Analysing the Consequences of Academic Mobility and Migration [1 ed.] 9781443831406, 9781443829786

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Analysing the Consequences of Academic Mobility and Migration

Analysing the Consequences of Academic Mobility and Migration

Edited by

Fred Dervin

Analysing the Consequences of Academic Mobility and Migration, Edited by Fred Dervin This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Fred Dervin and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2978-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2978-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Fred Dervin Part I. Language, Identity and the ‘Intercultural’ Chapter One............................................................................................... 13 Cosmopolitan Language Policies Karen Risager Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 29 The Influence of European Student Mobility on European Identity and Subsequent Migration Behaviour Christof Van Mol Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 51 Discourse of Bi-national Exchange Students: Constructing Dual Identifications Dina Strong Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 67 The Experience and Long-Term Impact of Study Abroad by Europeans in an African Context Jim Coleman and Tony Chafer Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 97 Virtual Academic Mobility: Online Preparation and Support for the Intercultural Experience Robert O’Dowd

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Part II. The Professional and Educational Impacts of Academic Mobility and Migration Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 115 How to Explain the Transnational Occupational Mobility of Former International Students? Suggestions for a Change in Research and Theoretical Perspectives Sören Carlson Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 131 Mobile Learning Communities: Lessons for and from Academic Mobility, the Knowledge Economy and Sustainability Patrick A. Danaher and Geoff R. Danaher Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 147 European Occupational Travellers: Synergies, Tensions and Competences in Bridging Academic and Occupational Mobility Patrick A. Danaher and Emilio A. Anteliz Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 163 The Consequences of Mobility: Careers and Work Practice of Portuguese Researchers with a Foreign PhD Ana Delicado List of Contributors ................................................................................. 181

INTRODUCTION FRED DERVIN

In an article entitled Towards Academic Mobility, published in The Manchester Guardian on 16th July 1953, Dr Bashir Ahmad, the then ViceChancellor of the University of the Punjab, is quoted as having said at the Seventh Quinquennial Congress of the Universities of the Commonwealth: “The need for exchange between universities was never so important as it is to-day”. Little did he know that his argument would become the motto of nearly every institution of higher education in the early 21st Century. Actually, today it might sound merely rhetorical to say that Academic Mobility is needed as it is often presented as having become “systematic, dense, multiple and trans-national” (Kim 2010). Academic Mobility leaves few people indifferent. Individuals, policymakers, institutions, the media, etc. all have their opinions about its pros and cons. As such it can be lauded—sometimes even fetishized (Robertson 2010)—and/or disapproved of before, during and after it is experienced. Yet Academic Mobility is now here to stay—volens nolens— as it has become part of the “complex interdependencies between, and social consequences, of the diverse mobilities” that characterise our era (Urry 2010: 348). Academic Mobility also contributes to the transformation of the ‘social as society’ into ‘the social as mobility’ (ibid.). The figures seem to talk for themselves to describe the “success” and “generalisation” of contemporary Academic Mobility: according to the latest statistics provided by the Unesco the number of international students rose by more than 75% between 2000 and 2009. The number is expected to rise by 3.7 million by 2015 (Bhandari & Blumenthal 2011). New markets are also emerging. For example, China is said to want to attract 500,000 international students in the near future, while according to BBC News (March 2011) “the entire overseas student population in China could once have travelled in a minibus. In the early 50s it consisted of 20 east Europeans”. Has the figure of the medieval “wandering scholar” (Pietsch 2010) thus become a postmodern reality for those involved in higher education? The widespread consensus is that most countries and world regions are

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Introduction

now witnessing Academic Mobility. If that is the case, what does it do to those who move? What are its short-term and long-term impacts? Do different types of mobility lead to different consequences? How do we analyse them?

Myths about Academic Mobility Many myths are associated with postmodern mobility (Maffesoli 1997). Policies, research and ‘common sense’ discourses on the presentday mobility of students, trainees, researchers, lecturers and administrative staff have led to the creation of numerous new myths. I propose to defuse some of them before tackling the consequences of Academic Mobility—so that we know what we are talking about and the problems we might encounter in studying them. In a volume that I co-edited with Mike Byram (Byram & Dervin 2008), Anthony Welch proposes the following list of myths: 1. Academic Mobility is not a modern phenomenon, 2. It is not limited to the “West”, 3. It is not always a matter of choice, 4. It does not mean that it is only students who travel, 5. It does not lack a gender dimension, 6. It is not neutral (cultural, economic and political dimensions), 7. “A brain drain of the highly skilled does not necessarily represent an unrecoverable loss to the originating country”. While reading this list, it comes to mind that there has actually been little research on e.g. mobility outside the “West”, “forced” Academic Mobility (economic migrants, refugees) or female Academic Mobility. The consequences Academic Mobility has on these individuals are practically unknown. Many other misconceptions can be uncovered. The overly enthusiastic idea that the academia as a whole is mobile is one of them. It is important to bear in mind that millions of students and staff worldwide are and will remain extremely ‘immobile’ during their studies/careers—either because they cannot afford it or because they do not want to travel/live abroad. Furthermore Academic Mobility is still very much “conditioned and constrained by the regional and international political and economic relations of power” (Kim 2009: 387). For example, it is relatively easy for a European citizen to study in another European country—either as an exchange or a degree student—while it might be extremely difficult for the same individual to register for a PhD in the USA or Japan. But this is an “easy” case compared to the plight of illegal academic ‘movers’. Finally we tend to forget that Academic Mobility always involves moving objects, images, information and “wastes” (Urry 2010: 348) across

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global academic networks and flows—it is not just about Humans. Again hardly any study has been conducted on these elements. It is easy to see that by dispelling these few myths—the reader will surely be aware of many more—we are ‘complexifying’ our understanding of what we know and what we need to do to analyse the consequences of Academic Mobility.

