Cosmopolitans or flexible workers? Student mobility programmes in the age of hypermobility

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

In both the UK and Ireland, campaigns were recently launched to increase the participation of local students in international mobility programmes, such as those offered under the Erasmus+ umbrella. These initiatives take particular significance in a context of graduate market congestion, and increased emphasis on employability as a mission for the higher education sector. How is the ideal ‘mobile’ student constructed through these national and institutional discourses? How do students respond to this emerging mobility imperative?

Based on a two-year study conducted in Ireland, the paper draws on Bourdieu and Foucault to examine this apparent push towards mass participation in short-term exchange programmes. In particular, it examines the logics at play in institutional discourses and practices around outgoing student mobility, outlining how these align with dominant discourses promoting individualistic, voluntarist attitudes to labour (hyper)mobility over the life-course, and how students adapt to, resist or re-appropriate these expectations.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 17 Oct 2019
EventCGHE Seminar Series - IOE , London, UK United Kingdom
Duration: 17 Oct 201917 Oct 2019
https://www.researchcghe.org/events/cghe-seminar/cosmopolitans-or-flexible-workers-student-mobility-programmes-in-the-age-of-hypermobility/

Seminar

SeminarCGHE Seminar Series
Country/TerritoryUK United Kingdom
CityLondon
Period17/10/1917/10/19
Internet address

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