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University reputation and destination image are key factors shaping the choice to study in developed Western countries. While East Asia is emerging as a new contender in the international higher education market, little is known about how international students perceive and are attracted to the higher education institutions in this region. Moreover, while the destination image was represented by the host country image in most studies, the effect of city image on study destination choice should be given more attention due to the geographic and social embeddedness of universities in cities. This study drew the survey data from a flagship university in Taipei to examine the impact of university reputation and city image on international student destination choice, and employed factor analysis to identify the dimensions of university reputation and city image. The analysis confirms university reputation and city image as important elements in international student destination choice in the Asian context. It further identifies four factors creating discrepant weighting of these two elements in study destination choice: degree/non-degree program, level of study, type of international student identity, and region of origin. Theoretical and policy implications of findings are discussed at the end of the paper.

A central theme in the literature on transnational migration is the embeddedness of such movement in social networks and the utilisation of social capital in facilitating mobility. This case study on overseas Chinese students and mainly non-Chinese foreign students studying at a top university in Taipei brings in the notions of cultural capital and city. It investigates the ways social networks shape the destination choices of these two groups of students, and how their patterns of adjustment in the host milieu and attachment to the host city are affected by the transnational migration network (and the lack of it), embodied cultural capital and different host imaginaries constructed by the Taiwan government. The results show that these two groups of international students differed in their reliance on transnational migration networks in making destination choices prior to migration. Furthermore, the different forms of social networks and the differential social and cultural capital embedded in their respective groups, along with the distinctive host images that were constructed by the Taiwan government to cater for these two groups, shaped their overseas experiences and attachment to the city of Taipei in distinctive ways.

In recent decades many East Asian countries have initiated ambitious policies to increase their global prominence as education hubs. This article examines the development of Taiwan’s international student recruitment policies from 1950 to 2011, exemplifying the case in a non-Western, non-English speaking context. While Taiwan’s case is distinctive with the dominance of noneconomic factors in shaping the state policy orientation and agendas, the strong role of the state and the Confucian model of higher education constitute a valid example of developments in the internationalization of higher education in East Asia. The analysis further shows that the intertwining forces of localization, nationalization, and globalization influenced the policy development throughout three stages of the trajectory. These findings demonstrate the transformationalist viewpoint of globalization and support the “glonacal agency approach” proposed by Rhoades and Marginson claiming that local, national, and global domains are simultaneously significant in understanding globalization and higher education.

Background and purpose Population ageing in Taiwan is proceeding at an accelerating rate. The percentage of elderly is expected to increase from 9.7% in 2005 to 20% in 2025. As the population ages, more people will suffer from chronic conditions and will need more post-hospital care. Health policies need to adapt itself to meet the changing needs of society. The purposes of this study were to describe the use of post-hospital care among stroke patients in Taipei and to discuss policy implications. Methods This research used a longitudinal prospective study design, recruiting stroke patients from seven hospitals in the Taipei area. Patients were followed-up for 6 months after discharge with surveys at 1, 3, and 6 months. Information on their needs and uses of post-hospital care was collected. Results About 9% of patients were institutionalized at 1 month, and the percentage did not vary much throughout the 6 months of the study. Little movement occurred between institutions and homes within 6 months after discharge. Most patients relied on family members to provide assistance with activities of daily living. Little utilization of formal services occurred. The use of foreign care attendants was common, and it increased with time. Few unmet needs were observed for nursing care, while significant unmet needs were observed for rehabilitative services. Discussions Taiwan is not prepared to adequately meet the care demands of an ageing society. Continuing to support family members with additional home- or community-based services resources should be a policy priority. More efforts should be placed on educating family caregivers about the availability and benefits of community-based services during discharge planning. The use of foreign care attendants has become a mainstream practice. Regulations to protect the rights of foreign care attendants and to improve their quality of care need to be established.

Over the last few decades, international student mobility has come to be increasingly viewed in both scholarly and policy discourse as a valorised pathway to personal development, career success, and class reproduction. This framing of international study has been particularly prominent in accounts of mobility to Anglophone universities that have dominated the literature to date. Yet, despite these claims, most research has been undertaken with current students, and hence, the significance of international study has remained speculative and caught up with dominant discourses that tend to valorise this form of mobility. In this paper, we subject these claims to critical examination by analysing the narratives of alumni who have studied overseas in three leading universities in East Asia. We focus, in particular, on the ways in which international student mobility articulates through after-study lives in terms of the forms of situated learning and cultural capital expressed by alumni, the geographical configurations and circulations that shape the portability of education, and altered sensibility and onward mobilities that are generated through international study. Through this discussion, we demonstrate that international study often does have value in after-study lives, but that this value is highly situated in the networks and spaces that alumni move through and enact. Our paper then demonstrates that there is nothing automatic about the portability of overseas education, and that there is a need for scholars to examine not only student mobility itself but the way this unfolds into after-study lives.