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Many papers on international student mobility have analysed different macro factors influencing the decision making of international students. However, only a limited number of studies have considered the role of language distance on international educational choices. This paper aims to fill that gap by identifying the role of language proximity in international degree seeking student flows among 21 countries of the European Economic Area in the years 2005, 2010 and 2015. Our gravity models reveal a statistically significant influence of language proximity on student flows within these 21 countries. We argue that language proximity simplifies academic, cultural and socio-economic integration of international students in the destination country and as a result makes the process of their adaptation to a new environment easier and smoother. Future research should expand on the mechanisms of that influence.

For a long time, internationalisation strategies of higher education institutions across the world focused on international student mobility. However, international student mobility is a socially selective process, whereby students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to participate. Consequently, in recent years 'internationalisation for all', 'inclusive internationalisation' and 'internationalisation at home' have become prominent terms in internationalisation strategies, aiming to provide internationalisation activities to all students, including those who remain at home. To our surprise, however, existing scholarship today did not investigate whether offering a broader array of internationalisation activities also reaches the objectives of such new internationalisation strategies, namely to reach a broader group of students, including those from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds. To this end, in this paper, we investigate the likelihood of different (social) groups to participate in different internationalisation activities, both at home and abroad, through an online survey conducted in 2019 at three institutions in Belgium and the Netherlands (n = 2567). Our findings clearly indicate that the social composition of student populations needs to be taken into account when designing internationalisation strategies. Our results indicate that simply broadening the type of activities is not sufficient, as students from lower socio-economic backgrounds showed to be less likely to participate in any internationalisation activity. Overall, the findings suggest that inclusive internationalisation might best be reached through integrating internationalisation into the formal curriculum, in order to circumvent the barriers that might exist to participate in activities outside of the formal study schedule.

The academic literature on the determinants of international student mobility so far has largely ignored the influence of romantic relationships and study motivation in the development of aspirations to participate in temporary learning experiences in another country. However, young adults might take considerations about investments in individual development (via academic training and thus study motivation) and romantic relationships into account in their decision-making process. Consequently, we apply a life-course perspective analyzing the relationships between having a romantic partner, study motivation, and aspirations to participate in an international exchange program among first-year university students, based on a survey conducted among 603 freshmen in Brussels. As female students are more likely to participate in student exchanges compared with male students, we pay special attention to gender differences. Our results show that a romantic relationship is negatively correlated with aspirations to participate in an international student exchange among female students. In contrast, intrinsic academic motivation is significantly associated with such aspirations among female and male students. Overall, our findings indicate the need for the consideration of different life-course domains in academic studies on international student mobility.

Many host-countries have liberalised migration policies to facilitate the transition of international students to the local labour market as they are seen as economic agents who increase global competitiveness and integrate easily. However, how migration and educational policies at the regional and national levels emerge, are negotiated and become implemented, and how they contradict other policies, remains little-known. This special issue aims to address that gap. This introductory paper offers an analytical framework for studying policies of international student mobility that addresses four critical dimensions: discourses, contexts, agents and temporalities before offering some key avenues for future research.

