Who benefits most from studying abroad? A conceptual and empirical overview

Subject in motion: (de)capitalization and coping strategies of Tibetan "Sea Turtles" in China

Previous studies on Chinese overseas students have generally presumed a smooth transition from mobility to mobility capital and have lacked an ethnic perspective. In this study, we adopt mobility capital as an analytical lens to explore the life trajectories of a group of Tibetans with studying abroad experiences. Drawing on qualitative data through multiple methods, we find a shift from collective-oriented expectations regarding studying abroad to individualist life planning and lifestyles after returning to work in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Before studying abroad, the informants viewed such experiences as important capital that could be later used to make a change for the Tibetan group, their local societies, and the state. Those views met a different reality after returning to TAR because the informants generally felt they were being viewed as potentially risk subjects in the workplace, which significantly impeded the capitalization of educational mobility at the institutional level. However, the informants developed coping strategies to find self-worth in private life by capitalizing on educational mobility. By addressing the subjective experiences of Tibetan informants in TAR and their associations with institutional contexts, this article not only engages an ethnicity-sensitive perspective to understand the politics of international educational mobility but also extends the discussion on individuals' experiences of educational mobility to the successional stage upon returning to their home societies. This article ultimately emphasizes the need for more culturally and politically reflexive policies that can sustain the flow of ethnic talents and help them realize their self-worth.

A randomized controlled trial of an online alcohol and sexual risk prevention program for college students studying abroad

INTRODUCTION

American college students who study abroad experience increases in their drinking behavior, concerning risky sexual behaviors, and high rates of sexual violence while abroad. Despite these concerns, institutions offer limited programming to students prior to departure to address these risks and no empirically supported interventions currently exist that are targeted toward preventing increased drinking, risky sexual behavior, and sexual violence abroad. To help address alcohol and sexual risk abroad, we designed a brief, single-session online predeparture intervention focused on risk and protective factors known to associate with alcohol and sexual risk abroad.

METHODS

Using a sample of 650 college students from 40 home institutions, we conducted a randomized controlled trial of the intervention and tested its effects on drinking (drinks per week, binge drinking frequency, alcohol related-consequences), risky sexual behaviors, and sexual violence victimization during the trip abroad (first month, last month abroad) and one-month and three-months after return home.

RESULTS

We observed small, but nonsignificant, intervention effects on drinks per week and binge drinking days during the first month abroad and three months after they had returned home to the United States, and small, significant effects on risky sexual behaviors during the first month abroad. The study found no observable effects at any time point for alcohol-related consequences or for sexual violence victimization abroad.

CONCLUSIONS

Though mostly nonsignificant, small initial intervention effects were promising in this first empirical test of an alcohol and sexual risk prevention program for study abroad students. However, students may need more intensive programming with booster sessions to experience lasting intervention effects during this particularly high-risk period.

CLINICALTRIALS

GOV IDENTIFIER

NCT03928067.

Ticket to ride: national and international mobility as a multi-faceted resource in the life courses of young Italian graduates

This paper looks at the national and international geographic mobility paths of young graduates in Italy and their educational and professional trajectories. By departing from the research fields of youth studies, mobility studies and higher education studies, we aim to highlight the multiple meanings and effects that mobility experiences may have in structuring graduates' future projects and/or desires. On the other hand, we argue that their expectations for both their mobility experiences and careers are also shaped by family socialisation, considering furthermore that the building of embodied and scholastic cultural capitals is spatially differentiated depending on the places where they grow up. The empirical research is based on two rounds of semi-narrative interviews conducted with 51 Italian graduates between 2020 and 2021. For the analysis, we have outlined four types of mobility paths. For each type, we focus on how socio-structural and cultural variables influence the ways the interviewees framed their mobility and professional experiences, desires and projects, focusing furthermore on how the Covid-19 pandemic differently affected their objective possibilities and strategies of mobility between the first and second waves.

Strategic directions in the what and how of learning and teaching innovation-a fifty-year synopsis

Student learning experiences at university are constantly evolving; new disciplinary discoveries, new knowledge, interdisciplinary synergies and new exigencies make learning a dynamic experience for students, teachers and researchers alike; and that is just the what of learning. Add to this, changes in the how of learning, new pedagogies and new technologies, new partners in the provision of learning, as well as new configurations of where learning takes place, such as on campus, at home, in the workplace and online; and it is not hard to make the case that learning experiences of students enrolled in a degree are relatively more complex today than they were even 20 years ago. Much of this change has been captured over the last five decades in the journal Higher Education. The ongoing challenge of these changes is the complexity that accompanies them. How do we improve the student experience of learning in a complex context? What should the outcomes of a higher education degree be? What learning processes are likely to lead better outcomes? How do you assess the quality of learning that may occur in small groups on campus or online, or in large groups in both places, or in laboratories or the workplace? What is the role of material objects in these experiences and do they contribute to outcomes? This manuscript will consider such questions and where the journal is pointing researchers towards new avenues that are developing in learning and teaching internationally.