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This paper reflects on the importance of 'time spent' in understanding the international student experience. Short-term mobility programmes (involving stays of between 1 week and 2 months) attracting less privileged students, such as the relatively new Turing Scheme in the United Kingdom, have been hailed as a potential 'solution' to the fact that, traditionally, wealthier individuals have been far more likely to engage in study abroad. However, we do not yet know how short-term and longer duration programmes compare in terms of the "value" they confer to students (in relation to their experiences and outcomes). How likely is it that short-term mobility at undergraduate level is as valuable, according to different measures, as mobility lasting 6 months to several years (as with degree mobility)? This paper reviews some of the evidence to date on shorter duration mobility, addressing how value in international study is constructed and conferred and how this relates to 'time spent'. The paper concludes by arguing that the picture is mixed: although short-term mobility will be beneficial to students, those engaging in longer term exchanges (usually more privileged students) are likely to derive greater benefits.

This article argues that, to date, debates (both public and academic) around international students and the internationalization of higher education have been overly concerned with economic issues and insufficiently attentive to the political ramifications of associated changes in educational practices. It takes seriously a call made by Madge et al. (2009), in which they assert that notions of "engaged pedagogy" and "responsibility" need to be explored in relation to international student experiences. Debates have thus far neglected the wider "politics" (with a small "p") that underpin the relationship between international students and their "host" university. An awareness of these political relationships has the potential to encourage progressive practices within the institution of the university, including the campus. The article examines the case of transnational education programs in Hong Kong, and considers why a political perspective on international student mobilities is important. The wider goal of this article is to inject some much needed "politics" into discussions of international--and domestic--student experiences.

It is axiomatic that middle‐class Asian migrant families invest heavily—practically and emotionally—in their children's education. Scholarship has linked this investment to strategies of capital accumulation. There has been little discussion, however, about the transformative nature of these strategies and how they might be framed in terms of migrants' whole lives. This paper applies theoretical concepts from migration studies and a framework proposed by philosopher Charles Taylor, to argue that educational migration should be seen as profoundly life shaping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we foreground the bodies of students and academics in studies of the internationalisation of higher education (IHE) and consider how internationalisation processes are shaped by embodiment and the geographies of (em)placement. Over the past 20 years, IHE has been extensively discussed within academic and policy circles. Such accounts have often been dominated by macro-level concerns. Within these discourses, the international mobility of students and academics have been a central focus. Although scholars within the social sciences are increasingly attentive to the social, cultural, and political dimensions of IHE, there has been little explicit discussion of bodies and the ways in which international mobilities are corporeal, involving in place/out of placeness and the politics and policies governing embodied (im)mobilities. This paper has two main objectives mapping on to two substantive sections. The first is to highlight the importance of the body within recent geographical scholarship and to juxtapose this with a notable absence within IHE research. The second is to consider where the body is present (explicitly or otherwise) in the bountiful literature on IHE and to draw out the meanings of this, arguing that paying attention to bodies exposes the (re)production of exclusionary hierarchies. The paper contributes to a growing corpus of work on the body within geography and extends critical geographies of the internationalisation of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reveals the complex diversity that underpins ostensibly similar transnational education programmes (TNE), through a comparison of UK TNE in Malaysia and Hong Kong. It draws on data from two different yet cognate studies on the role of UK universities in delivering higher education in Asia. Some fine-grained and informative differences between the ways in which 'value' in TNE is constructed in different host contexts is revealed. The paper brings to light the 'voices' of TNE students and graduates, which are very seldom heard. The arguments adapt and extend the concepts of education as a positional good, and as cultural capital. For various instrumental, intrinsic and personal reasons the authors discuss in detail, UK TNE is more highly valued in Malaysia than in Hong Kong. The paper makes a wider contribution to knowledge on the changing landscape of international higher education and the impact on social and personal (dis)advantage.

This article reviews three books: (1) "Elite Education: International Perspectives" (edited by C. Maxwell and P. Aggleton); (2) "Class Choreographies: Elite Schools and Globalisation" (J. Kenway, J. Fahey, D. Epstein, A. Koh, C. McCarthy, and F. Rizvi); and (3) "Corporate Elite and the Reform of Public Education" (edited by H.M. Gunter, D. Hall, and M.W. Apple). These three books, published within a few years of each other, are all aiming to expose aspects of the relationship between elites and schooling. They offer, in different but complementary ways, very valuable contributions to contemporary debates on (elite) schooling and on the role education plays in social reproduction. They point to competing processes inflicting elite schools today--an imperative to become 'global' on the one hand (which includes neoliberalisation and changing financial pressures and imperatives) and yet a need to remain insular, exclusive and isolated from the wider world.