Towards Glocal Academic Mobility and Migration Even though the increase in research on Academic Mobility gives the impression that a whole new field of study has emerged and blossomed over the past 10 years (Byram & Dervin 2008), there remain a lot of questions to be asked about the ‘essence’ of Academic Mobility. The question What do we really mean by Academic Mobility? is one of them. To begin with we need to bear in mind that many mobile academics work/study in another country/other countries and have never actually worked or studied in their own country. As a consequence, I suggest we start using the label “Academic Mobility and Migration”. I believe that Academic Migration should not be confused with Academic Mobility but become a ‘research companion’—which can serve for comparative purposes. This is an important point as ‘permanent’ foreign staff and students often get placed mistakenly in the ‘wrong box’—that of ‘mere’ foreigners. Should we call Academic Mobility and Migration international, transnational, global, etc.? Kim (2010) argues that this question is misplaced as these adjectives describe increasingly interrelated phenomena. The ‘borrowing’ of the European Bologna Process is a good example of that trend (ibid.). Besides is it still worth differentiating it from ‘intra-national’ academic mobility in our times of gloCality, where the local cannot escape being transformed by the global and vice versa? For J. Urry (2010: 361): “there is a parallel irreversible process of globalization-deepeninglocalization-deepening-globalization and so on. Both are bound together through a dynamic relationship, as huge flows of resources move backwards and forwards between the global and the local. Neither the global nor the local can exist without the other. They develop in a symbiotic, irreversible and unstable set of relationships, in which each gets transformed through billions of world-wide iterations”. Should we then talk about glocal Academic Mobility and Migration? Some words about people involved in Academic Mobility and Migration are also appropriate here. On the one hand, I feel that we should not confuse the numerous categories of mobile academics: exchange

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Introduction

students vs. international degree students (cf. Dervin 2009); for staff: academic intellectuals (theoretical skills), academic experts (“researchers”) or manager-academics (management skills) (Kim 2010: 579). It is also good to remember that “some researchers are mobile some of the time, whilst for others, travel has become a routine part of their life: going backwards and forwards they are constantly mobile around the world” (Fahey & Kenway 2010: 568). On the other hand, it is important to compare the experiences of people in different “umbrella categories” such as students and staff (researchers, lecturers, etc.). Such themes as sociality, language learning and teaching, economic and environmental impacts, the ‘intercultural’ can be potentially examined across categories. Finally, new categories of ‘mobile’ students and staff have multiplied recently and we need more systematic empirical studies on them. For instance, there is little research on the virtual Academic Mobility of staff and students. The same goes for students and staff involved in programs provided by foreign universities in their own country (cf. e.g. ParisSorbonne University Abu Dhabi or Middlesex University-Dubai Campus).

Analysing the Consequences of Glocal Academic Mobility and Migration There are different ways to approach the consequences of Mobility. A common way of doing it is to study its financial impact. Neoliberal globalization has accompanied contemporary Academic Mobility and Migration through allowing e.g. the marketization of Higher Education (and “talent wars” Fahey & Kenway 2010), relaxed immigration policies and the creation of new power relations between countries and regions. As a direct consequence, “spaces” have now become competitors. International rankings such as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings contribute to this phenomenon, and lead to e.g. the “branding” of institutions to “attract” new customers (e.g. the label “UCL: The Global University” now substitutes University College London in the UK). A lot of discussion concerning financial aspects has taken place recently in the media. In an increasing number of countries Academic Mobility and Migration is seen as a way to finance “local” education. In a recent letter to the British newspaper the Observer1 sixteen university vice-chancellors insisted that “International students coming to 1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/mar/05/letters-international-studentcuts

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universities contribute over £5bn each year to the UK economy through tuition fees and off-campus expenditure”. This letter was written in reaction to a recent decision to cut the number of student visas in England. While reading the letter, one might easily get the impression that international students are often seen as mere “cash cows”. Yet the letter also mentions that “International students bring extensive cultural and political benefits to the UK. When they return to their countries at the end of their studies, they become cultural and economic ambassadors for the UK”. Kim (2009) has noted that the second argument is never actually the main motivation for accepting students from abroad. She argues that the same goes for international staff (ibid.). In this volume we are not so much interested in financial issues. Instead, the authors emphasise personal/social and professional/educational aspects of Academic Mobility and Migration. They are all interested in how to analyse such phenomena from a variety of disciplinal orientations including sociology, language education, linguistics, engineering and education. The authors all have specific objectives and agendas in their chapters: some examine underexplored issues and populations such as language policies in globalised higher education (Risager), virtual academic mobility (O’Dowd), long-term impacts of mobility from the “North” to the “South” (Coleman & Chafer), researchers with a foreign degree returning to their home country (Delicado); while others seek to question and propose new ways of analysing Academic Mobility and Migration (Carlson; Danaher & Danaher; Danaher & Anteliz). The concept of identity, though largely studied in various contexts of Academic Mobility, is also included in two chapters with contrasting methods of study (van Mol, Strong). They cast new light on this important issue. The book is divided into two parts: 1. Language, Identity and the Intercultural and 2. The Professional and Educational Impacts of Academic Mobility and Migration.

