Call for abstracts

Fostering short-term international student mobility: perspectives on regional and national schemes across the world

Edited by Rachel Brooks (University of Oxford) and Johanna Waters (University College London)

We welcome abstracts for an edited collection on national and regional schemes intended to foster short-term international mobility for higher education students.

There are now many schemes that enable students to move abroad for part of their (higher) degree programme – to study, work and/or volunteer. Examples include Mobility+ (Taiwan); K-Move (Korea); Mevlana (Turkey); New Colombo Plan (Australia); Erasmus+ (Europe); Turing Scheme (UK); Taith (Wales); Global Undergraduate Study Abroad Programme (US); Semester Abroad Programme (India); and NordPlus (Nordic countries). Nevertheless, to date, the literature in this area has tended to focus on single schemes only, and those that are run from countries in the Global North. In our edited collection, we hope to bring studies from a wide variety of national and regional contexts into dialogue, highlighting points of connection and divergence, and showing how they relate to broader debates within the fields of education, sociology, geography, social policy and youth studies (for example, about class (re)production, youth mobilities, education systems and social change, knowledge economies, cosmopolitanism, transnational networks and different aspects of globalisation).

Abstracts are welcome on any theme including, but not confined to, the following:

  • The aims and objectives of the scheme(s), and how these are situated within wider national/regional contexts
  • Responses to the scheme(s) from higher education institutions and other relevant social actors
  • The characteristics of participating students (and particularly social identity markers) and the implications of these
  • The experiences of participating students
  • The impact of the scheme(s) on, e.g., students’ identity formation, academic performance, employment outcomes

Contributions can be theoretical or empirical, and we have no preference for any particular methodology. However, all abstracts should make clear the evidence base and theoretical framework(s) upon which the proposed chapter will draw, and the main arguments that will be advanced. We do not necessarily expect contributions to focus on more than one scheme (although they could); we anticipate using the book’s introduction and conclusion to make the comparisons and connections.

Please submit your abstract of around 500 words to Rachel Brooks by 30 November 2024 (rachel.brooks@education.ox.ac.uk).

We will confirm by early January 2025 whether we will be including your abstract in our proposal. Our intention is then to submit the proposal to an appropriate publisher (e.g. Routledge or Policy Press) by early February. If we secure a contract, we are likely to need full chapter drafts (of around 8000 words) by October 2025.