R Brooks
Biographic Data
| ID | 30458 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Brooks |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Brooks |
| SIGNATURE | BROOKS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Surrey |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8692-1673 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 99 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 714 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 99 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Language as agency in international student mobility
Language in international student mobility is often framed as a matter of proficiency, reducing complex experiences to deficits and overlooking the structural forces shaping higher education. This paper reframes the discussion by focusing on international students’ agency as it is exercised through language, examining how linguistic practices mediate their engagement with educational and transnational mobility. Drawing on qualitative data from an…
The European Universities initiative and international student mobility: Policy and student perspectives on an increasingly complex and uneven terrain
A key objective of the European Commission’s flagship European Universities Initiative (EUI) is the enhancement of international student mobility through the formation of transnational alliances between universities within Europe. Since its establishment, universities participating in EUI alliances have increased and broadened the scope of student mobility opportunities, transforming the existing mobility landscape and stretching the concept of m…
Student protests against Israeli action in Gaza: A cross-European analysis of newspaper representations
Research into student political activity across Europe has shown how the media can play a key role in shaping how such activity is framed. For example, newspapers have often focused on the violent nature of student protest, which has had the effect of diverting attention away from the specific concerns of students, and presenting students, rather than the issues that they were protesting about, as a threat to society. This article develops this a…
Foreword to the Special Issue
This piece is a Foreword to the Special Issue "Students on Screen"
Strengthening Europe from the ground up? Students’ perspectives on the European Universities Initiative
European higher education has long served as a key component for advancing Europeanisation, most recognisably through initiatives like Erasmus, the Bologna Process, and the creation of the European Higher Education Area. The European Universities Initiative (EUI), launched in 2019, builds on this trajectory by fostering transnational alliances of universities across Europe to deepen international cooperation in education, research, and innovation…
Institutional constraints to higher education datafication: An English case study
Strong claims are made by both higher education policymakers and institutional leaders about the advantages that can be brought about through ‘datafication’ (i.e. the quantification of human activities through digital means). Nevertheless, we know relatively little about how university cultures and processes may impinge on the rolling out of data practices, particularly in relation to administrative data (rather than that collected through learni…
Higher education actors’ responses to the Ukraine-Russia conflict: An analysis of geopolitical spatial imaginaries
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, on 24 th February 2022, was met with widespread condemnation across Europe, with many universities and higher education-focussed national and regional organisations issuing their own public statements about the invasion and subsequent conflict and, in some cases, taking specific action in relation to one or both of the countries.This article draws on an analysis of 55 such statements to examine what they reveal ab…
How does providing financial and practical support to young adult children impact upon their parents’ present-day lives and future plans
Family financial support of young adults has occupied growing scholarly attention over recent years yet remains disconnected from literature addressing the intensification of parenting, which focuses primarily on children. In this article we seek to connect these bodies of literature in order to consider how providing financial and practical support to young adult children affects their parents’ lives and future plans. We present the findings of …
The European Universities Initiative and European spatial imaginaries
The European Universities Initiative (EUI), launched in 2019, fosters the development of networks of universities across Europe with the aim of enabling students to obtain a degree by combining studies in several countries and strengthening collaboration in both teaching and research, and by extension, the international competitiveness of European universities. As well as constituting one of the European Commission’s most significant policies wit…
Global Britain and cosmopolitan nationalism
The term ‘Global Britain’ was widely used by the UK government between 2016 and 2021 to signal its ambition to reorient the nation’s foreign policy on departure from the European Union. There was, however, considerable uncertainty about what the term meant beyond this, with some commentators suggesting that it denoted a de-prioritising of relations with European nations, others arguing that it represented a reassertion of colonial perspectives, a…