1. Language, Identity and the Intercultural In the opening chapter, Karen Risager deals with languages and the “glocalization” of higher education. Starting from the claim that universities must be positioned in the global linguistic landscape—and not just bask in the light of English (as a lingua franca)—, the chapter presents some examples of cosmopolitan language policies. These policies recognize the multiple language resources of student populations today and involve both a rethinking at the institutional level—policies and practices of the university—and at the individual level—the life-projects

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Introduction

and practices of individual (transnational) students. Risager asserts that the overall learning aim of a cosmopolitan university education would be lifelong continuity and integration of knowledge and experience, linking academic life with education before entering university studies and with professional life after university studies. The chapter also provides examples of cosmopolitan thinking by outlining language policies and practices at the interdisciplinary programme Cultural Encounters at Roskilde University, to which the author is attached. It is hard not to think of the consequences of these language policies on identity here. This ‘loudest talk in town’ (Z. Bauman 2004: 17) is the red thread in the next two chapters. Chapter 2, by Christof van Mol, studies European identity in student mobility. In his study, van Mol also explores the effects of mobility on subsequent migration behaviour in 16 European countries. The author notes that one of the main principles of mobility programmes in Europe today is to allow the emergence of European citizens in addition to a sense of European identity. A non-parametric analysis of his data (questionnaires) reveals that participation in a study programme abroad primarily strengthens the cultural component of a European identity, rather than a civic one. Moreover, the chapter challenges existing theories on the influence of student mobility on subsequent migration behaviour. Interestingly, many of the surveyed mobile students already have migration intentions before they participate in international exchange programmes. The next chapter approaches the concept of identity from a different methodological angle. Dina Strong is interested in gaining insight into the ways binational Erasmus exchange students in Latvia construct identifications. Following Wodak’s (1995) Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the author tries to integrate the students’ complex personal histories, while analyzing and interpreting the multiple layers of their discourses. Her results show that the students’ struggle to construct their identifications, asserting their national “inbetweenness” and their being “neither nor a stranger” in either countries, being always torn between two social, national, geographical, cultural and linguistic spaces. In the next chapter, Jim Coleman and Tony Chafer examine the verymuch underexplored issue of the lasting effects of study abroad. The study involves students who had undertaken a work placement in Francophone Africa as part of a UK degree in French since the mid-1980s. Using a questionnaire, the following issues are explored: gender, ethnicity, religion, accommodation, language use and gain, links with home, social

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networks, learning outcomes and subsequent employment. According to the authors, their findings echo earlier studies, others are context-specific, but the enduring impact of study abroad on attitudes and employment is amply confirmed. The first part ends with a chapter on virtual academic mobility, in which Robert O’Dowd argues that online intercultural exchange has the potential of supporting and enhancing traditional physical mobility programmes by bringing students into contact with members of the target culture before they actually leave for their period abroad. Based on a survey, the chapter demonstrates that online intercultural exchange remains a relatively peripheral ‘add-on’ activity in most institutions and is not yet considered an integral component of traditional student mobility programmes. The author also reviews current models of intercultural exchange in foreign language education and explores how telecollaboration can be more fully exploited both as a tool for the preparation for periods of study abroad and as a tool for supporting students during their periods of academic mobility in the target culture. An example of good practice which reflects a more effective ‘integrated’ approach to virtual and physical academic mobility ends the chapter. With the development of Web 2.0 technologies and e.g. easily accessible webinars (live online seminars through e.g. Elluminate or Adobe Connect) in the academia, it is easy to see how relevant O’Dowd’s chapter is for analysing the consequences of this type of mobility.

2. The Professional and Educational Impacts of Academic Mobility and Migration Four chapters compose the second part of the volume, which focuses on the professional and educational impacts of academic mobility and migration. The first three chapters are, in a way, exploratory. The first chapter asks the question: How to explain the transnational occupational mobility of former international students? The author, Sören Carlson, stimulates researchers to look through new glasses at the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility. He first asks the question of which kind of student mobility researchers should focus on. Carlson proposes that, contrary to the dominant approach taken in existing research on student mobility, we should concentrate on those students who pursue a whole degree course at a foreign university and graduate there, instead of those who only go abroad for a limited time and return to their home university. The author also takes a critical look at two current theoretical approaches which try to explain how student mobility

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Introduction

might be linked to transnational occupational mobility. A few suggestions on specific issues which still have to be dealt with in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of how student and transnational occupational mobility are related to each other are proposed at the end of the chapter. In a similar vein to the previous contribution, Patrick A. Danaher and Geoff R. Danaher take a very special position regarding Academic Mobility and Migration by articulating possible lessons for conceptualising and interrogating Academic Mobility and Migration by drawing on contemporary thinking about the knowledge economy and sustainability. In turn, the paper also explores how current understandings of academic mobility can contribute to challenging and extending the comprehension of those issues. The chapter’s principal finding is that concepts associated with the knowledge economy and sustainability are helpful in extending our current understandings of the manifestations and effects of academic mobility in different contexts. The authors also argue that constructing Academic Mobility and Migration through the lens of mobile learning communities adds to the depth and richness of contemporary conceptualisations of the knowledge economy and sustainability. In the next chapter, Patrick A. Danaher & Emilio A. Anteliz open up a new direction in analysing Academic Mobility and Migration by proposing to bridge Academic and Occupational Mobility, through the example of European Travellers. The two authors demonstrate that the competences of the mobile person can be understood as themselves exhibiting a fundamental mobility across different kinds of physical and social space, each with a specific set of norms, expectations and affordances. At the same time, that mobility is socially situated and politicised, and is often constrained when moving between the academic and occupational domains. For Danaher & Anteliz, these implications reveal that in seeking to bridge academic and occupational mobility educators, policy-makers and researchers can learn much from European Travellers and their multiple itineraries. Chapter 9, written by Ana Delicado, sets out to analyse the impacts that postgraduate mobility has on career prospects and work practices of researchers. Based on a study on the international mobility of Portuguese scientists, it explores the career opportunities and constraints that researchers face after obtaining a PhD in a foreign institution. Career paths and perceptions of both expatriate (those remaining abroad) and returnee (those who come back to the home country) scientists are examined, as well as the changes in research practices brought about by being trained in different national contexts.

