This article draws on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to reconceptualise transition to Higher Education. In doing so it contributes a new theoretical approach to understanding transition to Higher Education which largely remains under-theorised, uncritical and taken-for-granted. Drawing on data from two projects, the article activates…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of cultural differences on the design and management of two franchise programs and one joint degree program run by a Chinese university in partnership with a British university and a French university. The cross-cultural challenges and the differences in the strategies taken by the…

Sociocultural theory emphasises the mediational role of tools in learning. International students usually find themselves in a vicious cycle, experiencing difficulties when engaging with local people and culture which might provide the mediation necessary to develop their intercultural communicative competence. Yang (2016) further points out that…

This paper reports an ethnographic study of a group of Chinese international students' emotion-management experiences in intercultural adjustment in a UK university context. Drawing on a social constructionist paradigm, it investigates students' constructions of their emotion-management strategies, and the effects of social interactions on the…

The transition between school and university can be problematic for students. Understanding students' expectations about the system they are entering is crucial in effecting a smooth transition. The school system involves small classes, often with teachers who know their students well. In contrast, university involves large class sizes and a…

The global population of students pursuing studies abroad continues to grow, and consequently their intercultural experiences are receiving greater research attention. However, research into long-term student sojourners' academic development and personal growth is still in its infancy. A parallel mixed method study was designed to investigate the…

More U.S. college students study abroad in the U.K. than any other destination in the world (Institute for International Education, 2015). Unfortunately, there is a significant gap in empirical knowledge about their experiences. This is likely due to a common assumption that students within culturally similar contexts should enjoy easier…

This article builds on and contributes to work in the area of science learning in the outdoors and addressing transition issues for pupils as they move from primary to secondary school. Previous studies have examined issues in the transition phase between primary and secondary school, but evidence is limited for the use of learning science…

Twenty students from different educational backgrounds within the UK were interviewed to investigate how well they considered their secondary school education had prepared them for the educational and social demands of an "elite" university and life within its most traditional colleges. The study asked them how they perceived students…

There is a considerable amount of research investigating students' transition from college to university but it is important this focus is directed specifically towards the transition of international students, as the difficulties they face are profound. The literature surrounding international students seems to lack an in-depth understanding of…

Study abroad is one aspect of global movement that connects individuals of diverse backgrounds. Individuals studying abroad are proffered to negotiate self-identity when they confront novelty and new contexts. This study chose to use the qualitative method of phenomenological interviews to examine how individuals experience themselves and others…

Using academic capitalism as a theoretical foundation, this phenomenological study examined the new study abroad experiences of Chinese college students in six popular English-speaking study destination countries--the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Qualitative data collected from 20 interviews indicate some…

Adolescents typically like school less after making age-graded school transitions. Stage-environment fit theory (Eccles & Midgley, 1989) attributes this to a mismatch between developmental needs and new school environments. Our in vivo study provides a basis for future quantitative designs by uncovering the most prevalent stage-environment…

This paper explores the layered transitional experiences of a semi-professional athlete named Jack (a pseudonym) between the fields of professional sport and further and higher education. Our analysis is framed by the quadripartite framework of structuration and focuses on Jack's "in-situ" practices at his college and university in order…

This article considers how course design accommodates the adaptation of L2 students into the early stages of the master's dissertation (Social Sciences and Humanities) at a UK university. I present a contrastive process-oriented analysis of two students' experiences on different courses, extracted from a 13-month ethnographic study in which…