In this article we examine the European Semester as an innovative form of policy coordination, with distinct effects on education and skills policies for Member States. We analyse the Semester's framing of education policy, and examine its manifestations in Spain and Sweden, two countries considered to be different in their approach to education.…

This study delves into the experiences with managing study abroad reported by two mobility programs stakeholders: the vice-dean of International Relations and an Erasmus coordinator at a Faculty of a Spanish University. By means of content analysis of semi-structured interviews, this article aims to shed light on the intricacies of study abroad…

Erasmus student experiences currently seem to be closely linked to the neoliberal common sense, meaning that market-oriented motivations and consumerist behaviours can often be found in students' discourses and experiences. With this point in mind, in this qualitative inquiry, we focused on how a cohort of prospective English language teachers…

Since 1987, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) has been engaged in mobility programs, making efforts to encourage and support the internationalization of its students. Mobility programs are designed to strengthen the dimension and quality of the Higher Education, to encourage transnational cooperation between Universities, to…

Europe is, in many ways, of central importance to discussions about higher education. Various European initiatives, such as the Bologna Process and the Erasmus mobility programme, have had a direct and material impact on the shape and nature of higher education across the continent. They have also been linked to wider political objectives, such as…

Although contexts of learning abroad have traditionally been conceived as optimal settings for language and intercultural learning, Researchers advocate the implementation of pedagogical interventions that promote qualitative intercultural dialogue and guidance in language and intercultural learning process. Yet, studies are needed that carefully…

Multicultural European societies increasingly demand internationally oriented citizens, who are willing to actively participate in civic life and able to successfully access the labour market. The European dimension in education supposedly endows youngsters with civic values, multiculturalist attitudes and plurilingual competences which ultimately…

Little empirical literature assessing the impact of Erasmus study program on graduate career prospects exists. All too often, the empirical evidence available is either bias or indirect. Furthermore, the existing differences among study mobility participants and non-participant peers in terms of ability, socioeconomic background or field of study…

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…

The arrival of the Bolognia Process, that is, the last European bold adventure in order to build both a common and strong European Higher Education Area had to mean a new chance to reset our higher education structure. Bolognia meant a new opportunity to set up a wide array of reforms with the focus in raising the quality assurance. Bolognia…

This paper examines a large dataset of questionnaire responses (n = 5,321) of international students who have studied abroad (mainly via the Erasmus+ programme). Their acculturation experiences with campus discrimination (an acculturative stressor), academic support (a mediator of acculturation) and academic satisfaction (an outcome of…

While there is ample evidence that study abroad (SA) enhances oral fluency in a foreign language, the effects of different types of learning context on other aspects of oral skills, such as vocabulary use, have not received much attention in academic research and are less clear. The present study tries to fill this void by investigating lexical…

Since ERASMUS (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) was launched there has been a constant debate about the civic significance of this mobility programme. The purpose of this article is to analyse the understanding of "active citizenship" by Erasmus students. In order to discover Erasmus students'…

Virtual exchange (VE) is an educational practice that involves the engagement of groups of learners in extended periods of online intercultural interaction and collaboration with international peers as an integrated part of their educational programs and under the guidance of educators and/or facilitators. Despite more than 20 years of research…

The Erasmus student mobility programme allocates three explicit objectives to the experience of spending a few months studying in another European country: (1) to benefit students educationally, linguistically and culturally; (2) to promote co-operation between institutions and (3) to contribute to the development of a pool of well-qualified,…