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Acknowledgements: The editor would like to thank the following scholars for reviewing the chapters: Louise Ackers (Liverpool University, UK), Michiel Baas (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Susanne Ehrenreich (Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich, Germany), Elise Langan (Macon State College, USA), Aspasia Nanaki (University of Nantes, France), Vassiliki Papatsiba (University of Sheffield, UK), MarieClaire Patron (Bond University, Australia), Minna Söderqvist (Aalto University School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland), Gertrud Tarp (Roskilde University, Denmark) and Alain Wolf (University of East Anglia, UK). Thanks are also due to Tuukka Peltonen for allowing us to reproduce his work Summernight on the cover of this volume.

Bibliography Bhandari, R. & P. Blumenthal 2011. International students and global mobility in higher education. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Dervin, F. 2008. Métamorphoses identiaires en situation de mobilité. Turku: Humanoria —. 2009. “Impediments to engulfment into Finnish society: Exchange students’ representations on their experiences in Finland”. Research on Finnish Society. Vol. 2, pp. 19-27 Fahey, J. & J. Kenway 2010. Introduction: International academic mobility: problematic and possible paradigms. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education. Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 563-575. Khosravi, S. 2010. Illegal Traveller. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kim, T. 2009. Transnational academic mobility, internationalization and interculturality in higher education. Intercultural education. Vol. 20, No. 5, 395-405. —. 2010. Transnational academic mobility, knowledge, and identity capital. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education. Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 577-591. Maffesoli, M. 1997. Vagabondages. Paris: Le Livre de Poche. Pietsch, T. 2010. Wandering Scholars? Academic mobility and the British World, 1850-1940. Journal of Historical Geography. 36, pp. 377-387. Robertson, S. 2010. Critical response to Special Section: international academic mobility. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education. Vol. 31, No. 5, 641-647. Urry, J. 2010. Mobile Sociology. The Birtish Journal of Sociology. pp. 347-366. Welch, A. 2008. Myths and Modes of Mobility: the Changing Face of Academic Mobility in the Global Era. In M. Byram & F. Dervin (eds.).

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Students, Staff and Academic Mobility in Higher Education. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 292-311.

PART I. LANGUAGE, IDENTITY AND THE ‘INTERCULTURAL’

CHAPTER ONE COSMOPOLITAN LANGUAGE POLICIES KAREN RISAGER

Introduction Universities are parts of world society. One should not only see them as national institutions of higher education that prepare the national population to occupy posts in their own country. They are also, and increasingly so, institutions of transnational society that must prepare people for posts in all corners of the earth. Therefore universities must become aware of linguistic, linguacultural and discursive diversity in the world and within the institutions. Universities are not only sites of potentially great linguistic diversity in terms of national or local languages used on campus. They also embrace a very broad horizon of linguacultures by virtue of the different life trajectories of each and every person. Furthermore they are centres of circulation of a number of knowledge discourses that are to some extent related to the selection of languages and associated linguacultures. How can universities take up the challenge of this diversity in their language policies, especially those related to teaching and learning?

Languages: Global Flows and Local Complexity Global Linguistic Flows Before going into the question of universities and their language policies, I would like to make a brief outline of the view of language that informs the argument. Language is primarily seen as language practices (oral or written) going on in all kinds of social networks at various levels from the micro-level of interpersonal interaction to macro-levels of masscommunication. Taking the notion of social networks as a point of departure, one can study how specific languages are used and how they

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spread all over the world. The French language, for example, is used in many kinds of social networks in francophone countries. But it is also used in other places in the world. French is a world language in the sense that speakers of French live in practically every country and region in the world—as tourists, students, immigrants, business people, diplomats, doctors, journalists, scientists, sportsmen, etc. So languages such as French (i.e. people using French) spread all over the world, across cultural contexts and discourse communities. The same can be said of a large number of other languages. With social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz (1992), who has theorized the phenomenon of transnational and global cultural flows, one can speak of transnational and global linguistic flows. The global flows of languages are not only brought about by transnational migration and tourism bringing speakers of specific languages around the world. They are also brought about by foreign and second language learning giving people access to new language networks of potential global range. And transnational media further enable transnational communication between language users far apart. The flows of a large number of languages across national borders create local complexity in all countries, especially in the big cities with a multitude of linguistic minorities, new immigrants and other types of travellers, for instance students. In a country like Denmark, for example, about 120 languages are spoken as first languages, existing together in a socially structured landscape characterized by hierarchizations and identity politics. Linguistic landscapes could also be called linguascapes, which is a term modelled over the theory of anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, who conceptualizes the world as a number of global landscapes flowing in relation to one another. He distinguishes between five different “scapes”: ethnoscapes, financescapes, technoscapes, ideoscapes and mediascapes (Appadurai 1996). Ethnoscapes are the changing landscapes of ethnicities in the world. The concept of linguascape would have some similarity with the concept of ethnoscape, but they are not coterminous. Languages used as first languages may follow migrations as people carry their first languages with them. But the fact that people can learn languages later in life, as second and foreign languages, suggests that linguascapes do not have the same profiles as ethnoscapes.

Linguacultures Language choice has cultural implications because language carries culture, i.e. meaning. I would like to refer to the concept of linguaculture

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(or languaculture). This concept has been developed by linguistic anthropologist Michael Agar (1992), and I have developed it further in my own work (Risager 2006, Risager 2007). I use it as a concept that offers an opportunity to theorize deconnections and reconnections between on the one hand a language and its linguacultures, on the other hand the rest of culture, as a result of migration and other kinds of mobility. Language users travel from place to place, across cultural contexts and discourse communities, but they carry linguaculture with them (this is also suggested in the alternative wording: “culture in language”). The linguaculture of a language is the various kinds of meanings carried and produced by that language, primarily its semantics and pragmatics. There are dimensions of culture that are bound to specific languages, and dimensions that are not, for instance musical traditions or architectural styles. There may of course be historical links between such cultural phenomena and the language in question, but the point is that the phenomena are not dependent on that specific language. We all have our personal linguaculture, which cannot be separated from our personal life history and its wider social context. In the process of learning our first language or languages, we develop as social and cultural beings and learn to express ourselves and interpret the world. Therefore linguaculture is always to some extent different from individual to individual, characterized by a specific emotional and cognitive constitution, a specific perspective and a specific horizon of understanding. For example, the meaning of such notions as “work” and “leisure”, or “state” and “nation”, may be quite different even within the same professional group or the same family, all speaking the “same” language. We carry our linguaculture with us when we learn another language later in life. Personal connotations to words and phrases will be transferred to their (more or less direct) translations, and a kind of language mixture will result, where the foreign language is supplied with linguacultural matter from the first language.