Advancing Sociology of Education: A Personal Perspective on the Contribution of Sociological Research Online
Sociological Research Online has been a significant outlet for my own research, most of which is in the sociology of education, and has also furthered my own thinking in the sub-discipline by publishing a wide range of pioneering articles on different aspects of education and learning. Indeed, I have chosen to base this anniversary contribution around a selection of articles that have played a key role in my own intellectual journey - from my PhD…
Life Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance: The Complexities of Gender Patterning
Conventionally, issues connected to work-life balance have been thought to concern women more than men - not least through the promotion of a strongly gendered discourse about the imperative to become a 'balanced woman'. In this article, however, we draw on interview data from both men and women (in Australia, occupying broadly middle-class social positions) to show the complexities of gender patterning. Specifically, we demonstrate that the cult…
Paradoxical Parenting Practices and Australian Higher Education
While there is now a large literature on 'intensive parenting' practices, the majority of studies have focused on young children, rather than those in their early adulthood. This article draws on interviews with 30 Australian parents to explore parenting practices as they pertain to higher education. It argues that although parents tended to stress the importance of children achieving independence during their degree programmes, in other ways, th…
Students, community and belonging: An investigation of student experience across six European countries
Despite existing empirical work that explores the multiple ways in which students develop a sense of belonging in higher education, there is a dearth of comparative research about the extent to which the concepts of community and belonging are central to what it means to be a student and how students in different national contexts (beyond Anglophone countries) construct community and belonging. Drawing on qualitative data from students from six E…
International student mobility within Europe: Responding to contemporary challenges
In this article, we provide an introduction to the special issue on ‘Challenges to International Student Mobility within Europe’. We first discuss the current context of such mobility and justify our focus on Europe, in particular, by outlining some distinctive features of this geographical region. We then outline the contributions of the articles that make up the special issue—in terms of the challenges they identify, the ways in which they theo…
An analysis of the UK’s Turing Scheme as a response to socio-economic and geo-political challenges
Following its departure from the European Union in 2020, the UK left the Erasmus + student mobility scheme, replacing it with the ‘Turing Scheme’. The scheme is underpinned by four key objectives that address what the government sees as particular socio-economic and geo-political challenges: to promote ‘Global Britain’, through ‘forging new relationships across the world’; to ‘support social mobility and widen participation across the UK’; to dev…
Widening participation to sandwich courses: Temporal challenges
Within the UK, sandwich courses, i.e. degree programmes that include a year spent on a work placement, usually during the third year of a four-year course, are increasingly offered by higher education institutions to maximise the proportion of their graduates moving into employment and, particularly, jobs that are deemed ‘graduate-level’. Indeed, there is evidence of a strong positive correlation between participation in sandwich courses and empl…
The European Universities Initiative: Further stratification in the pursuit of European cooperation
The European Commission’s flagship European Universities Initiative (EUI) announced in 2017 laid out a novel regional approach to internationalisation by promoting the establishment of integrated transnational networks of universities, or alliances. Launched in consecutive pilot rounds, the EUI provided a fixed-sum grant to each alliance with the expectation that participating institutions and national governments co-fund their activities. Given …
The art of internationalisation: Unstrategic' dialogical cosmopolitanism within secondary schools in England
This paper explores English schools' engagement with 'internationalisation' in the context of funding cuts and a highly pressured audit culture. The broader literature suggests two reasons why schools might partake in 'internationalisation'. The first concerns the 'strategic cosmopolitan' – schools are complicit in facilitating cosmopolitanism amongst the pupil body so that young people may attain 'positional advantage' in a crowded international…
Nation-bounded internationalization of higher education: A comparative analysis of two periphery countries
Internationalization of higher education (IHE) has become one of the most prominent strategies in national policies and universities’ agendas during the past three decades. IHE provides numerous benefits to nations, institutions, and higher education stakeholders and plays a vital role in improving the quality of education and research. However, it is difficult to argue that all countries equally benefit from IHE; that is, power inequalities betw…
