This article examines international student mobility (ISM) as a process of "aspiration on the go" for African students in China--a burgeoning yet under-researched international student flow. Drawing on 15 months of fieldwork at a Chinese university, we present ethnographic case studies of African students that unveil their varied…

This article investigates how the desire for Western credentials and transnational mobility reconcile with strong nationalist sentiments among Chinese students and how Chinese students' overseas educational experiences are largely structured by the People's Republic of China (PRC). Through a 12-month transnational ethnography study of 15 Chinese…

The global landscape of higher education is an uneven field where players like nation-states are placed in hierarchical and centre-periphery relations. This paper focuses on the global field of international student mobility (ISM) and investigates China's place in the field using an analytical framework consisting of three key categories of…

This article makes a case for analysis of romantic relationships during international education programs. Study abroad programs promise cultural immersion and place students in settings where romantic relationships may be the most accessible way to achieve this immersion. Yet programs may fail to prepare students to navigate dating and romance…

It is often assumed that the simple presence of international students and ubiquitous use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) are the main agents of internationalisation of higher education (HE), whereby English equals international education and inbound student mobility equals increased internationalisation. While there are perceived…

It is often claimed that the international academic sojourn has the capacity to bring about personal and cultural change in the sojourner, but such claims are not often supported by empirical evidence. Using an autoethnographic approach, this article offers a first-person account of the changes wrought in an international student by their time…

The recent expansion of the overseas education market in China has led to the rise of "Background Promotion Projects" designed to strengthen the applications of elite university aspirants. Based on ethnographic findings of a particular Background Promotion Project, a Chinese high school entrepreneurship competition, this study analyses…

Guided by the notion of 'flexible citizenship', as a strategy to accumulate and exchange different forms of capital across national borders, our ethnographic study followed eleven Chinese international secondary school students' transnational lives. This paper is focused on how instrumental goals of flexible citizenship cover over the emotional…

The purpose of this paper is to examine how students inhabiting distinctive social spaces and experiencing considerably different material realities define, value and problematize the concept of international mindedness. Drawing on a larger multi-sited ethnographic study of two International Baccalaureate schools in Ecuador, the study found that…

It is generally agreed that participating in study abroad programs, even short term, has positive impacts on students. But what would be the impact of an "education abroad" opportunity for staff members in international education? Reported in this paper is a 3-month professional development program in a Canadian university for 52…

In recent years, increasing numbers of Chinese international secondary school students have come to study in Canada. Upon arriving in their international context, their academic studies are influenced by socio-economic and cultural forces circulating between the home and host spaces of China and Canada. This paper delves into the economic,…

An initiative termed "Global 30 Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalization" (hereafter G30) in Japan aims for the recruitment of an additional 300,000 international students by 2020 to study in Japan in English, and also aims to send many more Japanese university students overseas than are now studying outside…

This research investigates experiences of an international education in dance. Through the narratives of seven female dance practitioners from the southern Mediterranean region, who have trained in contemporary dance in Western cultural contexts, a multiplicity of encounters are illustrated. Two key findings emerged from the dancers' experiences.…

This dissertation bridges the divide between comparative education and international education literature by examining student experiences in study abroad programs to make theoretical arguments about the role of culture in "doing" and "undoing" gender. The "undoing gender" framework in comparative education literature…

This paper concerns an exploratory and interpretive case study of the literacy curricula in a Canadian transnational education programme (Pseudonym: SCS) delivered in China where Ontario secondary school curricula were used at the same time as the Chinese national high school curricula. Using ethnographic tools and actor-network theory, the study…