Discourses of Knowledge Language choice may also have wider cultural implications in terms of the discourses given access to. First it must be said though that while linguaculture is related to one or more specific languages, discourse is not necessarily so. If we conceptualize discourse primarily in relation to its content, in the sense that discourse deals with a certain subject matter from a certain perspective, as in the theory of critical discourse analysis developed by Fairclough (1992), then it is clear that discourses may spread

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across languages. For example, discourses on Christianity spread all over the world. The subject matter of Christianity is not bound to any one language, although some languages are more specialized than others as to the verbalisation of topics related to Christianity. Discourses on mathematics, linguistics, learning and any other science, may flow from one language network to another, by processes of translation and other kinds of transformation, and they are influenced by changing linguacultures. For example: discourses on education will have different connotations in English-language discourse (education) than in Germanlanguage discourse (Bildung). But all in all very little is actually translated, so many discourses circulate in language communities without ever being translated or otherwise transmitted to the outside world, even though they may be of great interest to others. For example: What is discussed in Brazilian forestry (in Portuguese or languages other than English)? In Arabic art history? In Chinese social philosophy or medicine? In Indian popular industry (in Hindi or languages other than English)?

Language Policies in Higher Education Cosmopolitan Language Policies in Combination with Cosmopolitan Education Policies The current trend of internationalization policies is to favour an extended or even exclusive use of English for international purposes, presupposing that this is a necessity on the global educational market where universities compete for transnationally mobile students. And given this contemporary neoliberalist condition, it is undoubtedly important to focus on the use of English and other institutionally authorized working language(s) in oral and written communication. But by implementing English-only policies, universities make themselves blind to actual linguistic and linguacultural diversity and potentially also discursive diversity. When they maintain this limitation, perhaps softened with a vague reference to “other international languages” or “other foreign languages”, their language policies are too narrow. In my view, we should explore the concept of cosmopolitanism in order to widen the scope of language policies in internationalization and make room for the inclusion of more linguacultures and more knowledge discourses from different parts of the world. The concept of cosmopolitanism has a long and controversial history, but in this place I will focus on the theory developed by sociologist Ulrich

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Beck, who in a number of works has written about globalization and the need to overcome what he calls methodological nationalism, i.e. the tendency to frame all sociological thinking and methodology in national terms as if the nation was a container of everything (Beck 2000). In the book Cosmopolitan Vision (Beck 2004), he develops his ideas on cosmopolitanization as a social process and on the cosmopolitan outlook as a methodological perspective on the world. He states that the concept of cosmopolitanism has left the realm of philosophical castles in the air and has entered reality because of the combined effect of all the social processes that cut cross national boundaries: transnational mobility, flows of communication, the rise of transnational organizations, ecological crises, etc. The human condition has become cosmopolitan, and we are witnessing a real cosmopolitanization of people’s life worlds and institutions. This forces us to develop a cosmopolitan outlook, which is among other things a sense of the global and a sense of boundarilessness. I would propose that a concept of cosmopolitan language policy takes its point of departure in this idea: I would define a cosmopolitan language policy as a policy of awareness, recognition and inclusion of actual linguistic diversity. As stated above, an inclusive language policy would make room for the inclusion of more linguacultures and more knowledge discourses from different parts of the world and thus potentially raise the global outlook and quality of research and education. Cosmopolitanism at universities has much wider educational perspectives than language policies, of course. It would also mean a policy of awareness, recognition and inclusion of actual ethnic and cultural diversity in general. At this place I will take up the emphasis on transnational migration: Universities should be seen as sites of transnational education and learning, where students arrive from many corners of the earth, complete their studies, and leave again for their further career somewhere in the world, maybe in their country of origin. So universities should not be blind to the transitional character of learning processes, where students arrive with quite long educational experiences and lots of knowledge resources, and where they study with their own future life-projects in mind. The overall educational aim—and challenge— of a cosmopolitan university education should therefore be life-long continuity and integration of experience and knowledge, linking academic life with education before entering university studies and with professional life after university studies. In this picture, languages become relevant because students arrive with many different language resources that might be exploited in learning.

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Two kinds of situations may be distinguished: 1. The situation where students exploit their foreign language resources, not only English, but also other languages learnt in school or elsewhere. And 2. the situation where students exploit their first and second languages, which is often relevant for students who come from abroad. Why not include some activities in Chinese for students who have Chinese as their first or second language? By using Chinese in some activities with students from China, there can be made links to their previous studies in China, and there can be made links to their possible later professional life in China, where Chinese will often be the most useful language for professional communication with non-academics.