Higher education students as consumers: A cross-country comparative analysis of students’ views
The rapid expansion of neo-liberal regimes has effectively transformed how students – their role and purpose – are understood in society. Scholars, especially in the Anglophone North, have shown how dominant policy narratives tend to position students as consumers. More recent studies have begun to explore students’ views of this construction. However, much of this work focuses on a particular country; thus, how students’ opinions may vary across…
Higher Education Studies Today and for the Future: A UK Perspective
This article explores the state of higher education studies today, suggesting that in many ways it can be considered a vibrant field. In the UK, this is evidenced by the relatively large number of REF2021 submissions that had a higher education focus, and the emphasis higher education institutions are increasingly placing on conducting their own pedagogical research (in some respects, driven by market imperatives). In addition, the field has beco…
Caregiving fathers and the negotiation of crossroads: Journeys of continuity and change
This article addresses the sustainability of extensive paternal involvement in caregiving by applying a temporal approach to understandings of the journeys of primary- and equal-carer fathers and their families. Drawing on a second phase of interviews with UK fathers first spoken to 5 years earlier, we explore continuities and changes in their roles, identities and outlooks as their caregiving journeys progressed and their children became older. …
Students as consumers? The perspectives of students' union leaders across Europe
Various scholars have argued that higher education is becoming increasingly similar across Europe as a result of processes of marketisation and neo‐liberalisation, as well as the creation of a European Higher Education Area. While much of this body of work has focussed on governance, institutional structures and reforms related to teaching and learning, some have suggested that the subjectivities and perspectives of students have also altered—bec…
Partial, hierarchical and stratified space? Understanding ‘the international’ in studies of international student mobility
This paper analyses the way in which ‘international’ is mobilised in relation to international student mobility (ISM), focusing on three areas in particular: its role in motivating students to undertake ISM; how it shapes experiences of ISM; and, finally, how conceptions of the international influence the impacts of ISM (in terms of students’ identities and labour market outcomes – the dominant themes within the extant literature). It argues that…
Social networks and educational mobility: The experiences of UK students
A recurrent theme in the literature on transnational mobility – and particularly that pertaining to the young and/or highly skilled – is the individualised nature of such movement, as people move to take advantage of opportunities in an increasingly interdependent world. Drawing on research with 85 young adults who had moved overseas for their higher education, or were seriously contemplating doing so, this paper subjects this claim to critical s…
Youthful escapes? British students, overseas education and the pursuit of happiness
This paper draws upon the findings of a recent project examining the motivations of UK students seeking higher education overseas. We argue that notions of fun, enjoyment and the pursuit of happiness abroad featured strongly in young people's stories, in contrast to an emphasis in recent academic and media accounts on overt strategising around educational decision making. Several students wanted to escape the UK, particularly the rigidity of Brit…
Accidental achievers? International higher education, class reproduction and privilege in the experiences of UK students overseas
To date, scholarship on international students has generally focused on flows from non-western economies to the main English-speaking destination countries (such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia). In contrast, we draw on a qualitative study of 85 UK students who have either completed or are considering undertaking a degree programme overseas. We found that, in opposition to a common image of ‘international students’, UK stud…
A Second Chance at 'Success: UK Students and Global Circuits of Higher Education
While the literature on highly skilled international migration has grown substantially over recent years, the motivations and experiences of an important sub-group - the internationally mobile student - have remained under-researched. In an attempt to redress this gap, this article draws on in-depth interviews with 85 young adults, to explore the choices and motivations of UK students who choose to study abroad for the whole of an undergraduate o…
Young People's Higher Education Choices: The role of family and friends
Previous studies of higher education (HE) choice have tended to draw a strong contrast between the decisions made by young people from working-class backgrounds and those of their middle-class peers. This paper draws on a qualitative, longitudinal study to argue that such assumptions about social class homogeneity overlook the very different ways in which students from a similar (middle class) location come to understand the HE sector. It also su…