This paper explores English schools' engagement with 'internationalisation' in the context of funding cuts and a highly pressured audit culture. The broader literature suggests two reasons why schools might partake in 'internationalisation'. The first concerns the 'strategic cosmopolitan' – schools are complicit in facilitating cosmopolitanism amongst the pupil body so that young people may attain 'positional advantage' in a crowded international or global labour market. The second invokes a deeper sense of ethics and a more equal 'exchange' of ideas. We use 'art' as a lens to explore this latter conception: proposing that artistic pursuits enable a more dialogic notion of internationalisation to develop. Focussing on international exchanges between schools in the Global North and Global South that foreground specifically artistic projects (involving drama, literature, fashion, textiles, art, creative writing, film making, dance and music), we illustrate a potentially more ethical, rich and meaningful form of 'internationalisation', which does not obviously conform to the notion of inherent and demonstrable (capitalised) value. We propose that educational value might be understood differently: in non-strategic, intrinsic and more essential ways, and that, furthermore, internationalisation can be fun. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental logic of transnational education programmes is a one-to-one transfer of institutional capital across space and an unimportance of place. This article interrogates these presumptions and argues that space and place play an important role in transnational education. Drawing on research that examines the experiences of students and graduates of British degree programmes offered in Hong Kong, we conclude that institutional capital does not always travel wholly and smoothly due to a combination of policy-related, social, cultural and economic factors. Our findings also underline the importance of place in students' experiences, which are not sufficiently recognised by the providers. This, in turn, affects the ability of students to cultivate institutional and other forms of social capital, with implications for subsequent employment opportunities and social mobility.

Drawing upon a project on British transnational education (TNE) programmes offered in Hong Kong, this paper interrogates the capacity development impact of TNE on the students, the Hong Kong Government and the programme providers. It addresses the questions: "What capacity is being developed in TNE operations?" and "For whom?" Our findings reveal multiple capacities at play. As TNE has been traded between British and Hong Kong universities and facilitated by the Hong Kong Government's "laissez-faire" doctrine, as a commodity in the neoliberal trade-in-education regime, students' interests are often sidelined. This paper calls for a critical reflection on this TNE model.

This paper examines the role of specific and place-based social capital in the recognition and evaluation of international credentials. Whilst research on labour market segmentation has contributed towards an understanding of the spatial variability of the value of human capital, very little attention has been paid to the ways in which the credentials of more privileged social groups may in certain local contexts become "valorised". At the same time, an increasing body of work in sociology has drawn attention to the globalisation of credentials and labour market competition. This paper brings together these perspectives, demonstrating how transnational social connections are put to work in the valourisation of "overseas credentials" within a particular local labour market--Hong Kong's financial services sector. It reveals the extent to which social capital, which is at once transnational and locally embedded, confers value upon particular international credentials, with consequences for individuals' employment prospects. The paper stresses the continuing need to examine international academic credentials in localised contexts. (Contains 6 notes.)

Within higher education, internationalisation is increasingly important for students and academics alike. In this context, English as the lingua franca has gained prominence. The ostensible ubiquity of English rests on a particular rendering of the language as unitary, fixed, and undifferentiated. In this paper, we challenge this notion of English and use a spatial approach to explore the multiplicity of Englishes on display within the higher education context. Increasingly, within higher education outside Anglophone countries, English Medium Instruction (EMI) is seen as a crucial indicator of internationalisation: the term 'international programmes' is often used as a proxy for programmes taught in English. Hence, the aim of this paper is to explore the role of English in internationalisation of higher education, and to show how a spatial approach can illuminate what English means and how it is experienced in its multiple and shifting forms. We examine Danish higher education to explore the multiple usages of English amongst so-called 'native' and 'nonnative' speakers and show the spatial and hierarchical complexity of language. We suggest that a spatial perspective on English in the context of international higher education can help nuance debates about internationalisation and language in important ways - there is not one, but multiple forms of English, displayed at different times and in different places, with differing effects in the creation of spatial hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on how social relationships are radically transformed in contexts of globalization and how human agency plays a central role in shaping global networks and connections. Topics include network' and ‘information' society and about the political-economic drivers and impacts of global networks; and role that digital media are playing in defining transnationalism that undertake transnational forms of mobility.

Tens of thousands of children living on Mainland China cross the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a 'better education' every day. A well-oiled industry is in place to manage, facilitate and control this education mobility field. It involves schools, diverse businesses and nongovernmental organisations that, in articulation with the Chinese and Hong Kong states, stimulate and regulate the movement of people, materialities, ideas and practices. Drawing on our fieldwork and media analysis, this paper unpacks the transurban mobility industry to illustrate the role of the various players and how they work in conjunction to facilitate cross-border schooling, especially among the very young children. We map out and visualise with photos the workings of the schools, buses, escorts, tutoring centres, day care and boarding houses. We show how the mobility industry, intersecting with other business networks and mobility systems, links Shenzhen and Hong Kong, taking and making places in these cities, especially in the border region. Our paper illustrates the role of this mobility industry in the making of the political-economy and socio-culture of the border area, which constantly connects, divides and redefines the two cities and regions it bridges. We end with some reflections on the implications of the recent political challenges and COVID-I9 pandemic on this cross-border education mobility system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the phenomenon of cross‐boundary schooling (CBS), where more than 30,000 children undertake a daily, checkpoint‐crossing commute to school and back again, over the Hong Kong–Shenzhen border. It elaborates on the notion of "state assemblage" to consider how the power of the state (in this case, both the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong authorities) manifests in CBS and, in particular, how the state attempts to exert control over children's and parents' bodies. This view of CBS contrasts with a sense of "agency" that prevails around discussions of educational mobilities, and we explore this tension here. The paper focuses on two related aspects of CBS—materiality and the role of habit and rhythm in directing, guiding, and cajoling children to conform to an extremely rigid and regimented daily routine. We found that the material structures that make up the border are crucial in enabling CBS to "function" and that notions of rhythm and habit are very useful for understanding how the "flow" of educational mobilities is achieved. At the same time, we considered instances where flow was disrupted, rhythms were changed, and individuals somehow resisted the material constraints of the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]