First or Second Language? It should be born in mind that the notions of first and second language may cover very diverse situations: Students coming from diglossic societies, such as the Arabic-speaking countries, may have learnt a regional oral language as a first language from their parents and have learnt standard written Arabic as their second language in school. Or students coming from an African francophone country may have learnt a regional language as a first language and French as their second language in school. Or students from a country like Turkey may have learnt Kurdish as their first language and Turkish as their second language in school. For these types of students, their second language would typically be their primary academic language. In the case of first languages, one may refer to studies confirming that learning by way of your first language may be more cognitively efficient (Thomas & Collier 2002, Skutnabb-Kangas 2000). On the other hand, for the above-mentioned types of university students, the use of their first language in academic learning would not be the natural choice if the language in question has not been used and developed as an academic language at all (for example regional Arabic vernaculars). For those students, their second language, especially if it has been learnt from an early age, would normally be a more natural choice and presumably also rewarding in the learning process. Whether a first or second language is chosen, the task of including it somehow in learning would often be a challenge for students because they have the task of developing the relevant knowledge discourse in another language, maybe without immediate examples to draw on. Thus, a bilingual policy of parallel languages, English and the local (national) language, will not do when we consider the students coming

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from abroad. If we want to include them, it would require a policy of multiple parallelism addressing different language groups: for example, for students speaking Chinese (as first or second language): English, Chinese and (possibly) the local language; for students speaking Spanish: English, Spanish and (possibly) the local language; for students speaking Polish: English, Polish and (possibly) the local language, etc. One can say that the simple bilingual policy of English and the national language is partly tied to a national paradigm of educational thinking: For the country’s own nationals it is a bilingual policy, but for other nationalities it is a monolingual English policy. A policy of multiple parallelism, on the other hand, would address the actual transnational learning processes of a more or less diverse student population.

Analyzing the Global Linguascape Multilingualism at the Global Level Applied linguist David Graddol has been working with issues concerning the future of English (Graddol 1997). On the basis of economic and demographic statistics, and projections for the next 4-5 decades, he states that several of the regional languages will challenge English as big languages in the years to come. With the current dramatic changes of the world order we will see the development of a multipolar world with rising economic powers like China, India, Brazil and Russia and their regional neighbours, and the world order of languages will presumably be affected by this development. Graddol thinks that it is unlikely that any other language will overtake the dominant role of English, but that we will see a transition from an English monopoly to an oligopoly with English and a restricted number of other big languages. Thus Graddol constructs the possible hierarchical situation of the world’s languages in 2050 like this, based on economic and demographic developments and taking also into account potential language shift, mainly from local vernacular languages that are abandoned (ibid.: 59): • the big languages: Chinese, Hindi/Urdu, English, Spanish and Arabic • regional languages (the languages of major trade blocks): Arabic, Malay, Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish • national languages: Around 90 languages serve over 220 states • local languages: The remainder of the world’s 1,000 or less languages with varying degrees of official recognition.

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I would add that with the economic development of the rising economic powers, we can expect their middle classes to grow, which will have many cultural implications such as increasing use of their national languages not only in national and regional, but also in transnational communication on the Internet and in other media, increasing cultural consumption expressed in their languages, not least in the booming film industries, and an increasing number of translations to and from these languages (interlingual communication), representing many genres of texts, fictional, scientific and other. We can see that today, some years after the publication of Graddol’s study, more and more languages are present on the Internet, as more and more people are using it as an instrument of everyday communication. The biggest languages on the Internet p.t. (Internet World Stats, 2009, but statistics change quickly) are English, Chinese and Spanish, and the fastest growing languages on the Internet are Arabic, Russian and Chinese. Wikipedia has articles in 264 languages (2009). It should be noted that in the transnational perspective presented above, in which languages are seen as language practices flowing around the world in social networks, none of these languages can be considered only local national languages. They are (also) global by virtue of their widespread transnational use. How should universities react to the global linguascape and its prospective development? I am not suggesting that universities should try to institutionalize a large number of languages as working languages in teaching. But as I shall argue below, there are many other ways in which universities can make themselves aware of, recognize and include languages. On the basis of the above investigation by Graddol, I would suggest that any university in the world should somehow recognize the presence of an increasing number of big languages in transnational and interlingual communication, and among them, beside English, at least Chinese, Spanish and Arabic.

Multilingualism at the Regional Level To this we must add the regional level. If we take Denmark as an example, universities in Denmark are situated in a multilingual Europe comprising over 200 languages including indigenous and immigrant languages. In Europe English is becoming the main regional language of transnational civil society, English and French are regional languages by virtue of their roles as working languages in the EU, and German, French and English are among the most important national languages. Important

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neighbouring languages in relation to Denmark are (at least) Swedish, Norwegian, German, Polish and Russian. Universities in Denmark should somehow recognize these languages, among them, beside English and Danish, at least French, German, Polish, Russian, Swedish and Norwegian.

Multilingualism at the State Level Taking the Kingdom of Denmark as an example (i.e. Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland), this is a de facto multilingual state. In Denmark, the national language Danish is spoken by almost all inhabitants as first or second language (5.5 mill.). Beside Danish, there are a large number of other languages, some 120 in total (Risager 2006), comprising immigrant languages of different sizes. The biggest of all these languages are Arabic (about 70,000 speakers), Turkish (60,000), Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian (45,000), and Kurdish (40,000). To these should be added a language with a special status: German as an especially supported minority language in Southern Denmark. On the Faroe Islands, a self-determining part of the Kingdom of Denmark, the national language Faroese is spoken (48,000), together with Danish and some immigrant languages. And in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), which has just obtained the status of self-determination, the national language Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) is spoken (50,000), together with Danish and some immigrant languages. Generally speaking, English has a very high status in Denmark. About 80% of the total population has some knowledge of English, ranging from elementary to advanced level (Preisler 1999), i.e. about 4.4 mill. On this background, I would suggest that universities in Denmark should be aware of, and somehow recognize, these languages, among them, beside Danish and English, at least Arabic, Turkish and German, plus Faroese and Kalaallisut. Arabic, Turkish and German in order to indicate the inclusion of linguistic minorities in Denmark, Faroese and Kalaallisut in order to indicate the inclusion of the languages of subordinate territories in the Kingdom of Denmark.

