Rethinking international student mobility through the lens of “crisis” at a juncture of pandemic and global uncertainties

1

ABSTRACT

International student mobility (ISM), defined as the movement of students to pursue tertiary education outside their countries of citizenship, has conventionally been understood in terms of micro social actors’ behaviours of cultural capital accumulation and macro-level institutional processes following the logics of neoliberal globalization and knowledge economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has abruptly and severely impacted ISM, plunging the latter into what seems to be a “crisis”. Taking this fluid juncture as an opportunity for reflection and re-thinking, this paper re-examines ISM through the discursive lens of “crisis”. Broadening the “crisis” perspective beyond the pandemic to include a longitudinal view over the twentieth century through to the present, the paper considers the ways in which movement and recruitment of international students may be seen as consequences of as well as responses to “crises” of various natures – geopolitical, economic, and social. The author’s own work on student mobilities in Asia is drawn upon for illustration. The paper ends by briefly considering both the immediate crises confronting ISM, as well as various broader global uncertainties lying ahead.

KEYWORDS:

• International student mobility
• educational mobility
• international education
• crisis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For some real stories told by mobile students affected by the pandemic, see https://covidism.wordpress.com/ism-voices/

2. Surprisingly, when data became available, it turns out applications for UK undergraduate places from Chinese students in fact surged by more than 23% in the 2020 admission round (thetimes.co.uk, 2020). This goes to show the fluidity and unpredictability of ISM in the current environment.

3. The author’s observations based at a tertiary institution in Singapore serves to illustrate: the government has been cautious in granting entry visas, causing delays to international student arrivals.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peidong Yang

Peidong Yang is an Assistant Professor at National Institute of Education, Singapore. A sociologist of education, Peidong’s research interests are located at the intersections between education and migration/mobility. He is the author of International Mobility and Educational Desire: Chinese Foreign Talent Students in Singapore (Palgrave, 2016) and numerous journal articles (see www.peidongyang.com.)