Vive la différence?’: The ‘international’ experiences of UK students overseas
As interest in the geographies of student mobilities grows, this paper examines the experiences of UK students overseas. More specifically, it considers the ‘international’ nature of their experiences, asking: to what extent do students actively seek out and encounter ‘cultural difference’ through their educational choices? International students are often described by those advocating the internationalisation of education as potential ‘global ci…
Higher education mobilities: A cross-national European comparison
Within the extant literature on patterns of mobility of European higher education students there is some recognition that these differ across geographical space – in relation to variations in national uptake of the European Union's Erasmus scheme, for example. However, strong similarities are also often identified – about the way in which mobility is desired by students, higher education institutions and national governments, and how this is stim…
The Hidden Internationalism of Elite English Schools
Analyses of UK higher education have provided compelling evidence of the way in which this sector has been affected by globalisation. There is now a large literature documenting the internationalisation of British universities, and the strategic and economic importance attached to attracting students from abroad. Within the schools sector, it has been argued that parents are increasingly concerned about the acquisition of valuable multicultural '…
The spaces of UK students' unions: Extending the Critical Geographies of the University Campus
This article seeks to further our knowledge of the university campus by focusing on one particular aspect of most UK campuses: the students' union. UK students' unions have rarely been the subject of scholarly attention, despite them now occupying an important place within the higher education landscape. Nevertheless, in this paper we draw on a UK-wide study of students' unions to explore, firstly, the role played by the buildings of the students…
Understanding the higher education student in Europe: A comparative analysis
Higher education is of considerable importance to policymakers across Europe. Indeed, it is viewed as a key mechanism for achieving a range of economic, social and political goals. Nevertheless, despite this prominence within policy, we have no clear understanding of the extent to which conceptualisations of ‘the student’ are shared across the continent. To start to redress this gap, this article explores four key aspects of contemporary higher e…
International education and the employability of UK students
A common theme within the literature on higher education is the congested nature of the graduate labour market. Researchers have highlighted the lengths to which many students now go, in response to this congestion, to ‘distinguish themselves’ from other graduates: paying increased attention to university status; engaging in a range of extra‐curricular activities; and pursuing postgraduate qualifications. Studies that have focused on the strategi…
The construction of higher education students within national policy: A cross-European comparison
It is often assumed within much of the academic literature and by many of those working in higher education that universities across Europe are homogenising, converging around an Anglo-American model as a result of neo-liberal pressures and the aim of creating a single European Higher Education Area. However, drawing on an analysis of 92 policy documents from six different European countries, this article demonstrates that enduring differences re…
Student-parents and higher education: A cross-national comparison
During its time in office, the UK’s Labour government gave a strong message that having caring responsibilities for a young child should not be seen as a barrier to engaging in education and training. Its widening participation strategy included a specific commitment to increasing the number of mature students in higher education (HE) – students who are more likely than their younger peers to have caring responsibilities for dependent children. F…
Post‐graduation reflections on the value of a degree
This article investigates the impact of a changing higher education system on young adults' priorities and motivations. A considerable number of studies have explored the impact of recent changes on patterns of participation within higher education. However, there has been less emphasis on how such changes have been played out in the experiences of graduates and, more specifically, in the interface between higher education and lifelong learning. …
The construction of higher education students in English policy documents
This article investigates the ways in which students are constructed in contemporary English higher education policy. First, it contends that, contrary to assumptions made in the academic literature, students are not conceptualised as ‘empowered consumers’; instead their vulnerability is emphasised by both government and unions. Second, it identifies other dominant discourses, namely that of ‘future worker’ and ‘hard-worker’. These articulate wit…
The magical operations of separation’: English elite schools’ on-line geographies, internationalisation and functional isolation
International/transnational spaces of education
Negotiating Time and Space for Study: Student-parents and Familial Relationships