Multilingualism at the Institutional Level Taking Roskilde University as an example, most of the teaching staff speaks Danish and English (more or less well), either as first, second or foreign language. And the teachers in the subjects German and French naturally speak these languages. But there has not been any interest from

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the university’s side to investigate the language resources of its staff, although they may be very varied. Among students, there are both ethnic Danes, students from linguistic minorities in Denmark, students from the Faroe Islands and Kalaallit Nunaat, and students from a large number of countries around the world. But there are no statistics concerning the language resources of the students across subjects. The only thing I know is that there are many students from China at the university; they form the largest language group. I would suggest that Roskilde University should be aware of, and somehow recognize, beside Danish and English, at least Chinese. The first step in building an awareness of the linguistic diversity of the university (at one point in time) would of course be to carry out an investigation of this.

Roskilde University as a Cosmopolitan University— as regards Languages Taken together, all these considerations of prioritization of languages can be summed up in the following list of 14 languages that should be recognized by Roskilde University, for quite different reasons. This is not a closed list, but a minimum: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Danish—for state/national and institutional reasons English—for global, regional, state and institutional reasons Chinese—for global and institutional reasons Arabic—for global and state reasons Spanish—for global reasons German—for regional and state reasons French—for regional reasons Russian—for regional reasons Polish—for regional reasons Swedish—for regional reasons Norwegian—for regional reasons Turkish—for state reasons Faroese—for state reasons Kalaallisut—for state reasons.

How could that be done? The following sections describe some steps in the direction of a cosmopolitan language policy for one of the subjects at Roskilde University.

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Language Policy at Cultural Encounters, Roskilde Cultural Encounters Cultural Encounters (in Danish: Kultur- og Sprogmødestudier) is a Master’s programme that deals with cultural studies and postcolonial studies with a focus on (intersections between) sociocultural parameters such as ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, class, race, gender and age. It deals with identity construction and policy making in multicultural and multilingual society, and with transnational and Diaspora studies. Students typically start their university studies in a two-year broad interdisciplinary programme within the humanities or the social sciences, and then in their third year they enter Cultural Encounters (in combination with another subject of their own choice). Cultural Encounters encompasses three semesters in all, i.e. 1½ year. Studies are organized partly as problem-based project work in groups, partly as course work and the writing of individual essays. The teachers of Cultural Encounters have different disciplinary backgrounds such as anthropology, cultural sociology, sociolinguistics, postcolonial literature, sociology of religion, and minority studies. There are about 500 students (autumn 2009) at the programme, and about 30 of these are international students coming from many different countries in the world. The programme is organized so that a division of students in “Danish students” and “international students” is avoided as much as possible. All students can in principle mix and attend courses and do projects together, as the study programme is very flexible. The general working languages of Cultural Encounters are Danish and English. Almost all courses can be attended in both Danish and English, and e-mail messages to all students are either in both Danish and English, or only in English. Since its start in 2000, Cultural Encounters has had what we call a pluralistic language policy that encourages students to explore their language resources as much and as widely as possible. It comprises both obligatory and optional elements. This policy has been implemented in the following way.

Descriptions of the Programme on the Web From the start of the programme, we wanted to make its multilingual nature visible. Therefore we had short descriptions (half a page) of Cultural Encounters in several languages on the website. The languages

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chosen at that time were those known by the working group that created the programme: Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian and English. In 2005 a longer description (13 pages) was put on the web in the following languages: Arabic, Danish, English, French, German, Spanish and Turkish. Within the limits of our financial resources for translation, we chose languages that would address some large linguistic minorities in Denmark (Arabic and Turkish) and significant language areas abroad as well. In 2008 a somewhat shorter description (1 page) of Intercultural Studies, which is the research group attached to Cultural Encounters, was put on the web in Arabic, Danish, Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. Within the limits of our financial resources at that time, we chose these languages in order to address even more large language areas in the world, as Chinese and Urdu were added. The languages selected here are still only 8 out of the 14 languages listed above (but is adds Urdu).

An Investigation of Language Resources From the start we had been aware that our teachers and students had knowledge of a great many languages, and in order to document this, we conducted an investigation in 2005. It was a web-questionnaire asking informants to self-report on their knowledge of languages, ranging from advanced level in all four linguistic skills to a rudimentary level (knowledge of a few words). We found that among the 15 teachers we had at the moment, 19 languages were known at some level or other, at least at a level where he/she could make a cursory reading of a text: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Kurdish, Latin, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. Among the students that answered the questionnaire (109 in total), 52 different languages were reported as known, and among them were 20 deemed to be at an advanced level for all four skills: Danish, English, Spanish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Kikuyu, German, French, Italian, Icelandic, Japanese, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Korean, Mongolian. We did not ask them what was their mother tongue, as this concept is contested and may be misunderstood. On an average, each student mentioned 6.49 languages, so they had quite wide linguistic resources. The investigation has been published in Haberland & Risager 2008.

