Research cluster: Mobility and Migration-Specific Inequalities

Place is an important factor influencing international student mobility (ISM). However, few studies have comprehensively examined the role of place in ISM. This special issue intends to narrow this gap by considering the role of place in ISM from different perspectives. The articles contributing to the special issue discuss three dimensions of place, namely the physical characteristics of place, the meanings and valuations of place, and social inequalities associated with place. The special issue highlights several theoretical, methodological, and empirical avenues to further advance research on the role of place in ISM.

We contribute to research on social inequalities in educational attainment by examining the role of institutional contexts for students’ study abroad (SA) intent and participation. To do so, we extend the individual-level rational choice model predicting SA intent and participation depending on students’ socioeconomic status (SES) into a multi-level model emphasizing the importance of context effects. We test our model based on unique micro-level student data, which we supplement with context data. Examining 18,510 students nested in 69 universities, we provide the first in-depth multi-level analyses of SA intent and participation of students from Japan.

While recent research has investigated what signals of academic performance govern academics’ access to professorships, whether the power of such signals varies across disciplines has to date hardly been examined. We argue that the signaling power of academic achievements depends on the discipline-specific degree of standardization of research and on the spatio-temporal universality of research objects. Using a factorial survey experiment with Germany-based university professors of German studies, selected social sciences, and chemistry, we investigate the suitability of fictitious candidates for a tenured professorship (N respondents = 874, N vignettes = 6354).

Every year, substantial numbers of students become internationally mobile. Although international experiences are often promoted as benefitting graduates’ career development, until recently there had been little sound research examining whether different types of student mobility pay off in the labour market. Against this background, this policy brief summarises available evidence on the labour market outcomes SMS and SMI. It also develops ideas on how policymakers can contribute to enhancing the outcomes of these types of ISM for students, higher education institutions, and employers.

We contribute to research on social inequalities in educational attainment by examining the role of institutional contexts for students’ study abroad (SA) intent and participation. First, we examine social inequalities in SA choice by extending the individual-level rational choice model into a multi-level framework that emphasizes the importance of context effects. Second, using unique micro-level student data (N=18,510, nested in 69 universities across Japan) supplemented with context data, we empirically examine how university contexts shape inequalities in SA choice according to students’ socioeconomic status (SES). In doing so, we provide the first in-depth multi-level analysis of SA in Japan.

Considering the increased emphasis on inclusion in Erasmus+, this policy brief aims to explore the profile of Erasmus+ students and the obstacles they face when going abroad. It draws particular attention to students’ socio-economic background, gender, and disability status. Our analysis shows that although steps have been taken towards more inclusion and diversity of Erasmus+ participants, study abroad opportunities are still not equally accessible to all students. Therefore, we formulate five recommendations for higher education institutions, national agencies, and the European Commission with a view of making international student mobility more inclusive.

Integrating research on school-to-work transitions, international migration, and social inequality, this article investigates the social stratification of international school-to-work transitions and their payoff. Existing research shows that spatial mobility can amplify social inequalities both through social selectivity in access to mobility and through heterogeneity in its labor market outcomes. Building on these findings, we investigate the social selectivity of international school-to-work transitions (ISWT) and the wage difference between ISWT and national school-to-work transitions (NSWT) among graduates from higher education institutions in Germany.

Recently, an increasing number of students from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds (SRABs) entering universities in settlement countries such as Australia and Germany have necessitated the establishment of a variety of supports. However, to date, little attention has been paid to the organisational conditions surrounding such supports. This study thus examined these conditions through the conceptual lens of organisational memory loss. Based on the two illustrative cases of Australia and Germany, it was described how building durable and responsive supports for SRABs is undermined by structural, ideological, and temporal imperatives that erode the possibilities for a sharable organisational memory.

Der Beitrag illustriert Konstruktionsprinzipien, Potenziale und Fallstricke von Vignettenexperimenten anhand eines faktoriellen Surveyexperiments zur Bedeutung soziodemografscher und meritokratischer Merkmale beim Zugang zur Professur. Im Rahmen des Surveyexperiments wurden alle Universitätsprofessor*innen der Germanistik, Soziologie, Politikwissenschaft, Geographie und Chemie in Deutschland eingeladen, Vignettenprofile hypothetischer Wissenschaftler*innen auf ihre Eignung für unbefristete Professuren hin zu beurteilen. Anhand dieser Beispielanwendung veranschaulicht der Beitrag die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von Vignettenexperimenten mit Blick auf die Validität der erzielten Ergebnisse.

In many Western countries, women are more likely to study abroad than men. At present, there is a lack of theory-guided empirical studies searching explanations for this pattern. We address this research gap by examining gender differences in study abroad intent among first-semester students in Germany. To derive a comprehensive theoretical framework, we draw on social role theory of sex differences, cognitive development theory, new home economics and statistical discrimination theory. Using data from the nationally representative 2010 DZHW School Leavers Survey, we test our hypotheses by estimating logistic regressions and non-linear effect decompositions.