Historically, university cultures have been described as masculine in orientation, and the 'ideal learner' as male, white, middle class and unencumbered by domestic responsibility. Nevertheless, more recent work has highlighted certain spaces within the higher education sector which, it is argued, are more welcoming of female students and those with family commitments. While there may now be more institutional spaces open to student-parents and o…
The prevalence of ‘life planning’: Evidence from UK graduates
At a time when ‘personal development planning’ is being rolled out across the UK higher education sector, this paper explores young adults’ inclinations to plan for the future in relation to work, relationships and other aspects of life. Although Giddens has emphasised the prevalence of strategic life planning (or the ‘colonisation of the future’) in all strata of contemporary society, du Bois Reymond has argued that there are important differenc…
The changing role of students’ unions within contemporary higher education
Despite profound changes to the higher education sector in the UK over recent years, which have tended to emphasise the role of prospective students as active choosers within a marketplace and encourage higher education institutions (HEIs) to place more emphasis on student engagement and representation as a means of improving the quality of the learning experience, the role of students’ unions has remained largely unexplored. To start to redress …
Young People's Extra-Curricular Activities: Critical Social Engagement - Or 'Something for the CV
The government has argued in various arenas that 'active citizenship' is one way in which young people can be effectively re-engaged with their communities, and with the political process more broadly. As part of this analysis, it has placed particular emphasis on the potential contribution of youth volunteering. However, many researchers have argued that such initiatives are essentially conservative, placing emphasis firstly on the skills and co…
Caregiving fathers and the negotiation of crossroads: Journeys of continuity and change
This article addresses the sustainability of extensive paternal involvement in caregiving by applying a temporal approach to understandings of the journeys of primary- and equal-carer fathers and their families. Drawing on a second phase of interviews with UK fathers first spoken to 5 years earlier, we explore continuities and changes in their roles, identities and outlooks as their caregiving journeys progressed and their children became older. …
Interchangeable parents? The roles and identities of primary and equal carer fathers of young children
Against the context of enduring gender inequalities in early years parental care, this article examines the experiences of UK fathers who had taken on primary or equal care responsibility for children aged three or under. Informed by qualitative interviews with 24 such fathers, the article explores a discourse of parental interchangeability that pervaded their accounts before outlining the ways that, in practice, most caregiving tasks did tend to…
Students’ unions, consumerism and the neo-liberal university
This article explores the economic relationships between individual students’ unions and their wider institutions, and the ways in which they articulate with a pervasive consumerist agenda across the higher education sector. We draw on data from a UK-wide study to argue that students’ unions have an ambivalent relationship with consumerist discourses: on the one hand, they often reject the premise that the higher education student is best concept…
Inequalities in students’ union leadership: The role of social networks
Drawing on a national survey of students’ union officers and staff, and a series of 24 focus groups involving both union officers and institutional senior managers, this article explores the characteristics of those who take up leadership roles in their (higher education) students’ union. We show that, in several areas – and particularly in relation to gender, ethnicity and age – union leaders do not represent well the diversity of the wider stud…
Transitional Friends? Young People's Strategies to Manage and Maintain their Friendships During a Period of Repositioning
This paper draws on a longitudinal study of higher education choices to suggest that, for many of the young people who took part in the research, engaging in the decision-making process with regards to higher education highlighted, often for the first time, important differences between friends. Differences in academic attainment, higher education institution and, for some, proposed course of study at higher education and future career were not s…
Predictive Model for Archeological and Historic Site Locations Within the Big Fossil Creek Drainage, Tarrant County, Texas
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Fort Worth District, is investigating the water resource problems, needs, and opportunities within the Big Fossil Creek drainage in Tarrant County, Texas. The effort focuses on describing existing conditions and identifying measures to minimize and control flood loss within a 48,396.8-acre area of the drainage north of the city of Fort Worth. Geo-Marine, Inc., of Plano, Texas, was contracted by the USACE …
Discussing higher education choices: Differences and difficulties
