and agency – but, rather, it is embedded within pre-existing societal structures underpinned by fundamental inequalities (Brooks and Waters, 2011). In other words, the importance of the socio-economic context is highlighted in all of these studies. It is this context to decision-making in international student mobility that shall be the focus here, drawing in particular upon Bourdieu’s theories of capital, which encompasses the notion of ‘habitus’ (a form of socialisation) – a fundamental determinant of decision-making amongst young people.

Students are shaped by their social class and family background and gender, amongst other factors (Brooks and Waters, 2011). Students’ attitudes towards education and travel clearly influence the decision to study abroad, but these attitudes are themselves the product of a familial habitus and a particular milieu. Furthermore, higher education institutions (HEIs) both direct and enable education abroad to a large extent, marketing particular destinations, and providing practical support (necessary ‘support structures’) to students. And then there is the essential wider economic and political context to study, including the role played by national and supranational organisations. Consequently, this chapter draws upon the extant academic literature and debates around student mobilities and higher education internationalisation to discuss ‘decision-making’ relating to education abroad in the fullest possible way. The following key questions are posed and at least partially answered:

• How do students’ social characteristics impact decision-making relating to education abroad?
• How are students’ attitudes towards education abroad formed?
• What is the role played by HEIs in enabling and directing education abroad?
• How does the wider economic and political context direct decision-making around short-term educational mobilities?

These questions provide a frame through which to understand that decision-making is rarely an individualised process and is, instead, often strongly influenced by the particular social contexts. The next section of the chapter provides a synthesis of the global literature on education abroad decision-making.

3. Review of the literature

3.1 Students’ social characteristics

Extant research has provided clear evidence of the significant impact a student’s social class and family background can have on a decision to move abroad for part of a degree programme. Within Europe, for example, this has been noted with respect to the ‘Erasmus’ scheme, in which students from more affluent backgrounds have tended to be over-represented (Findlay et al., 2006; Lörz et al., 2016; Bahna, 2018). Studies of short-term mobility among Chinese students have also emphasised the importance of family background. Those interviewed as part of Hansen’s (2015) research in Denmark were all middle class and reliant on financial support from their families. Many have theorised such influences in terms of Bourdieu’s ‘capitals’, noting the influence exerted by economic capital (e.g., through having enough money to be able to afford flights to and from the destination country, for example, or expensive accommodation), cultural capital (e.g. a familiarity with other cultures and previous experience of international travel that can help reduce the anxiety of studying abroad), and social capital (such as links to others, particularly friends and peers, who have spent time abroad, who can offer advice and also reduce the ‘fear of the unknown’) (see, for example, Bahna, 2018). Research from the US has also highlighted the impact of students’ social networks on a decision to embark on education abroad schemes (Luo and Jamieson-Drake, 2015). Moreover, scholars have argued that the deployment of these capitals is linked to a broader process of social reproduction, whereby more privileged groups in society use their advantages (the capitals outlined above) to access education abroad opportunities, in the belief that they will help to secure ‘distinction’ post-graduation, particularly when students are entering the labour market (Murphy-Lejeune, 2003; Bahna, 2018; King, 2018). Here, there are strong similarities with studies that have shown how ‘diploma mobility’ (i.e. moving abroad for the whole of a degree) is often motivated by an equivalent desire to secure distinction (Prazeres et al., 2017).

However, the literature also provides examples of how these patterns can, in some cases, be disrupted. For example, practical and emotional support and encouragement offered by families can have a significant influence on decisions, but is not always obviously related to the possession of particular capitals (Seal, 2018). It also suggests that some decisions are not ‘strategic’ in this way, and prioritise travel, enjoyment and new experiences instead (Seal, 2018). Seal’s (2018) work shows how educational institutions can increase participation in mobility schemes among traditionally under-represented groups – by, for example, giving them easy access to peers who have successfully completed a period overseas previously, and providing extensive information and support to those who show an initial interest. Moreover, Deakin (2014) has argued that the introduction of paid work placements as part of the Erasmus mobility scheme had a notable effect in widening access, particularly among those from low income families. The clear implication of this analysis is that students from less affluent families are not necessarily deterred by the idea of living abroad per se, but by the anticipated financial outlay of such a move. The literature provides examples of a small number of cases where institutions have sought to address some ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• About the editors
• About the editors
• Foreword to the series Internationalization in Higher Education
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary
• Framing education abroad within an international context: A note on terminology
• Introduction and brief overview of research in education abroad
• PART 1: Participation
• PART 2: Programming
• PART 3: Student outcomes
• PART 4: Institutional outcomes
• PART 5: Societal outcomes
• Conclusion: Future directions and scholarship
• Index