Following the refugee influx of 2015 and 2016, many German higher education organisations (HEOs) responded with support programmes for refugee students. In this context, refugees became formally and discursively differentiated from other international students. During later stages of the programmes, this differentiation became blurred, and discourse surrounding refugee students partly shifted back to framing them as international students, which is also represented in further support programme development. Based on a systems theoretical framework, this paper investigates the shifting organisational discourse on refugee students within the context of functional needs and structural changes at German HEOs.

This editorial to the special issue on heterogeneous effects of studying abroad starts with a review of studies on the determinants and individual-level effects of studying abroad. On that basis, it illustrates the necessity to place more emphasis on effect heterogeneity in research on international student mobility. It then develops a typology of heterogeneous effects of studying abroad, which shall function as an agenda for future research in the field. Thereafter, the editorial introduces the contributions to the special issue. It concludes by summarising major findings and directions for future research.

In this article, we review quantitative studies that empirically examine whether studying abroad influences graduates’ wages. Our review suggests that studying abroad has a moderate positive effect on graduates’ early-career wages in various national and institutional settings. However, this effect tends to vary across groups of graduates, employment contexts, and types of stays abroad. Employer change, access to large and multinational companies, and access to high-wage labor markets abroad appear to be the most relevant mechanisms mediating the effect of studying abroad on wages. Other mechanisms, such as improved language skills and a greater tendency to pursue further education, turn out to be less relevant.

In einem systematischen Review werten Nicolai Netz, Svenja Hampel und Valeria Aman 96 empirische Studien zum Einfluss internationaler Mobilität auf wissenschaftliche Karrieren aus. Die Analyse dieses noch jungen, aber in den letzten Jahren sehr dynamischen Forschungsfeldes zeigt, dass internationale Mobilität zum Ausbau wissenschaftlicher Netzwerke beiträgt. Zudem gibt es Hinweise, dass internationale Mobilität die wissenschaftliche Produktivität und Rezeption, das heißt die Anzahl der Publikationen und Zitationen, erhöhen kann. Auch den beruflichen Aufstieg kann internationale Mobilität begünstigen. Sie scheint jedoch ebenso mit durchschnittlich längeren befristeten Beschäftigungsverhältnissen einherzugehen.

This qualitative study addresses how mobile researchers shape and reshape their collaboraive practices through particular global and local, visible and invisible collaborative practices, thus altering the knowledge geographies in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). The paper is based on the findings the doctoral research project that studies the meaning and practices of academic collaboration in German Clusters of Excellence belonging to the SSH.

In many countries across the globe scholars report an over representation of women in TSM (e.g. Hurst 2019; Salisbury et al. 2010; Shirley 2006; Simpson and Bailey 2020; Thirolf 2014; Tompkins et al. 2017 Van Mol 2021, Holloway et al. 2012, Sondhi and King 2017). Gender roles are key to explain this imbalance: educational performance, interest profiles, labour market orientation and anticipated discrimination differ between girls and boys, women and men and lead to more female students going abroad. As societal gender roles vary across countries (Guo & Gilbert 2012), the gender specific motivation to study abroad could also depend on the country’s gender (in)equality.

While the important role of institutions and trust for economic transactions is well-acknowledged in institutional economics, the effects of appropriate institutions, historical legacies, and cultural similarities such as language and religion has not yet been systematically analysed in research on transnational student mobility. In our research, we analyse the phenomenon of transnational student mobility by combining and testing aspects of these different perspectives. We focus on outbound students and analyse what determines whether a particular country receives a high proportion of international students.

While the important role of institutions and trust for economic transactions is well-acknowledged in institutional economics, the effects of appropriate institutions, historical legacies, and cultural similarities such as language and religion has not yet been systematically analysed in research on transnational student mobility. In our research, we analyse the phenomenon of transnational student mobility by combining and testing aspects of these different perspectives. We focus on outbound students and analyse what determines whether a particular country receives a high proportion of international students.

While the important role of institutions and trust for economic transactions is a well-acknowledged in institutional economics, the effects of appropriate institutions, historical legacies, and cultural similarities such as language and religion has not yet been systematically analysed in research on transnational student mobility. In our research, we start from the assumption that the more functional institutions of potential host countries are, the more attractive they are for foreign students. Using aggregate data, we focus on the attributes of countries and the relationship between them to explain patterns of international student exchange.

Which role does institutional fragility or stability play for the attractiveness of a country as study destination? How does this interact with socio-economic conditions? Is homophily between countries still influential for transnational student mobility if we analyze a global sample without any pre-selection of countries? Are colonial ties between countries still influential for the direction and intensity of student exchange networks?