This study quantitatively investigates enrolments of international students using data that contains nearly every student in the Netherlands for the years 2016–2019. Using this data, we are able to perform a meso‐level analysis where we could investigate the characteristics of higher education institutions (HEIs) and cities in international student mobility. This research contributes to the literature by studying variation between HEIs and by focusing on actual enrolments instead of relying on survey results. Such meso‐level studies have thus far been very rare, especially on this scale. Although there are commonalities between types of degrees, we find mixed results for academic and city characteristics, and it appears that academic factors are more important for master students while for bachelor students city characteristics have stronger effects. The effect of having already existing stocks of international students appears to be important for all types of degrees. Aside from differences between bachelor and master students, our findings also suggest that HEIs might directly influence international student flows as this would explain some of our results. Although this study only focuses on the Netherlands, it opens up many avenues for future comparative research on the destination choices of international students and the role of HEIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on international student migration has been burgeoning, leading to a more nuanced understanding of international students whose experiences were, for many years, conceptualised in a rather limited way. In this paper, we aim to advance understanding of the diversity and complexity of student migrants' experiences, by proposing a new interpretive framework, developed through narrative enquiry. Based on an in-depth narrative analysis of 41 "biographical encounters" with student migrants in Portugal, we illustrate the potential of biographical approaches in highlighting students' subjectivities, and the complex interplay of diverse factors that shape migration processes. A migration "profile" was assigned to each narrative, capable of representing its leitmotif. This biographical approach to student migration provides a more nuanced understanding of how student migration emerges in time, thus offering a methodological approach that does justice to the diversity of student migration trajectories and may enhance the empirical examination of their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between development and outgoing international student mobility (ISM) for the years 2003–2018 using data from UNESCO. Starting from migration transition theory, we expect that development and outgoing migration follows an inverted U-shape due to changes in capabilities and aspirations of populations. As predicted, we find that outgoing ISM also follows this pattern. Probing deeper into this finding, we investigated whether students from countries of different levels of development favor different destination countries, focusing on destination countries' academic ranking, GDP per capita, and linguistic and colonial ties. We find that these destination country characteristics indeed have different effects for students from origin countries with different stages of development, and that these effects cannot simply be reduced to a dichotomy between developed/developing countries. Together, the findings highlight the nonlinearity of ISM processes. In turn this opens up new avenues of research regarding the diversity of international student populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, there has been increasing interest in the topic of international student mobility (ISM). However, there is surprisingly little analysis of the ways in which different characteristics and types of short-term ISM or the importance of host education systems and labour markets may affect early career outcomes of formerly mobile graduates. Therefore, in this study we explore, first, the relationship between participation in ISM at the Bachelor and Master level and graduates' wages and the duration of education-to-work transitions. Second, we investigate variations in ISM labour market outcomes according to the type of mobility: study, internships, or combinations of both. Third, we examine the relationship between labour market outcomes of formerly mobile students and the country of destination's position in higher education international prestige hierarchies and labour market competitiveness. We use the Dutch National Alumni Survey 2015, a representative survey of higher education graduates in the Netherlands, conducted 1.5 years after graduation. Before controlling for selection into ISM, the results suggest the existence of labour market returns to ISM and that the heterogeneity of ISM experiences matters as labour market outcomes vary according to the level of study, the type of mobility, and the positioning of the country of destination in international prestige hierarchies. However, after controlling for selection into ISM through propensity score matching, the differences in early career outcomes between formerly mobile and non-mobile graduates disappear, suggesting that they cannot be causally attributed to their ISM experience. We explain these results with reference to the characteristics of the Dutch education system and labour market, where restricted possibilities for upward vertical mobility limit returns to ISM in the local labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on subjective well-being of (international) higher education students in the Netherlands In this paper we investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on subjective well-being of higher education students in the Netherlands. More specifically, we compare international students and Dutch students, based on the Dutch data of the COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study, a cross-sectional survey conducted between May-July 2020 among higher education students across the Netherlands (N = 10.491). Based on the sociological literature on the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being, we investigate in particular whether changes in social contact during the first lockdown can explain differences in subjective well-being between international and Dutch students. Our results suggest that although international students report lower levels of subjective well-being compared to Dutch students, these differences cannot be directly explained by (changes) in social contact during the lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International student mobility is often promoted as enhancing graduates' employability in globalised labour markets. Nevertheless, empirical evidence on this assumed causal link remains limited. Particularly the perspectives of employers remains understudied. Therefore, in this paper I analyse (1) whether European employers value study abroad; (2) which specific skills employers need when valuing international experience; and (3) whether 'signaling effects' of employing international graduates exist. The analyses are based on Flash Eurobarometer 304 'Employers' perception of graduate employability' (n = 7036), conducted in 31 countries. The results reveal that a minority of employers consider international experience when making recruitment decisions. However, significant variability across the countries can be detected. Furthermore, the findings indicate that international education is particularly valued when employers need graduates with good foreign language and decision-making skills. In addition, the results indicate that with higher shares of foreign graduates in a company, the likelihood international experience is valued increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of interaction patterns of international students focus on ‘degree mobility’ and flows from ‘non-Western’ towards ‘Western’ countries. Nevertheless, in Europe, the shorter alternative of ‘credit mobility’ is more prevalent. However, empirical evidence on social network formation within this specific group of international students remains limited. Therefore, in this article, we study the formation of interaction patterns of students who study for a delineated period in another European country, based on a research project conducted in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Poland and the UK. The results show that specific interaction patterns can be explained from a flow perspective. Moreover, our study shows that students’ networks abroad are already formed before actual departure. In addition, we provide empirical evidence that institutional as well as group practices encourage or impede interaction between exchange and local students. Two transversal dimensions are especially relevant in the explanation of how groups are formed abroad: language proficiency and shared social spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]