Social psychological studies have long emphasized the importance of openness, disclosure and the sharing of plans for the future to young people's friendships. Recently, similar claims have been made within sociology, but applied to friendships and other relationships practised at various points throughout the life-course. From both these perspectives, it would be expected that as young people come to make decisions about their post-18 destinatio…
Young People's Higher Education Choices: The role of family and friends
Previous studies of higher education (HE) choice have tended to draw a strong contrast between the decisions made by young people from working-class backgrounds and those of their middle-class peers. This paper draws on a qualitative, longitudinal study to argue that such assumptions about social class homogeneity overlook the very different ways in which students from a similar (middle class) location come to understand the HE sector. It also su…
My mum would be as pleased as punch if I actually went, but my dad seems a bit more particular about it’: Paternal involvement in young people's higher education choices
Research on parental involvement in educational ‘choice’, as well as in educational processes more generally, has highlighted clear disparities between the close and active involvement of mothers and the more distant role of fathers. While this article does not question the broad patterns identified by such studies, it does suggest that, in some circumstances at least, fathers are both able and willing to become closely involved in decision‐makin…
The construction of ‘age difference’ and the impact of age‐mixing within UK further education colleges
‘Age’ is an important social category used to define individuals and groups within our society and, often, to structure access to power, prestige and status. However, within educational research, age has been relatively neglected when compared with other social categories such as gender, class and ethnicity. In an attempt to begin to explore the impact of age within schools and colleges, this paper focuses on students' and teachers' experience of…
Learning and work in the lives of young adults
It is clear that for many young people the balance between learning, work and leisure has shifted considerably over recent decades. Many students now work throughout the whole of their post‐compulsory education, entering the labour market well before any higher education applications have been made, and continue to work throughout their time at university. In part, this may be driven by: young people’s desires to maintain a particular ‘consumer l…
Young Graduates and Lifelong Learning: The Impact of Institutional Stratification
The National Adult Learning Survey and the 1970 British Cohort Study have pointed to considerable differences by level of educational qualification in attitude to and participation in adult or 'lifelong' learning.They suggest that graduates are more likely than other groups to engage in adult learning, generally, and to be motivated to do so by the intrinsic interest of the subject matter. However, exploring the wider meaning attached to particip…
Transitions from education to work in the twenty‐first century
Friends, peers and higher education
Theorists of friendship in contemporary society have suggested that our relationships with peers are characterised by their emphasis on openness, disclosure and emotional communication. Moreover, Beck and Beck‐Gernsheim argue that friendship, as a deliberately sought, trusting partnership between two people, can play an important role in countering some of the negative consequences of a market‐driven society, ‘acting as a shared lifeline to take …
Young People's Extra-Curricular Activities: Critical Social Engagement - Or 'Something for the CV
The government has argued in various arenas that 'active citizenship' is one way in which young people can be effectively re-engaged with their communities, and with the political process more broadly. As part of this analysis, it has placed particular emphasis on the potential contribution of youth volunteering. However, many researchers have argued that such initiatives are essentially conservative, placing emphasis firstly on the skills and co…
Accessing Higher Education: The Influence of Cultural and Social Capital on University Choice
Over recent years, sociologists of education have paid increasing attention to the higher education sector. They have highlighted the ways in which, despite the significant expansion in the number of university places available in many countries across the world, access to and choices about higher education continue to be strongly influenced by social class. This article provides an overview of recent literature in this field and explores how sch…
New European Learners? An analysis of the ‘trendsetter’ thesis
This paper draws on life history interviews with young adults in the UK to consider Manuela du Bois-Reymond’s claims about the increasing prevalence of ‘trendsetter learners’ across Europe. Du Bois-Reymond has argued that certain groups of young adults are at the forefront of developing new forms of learning in response to what they perceive to be the failings of formal education namely the disjuncture between theory and practice within the educa…
The impact of higher education on lifelong learning
