This volume investigates how international students in and from the Middle East are constructed by nations, institutions, other students, and themselves. Making a valuable contribution to understanding the nuances and complexities of educational politics and priorities affecting these constructions, the text considers the broader impacts of discourse on internationalisation. Offering a unique combination of critical analysis of educational policies combined with empirical contributions through authors’ own research, chapters highlight intersections between politics, the internationalisation of higher education, and the construction of mobile learners. Emphasising variation and nuance in the internationalisation of policies in the Gulf Cooperation Countries, and other Middle Eastern countries, the volume offers a theoretical framework to help understand the political, educational, and ethical implications of emerging constructions of international students and their comparison across the Middle East. This timely volume will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in higher education, international and comparative education, as well as the Middle East more specifically. Those involved with educational education policy and politics, specifically related to the Middle East, will also benefit from this volume.

This multidisciplinary volume highlights the transformed nature of the relationship between higher education and society in the 21st century. In particular, it argues that the development of the global university, especially in the non-western world, has transformed the traditional understanding of the relationship between higher education and society. This has important implications for the relations of state, as education has not only become an object of national development policy but for many states an important export. The history of the university reflects the decisive social transformations which have given definition and identity to both new nations and modern societies. In the post-war period, universities in the industrialized world underwent a radical shift. The mass expansion of higher education ensured that universities were no longer centers designed to train youth to assume the leadership positions held by previous generations. Instead universities were to become centers where job skills could be imparted and knowledge produced, refined and used in the newly emerging Cold War economies, and where students could develop the skills necessary for employment in a changing world. Rather than focusing on the refinement of future leaders, the task of the university became linked to the development of economically exploitable technical knowledge. A shift of comparable magnitude is now ongoing in the nature of higher education itself. Globalization has led to the growth of knowledge communities around the world, mirroring the rise of centers for global finance in previous decades. In the Middle East and Asia the demands of the knowledge-based economy have led to the opening of new indigenous universities and branch campuses and partnerships with established European and North American universities. Education City in Qatar, for instance, has received or been pledged more than 200 billion dollars since its inception. The growth of new indigenous universities has altered the traditional role of the university further, increasing the emphasis on courses which are close to the marketplace. These new partnerships have contributed to the creation of what is now referred to as the global university.

This book presents a comprehensive review of cross-border labor mobility from the ancient forms of slavery to the present day. The book covers African and Amerindian slaveries, indentured servitude of the Indians and the Chinese, guestworker programs, and contemporary labor migration focusing on the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf Region. The book highlights the economics and politics that condition such trends and patterns by addressing growing anti-immigrant sentiments, as well as restrictive measures in the developed world, and outlines inexorable forces that are likely to propel further expansion of cross-border mobility in the future. This multidisciplinary volume provides a highly dependable scholarly reference to researchers, students, academics as well as policy makers.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights endorsed in 1948 by member states of the United Nations continues to remain very much valid as it provides the solid foundation for most actions and activities that are aimed at guaranteeing the rights of everybody. The rights enunciated in the Declaration are comprehensive and two that are relevant to the content of this book are the right to education and the right to learn. The right to education and the right to learn are known to have been hotly debated by politicians, policy makers, and implementers. Sometimes, the rights in question here have found their way into political parties’ manifestoes, and advocates oftherighttoeducation andtherighttolearnhavebeenquicktobringintojudgment politicians who have not lived up to their promises. Even at that, many member states of the United Nations have taken steps to ensure that access to learning is jealously guarded. For education and lifelong learning remain among the primary forces that can guarantee individual, community and national development, as they had always been from time immemorial. Globally, there has been ample evidence of efforts made by governments to p- mote the widening of access to participation in learning activities. Even so, the literature on the subject of access and participation has not captured suf ciently what has happened across the world in terms of providing access outside national boundaries in the context of globalization and the rapid creation of the knowled- based economies of the 21st century.

Broad and imaginative, methodologically innovative and policy sharp, this book has much for government and university leaders, scholars of higher education and anyone interested in public policy.

Universities are inherently and definitionally universal in their quest for the creation and dissemination of knowledge. They are set to defy borders that exist in parochial forms. Globalization which opened up borders has by design or default created inequalities and imbalances in knowledge systems. Undoubtedly, knowledge is power but there is difference in the power that is intrinsic to it and the power that is ascribed which is determined by dominant political and economic hierarchies. If knowledge predominantly flows from global north to global south, people seeking knowledge move from global south to global north. These imbalances are also seen within these regions, between cultures and communities, one claiming superiority over the other. These realities call for a reassessment of not only what constitutes knowledge, but also what encompasses the idea of borders. This book elaborates on the inclusive role of education that can act as an equalizer or as a catalyst for creating a level playing field across borders. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

This book offers critical insights into the geographies of the international student higher education experience from initial recruitment, through to the plethora of personal factors which influence their decisions to become mobile and experiences when abroad. From the student perspective these include, but are not limited to, the importance of social networks, desire for a multicultural experience and the attraction to certain locations as discussed in this volume. However, unlike other work, it also reflects on the motivations of the HEIs themselves and their need to continue recruiting students in the face of greater competition from overseas. Recognising this omission, this book also analyses the resulting migration industries and how these are sustained (and even necessitated) by the sector. It is, therefore, the first to bring together these wider institutional narratives with those of the students resulting in a holistic and comprehensive insight into the student mobility process.