This book explores questions around the meaning and significance of international student migration. Framed in relation to the mobilities – and immobilities – of international students, the book highlights various key themes emerging from the rich interdisciplinary scholarship in this area, including socio-economic diversification in mobile students, the differential value of international higher education, and citizenship and state-building projects. It also discusses the importance of considering ethics in relation to student migrants. This pioneering book will be of interest and value to scholars of student mobilities and the international student experience more widely, as well as practitioners and policy makers.

This book explores questions around the meaning and significance of international student migration. Framed in relation to the mobilities – and immobilities – of international students, the book highlights various key themes emerging from the rich interdisciplinary scholarship in this area, including socio-economic diversification in mobile students, the differential value of international higher education, and citizenship and state-building projects. It also discusses the importance of considering ethics in relation to student migrants. This pioneering book will be of interest and value to scholars of student mobilities and the international student experience more widely, as well as practitioners and policy makers.

This book develops a comprehensive understanding of the motivations and experiences of students who choose to study abroad for the whole or part of a degree. It includes case studies of students from East Asia, Europe and the UK, and considers the implications of their movement for contemporary higher education.

This book examines an emergent pattern of international student mobility: that of international students from across the African continent who are enrolled on degree programmes at Chinese universities. China is among the most popular destination countries for African students, yet there has been little research to-date into this emergent mobility pattern. Drawing on data from a series of interviews, the book focuses on the specific modalities of integration into the global economy of both the sending region and the host country, and examines how these shape the decision-making, experiences, and future aspirations of mobile students. It also highlights how incipient flows of international student migrants, such as those between various African countries and China, are calling into question a number of the axioms around the study of international study mobility that were developed with reference to more established migration patterns, which tend to flow from other regions to the West. These include, for example, the idea that international students are generally privileged members of the global middle class who seek an education abroad as part of a strategy to accumulate cultural capital and reproduce social privilege. This novel work is of interest to researchers in human geography, sociology, development studies, migration studies, and particularly those studying China-Africa relations.

This book explores European student migration from the perspectives of Eastern European students moving to Western Europe for study. Whilst most research on student migration in Europe focuses on the experiences of Western European students, this book uniquely casts a light on Eastern European student migrants moving to the 'West'. Mette Ginnerskov-Dahlberg deploys a novel approach to the subject by drawing on insights gleaned from a longitudinal study of master's students pursuing an education abroad and their multifaceted journeys after graduation. Thereby, she brings their narratives to life and highlights the changes and continuities they experienced over a period of seven years, fostering an understanding of student mobility as an activity enmeshed with adult commitments and long-term aspirations. Using Denmark as a case study of a host country, Ginnerskov-Dahlberg analyses the trajectories of these students and situates their experiences within the wider socio-historical context of Eastern European post-socialism and the contemporary dynamics between EU and non-EU citizens in the welfare state of Denmark - reflecting issues playing out on the global stage today. This book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of migration and mobility studies, as well as human geography, sociology, higher education, area studies and anthropology.

How universities in the US and South Korea compete for global student markets—and how university financials shape students’ lives. The popular image of the international student in the American imagination is one of affluence, access, and privilege, but is that image accurate? In this provocative book, higher education scholar Stephanie Kim challenges this view, arguing that universities—not the students—allow students their international mobility. Focusing on universities in the US and South Korea that aggressively grew their student pools in the aftermath of the Great Recession, Kim shows the lengths universities will go to expand enrollments as they draw from the same pool of top South Korean students. Kim closely follows several students attending a university in Berkeley and a university in Seoul. They have chosen different paths to study abroad or learn at home, but all are seeking a transformative educational experience. To show how student mobility depends on institutional structures, Kim demonstrates how the universities themselves compel students’ choices to pursue higher learning at one institution or another. She also profiles the people who help ensure the global student supply chain runs smoothly, from education agents in South Korea to community college recruiters in California. Using ethnographic research gathered over a ten-year period in which international admissions were impacted by the Great Recession, changes in US presidential administrations, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Constructing Student Mobility provides crucial insights into the purpose, effects, and future of student recruitment across the Pacific.