The UK’s National Adult Learning Survey has emphasised that graduates are more likely than other groups of people to engage in further learning and to be motivated by the intrinsic nature of the subject matter. However, beyond this we know relatively little about the learning of graduates as a specific group. In particular, we know very little about how experiences of higher education affect attitudes towards learning in the years after graduatio…
The prevalence of ‘life planning’: Evidence from UK graduates
At a time when ‘personal development planning’ is being rolled out across the UK higher education sector, this paper explores young adults’ inclinations to plan for the future in relation to work, relationships and other aspects of life. Although Giddens has emphasised the prevalence of strategic life planning (or the ‘colonisation of the future’) in all strata of contemporary society, du Bois Reymond has argued that there are important differenc…
Researching Young People's Lives
In the first half of the book, the authors consider the broad methodological and contextual concerns of relevance to the design and conduct of youth research, including ethical issues, the importance of context, and the rise of participatory approaches to youth research. The second part of the book focuses on the use of specific research methods in the conduct of youth research, ranging from surveys and secondary analysis through to interviewing,…
Young People and Political Participation: An Analysis of European Union Policies
There is now widespread recognition that, far from being politically apathetic, young people across Europe are engaged in a wide range of ‘political’ activities. While turnout at national and European elections among the 18-25 age group may be low, researchers have highlighted diverse and creative new forms of political participation. In relation to young women, in particular, Harris (2005) has presented a compelling analysis of the new ‘bordersp…
Young people and UK citizenship education: A gender analysis
A number of commentators have highlighted the potential of citizenship education to offer young people a radical critique of society. For example, Aapola et al. (2005) have argued that it can provide a forum for contesting gendered power relations and their differential effect on young men and women from different class and ethnic groups, and for exploring the ways in which constructions of masculinity and femininity are dynamic and related to th…
Post‐graduation reflections on the value of a degree
This article investigates the impact of a changing higher education system on young adults' priorities and motivations. A considerable number of studies have explored the impact of recent changes on patterns of participation within higher education. However, there has been less emphasis on how such changes have been played out in the experiences of graduates and, more specifically, in the interface between higher education and lifelong learning. …
A Second Chance at 'Success: UK Students and Global Circuits of Higher Education
While the literature on highly skilled international migration has grown substantially over recent years, the motivations and experiences of an important sub-group - the internationally mobile student - have remained under-researched. In an attempt to redress this gap, this article draws on in-depth interviews with 85 young adults, to explore the choices and motivations of UK students who choose to study abroad for the whole of an undergraduate o…
Vive la différence?’: The ‘international’ experiences of UK students overseas
As interest in the geographies of student mobilities grows, this paper examines the experiences of UK students overseas. More specifically, it considers the ‘international’ nature of their experiences, asking: to what extent do students actively seek out and encounter ‘cultural difference’ through their educational choices? International students are often described by those advocating the internationalisation of education as potential ‘global ci…
Social networks and educational mobility: The experiences of UK students
A recurrent theme in the literature on transnational mobility – and particularly that pertaining to the young and/or highly skilled – is the individualised nature of such movement, as people move to take advantage of opportunities in an increasingly interdependent world. Drawing on research with 85 young adults who had moved overseas for their higher education, or were seriously contemplating doing so, this paper subjects this claim to critical s…
Accidental achievers? International higher education, class reproduction and privilege in the experiences of UK students overseas
To date, scholarship on international students has generally focused on flows from non-western economies to the main English-speaking destination countries (such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia). In contrast, we draw on a qualitative study of 85 UK students who have either completed or are considering undertaking a degree programme overseas. We found that, in opposition to a common image of ‘international students’, UK stud…
Student Mobilities, Migration and the Internationalization of Higher Education
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
International/transnational spaces of education
Sociology (84 works) · Political science (83 works) · Higher education (49 works) · Law (41 works) · Higher Education Governance and Development (38 works) · Psychology (37 works) · Social science (32 works) · Economics (29 works) · Gender Studies (29 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (28 works)