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Language Choice in Study Activities: Regulations and Practice Courses and essays: In the beginning of Cultural Encounters (2000), all courses and essays were in Danish, whereas readings and text collections contained articles and chapters in both Danish and English (and occasionally Swedish and German). But, as internationalisation grew in the following years, Cultural Encounters was among the first subjects at Roskilde University to change the programme so that it is possible to take the whole Master’s degree in English, and most of it also in Danish. All courses are given in English, and most of them are also given in Danish. The individual essay should be written in the same language as the course. All text collections, which are obligatory reading, are now only in English, as it takes too many resources to make text collections for both Danish and English courses. This is clearly a problem, and we are considering to offer alternative texts in other languages for those who are interested. Project reports and project summaries: Students gather in project groups around a problem area of their own choice, and they are supplied with a supervisor from the team of teachers. Project work and the writing of the project report may be done in any language that is mastered by all the students and their supervisor, but the choice is in practice limited because it also has to be a language that is mastered by at least one of the examiners in the external examiner corps. In actual fact, these languages have been chosen for project work until now: Danish, Norwegian, English, French and Spanish. Project summaries should be in Danish or any language of wide dissemination, and the following languages have been used for this until now: Danish, English, German, Turkish, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. It is important to note that Cultural Encounters is not a language subject, so matters of linguistic correctness are of secondary importance. What is required is an academically competent, clear and understandable language. Foreign language reading groups: All students have to participate in a foreign language reading group, where they read a theoretical work of their own choice, related to the cultural studies area. At the same time there is the requirement that the work should be in a ‘foreign’ language for the individual student. For native speakers of Danish, this means a language other than Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and English. (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are closely related, and there is a considerable degree of intercomprehension.) For speakers of other languages than Danish, the “foreign” language may be different, and since language biographies can be very diverse, this question is settled for each individual

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by the study board. The group of students get a supervisor, who guides them in their reading. The group does not have to speak the language of the theoretical work; they can speak Danish or whatever language they prefer, as long as it is a common language for them. Up till now, the following languages have been included in the reading: German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Danish as a foreign language, Turkish, Swahili and Polish. For example, we had a reading group studying a culture theoretical work in Russian. The group consisted of a native Russian, a Mongolian who knew Russian very well, a Danish student who had studied Russian in secondary education, and a supervisor who for professional reasons had some reading skills in Russian. The group discussions were carried out mainly in English and sometimes also in Russian. It should be noted that in the individual student’s exam documents it is indicated which foreign language has been chosen.

The Structure of the Language Policy at Cultural Encounters One can say that Cultural Encounters has implemented a policy that widens the bilingual core (Danish and English are the main working languages) with two different language policies: a policy of enlarged representation and a policy of invitation. The policy of enlarged representation is seen in the texts in different languages on the Internet, and in the investigations of the language resources of the staff and the students. It is a representation based on the “importance” of the languages in question: either “big” languages with a large number of speakers, or languages with a special status. This policy is a way of raising multilingual awareness. The policy of invitation is seen in the possibilities of open language choices. There is the requirement of using a foreign language (of your own choice) in a reading group, but otherwise the inclusion of other languages is in the hands of the students. If they choose to write a project summary in their first language, say Turkish, it is only for their own sake. By making the summary, they create links to their previous study environments in their home countries and develop their competence in writing about their academic studies in their first or second languages. This is fully optional, and they are not given special credit for the language choice. This policy is thus a way of exploiting the language resources of the students in learning. It is a flexible way of institutionalizing a language policy of multiple parallelism in a multilingual student population.

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Conclusion Universities are part of world society and have to act in a changing landscape where students move around in search of education. This landscape is just one of the aspects of the more comprehensive pattern of transnational flows of people, goods and ideas. Among the cultural flows in the world are flows of languages following migratory movements, and by this process many languages of the world spread to new environments and are brought together locally, especially in the big cities, where more than 100 languages may exist side by side in a complex interrelationship. With languages follow linguacultures and in some sense also certain discourses of knowledge. The university is one of the sites of linguistic, linguacultural and discursive complexity. The article argues that this situation calls for a cosmopolitan language policy in combination with a cosmopolitan education policy. A cosmopolitan education policy should aim at recognizing and seeking to include ethnic and cultural diversity in learning processes and the whole setup of education. Higher education should be analyzed as institutions of transnational education, in which the experiences and knowledge resources of its students, including those that are transnationally mobile, are taken seriously and exploited in learning. The overall educational aim of a cosmopolitan, globally oriented, university education should be to further life-long continuity and integration of experiences and knowledge. A cosmopolitan language policy should take its point of departure in actual multilingualism at global, regional, state and institutional levels, and it should aim at recognizing and seeking to include actual linguistic diversity among its students and staff. It can do this partly by inviting everybody to exploit and develop the language resources they already have, as first, second or foreign languages. The article provides examples of cosmopolitan thinking by outlining the language policy and practices at the interdisciplinary programme Cultural Encounters at Roskilde University.

Bibliography Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis etc.: University of Minnesota Press. Beck, U. 2000. What Is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity. —. 2006 (2004). Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press Cultural Encounters, Roskilde University, http://www.ruc.dk/cuid/uddannelser/kultsprog/

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Graddol, D. 1997. The Future of English? London: British Council. Haberland, H. & K. Risager. 2008. Two pilot studies of multilingual competence in international programmes at Roskilde University. In H. Haberland et al. (eds). Higher Education in the Global Village. Cultural and Linguistic Practices in the International University. Roskilde: Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde University, pp. 41-65. Hannerz, U. 1992. Cultural Complexity. Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press. Internet World Stats (August 2009), www.internetworldstats.com. Preisler, B. 1999. Danskerne og det engelske sprog. Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetsforlag. Risager, K. 2006. Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. —. 2007. Language and Culture Pedagogy: From a National to a Transnational Paradigm. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 2000. Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Thomas, W. & V. Collier. 2002. A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-Term Academic Achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence.

CHAPTER TWO THE INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN STUDENT MOBILITY ON EUROPEAN IDENTITY AND SUBSEQUENT MIGRATION INTENTIONS CHRISTOF VAN MOL

Introduction Europe is a series of peoples’ names, bills and visiting cards that I save. This is my history, my geography. Cities are places where we become who we are. —Koen Peeters, Grote Europese Roman, 20071.

European student mobility has increased significantly over the last decades in a context characterised by the internationalisation and harmonisation of university degrees. The promotion of mobility among university students in Europe by the European Commission started in 1976 with the Joint-Study Programmes, but the ERASMUS programme, initiated in 1987, became the best-known programme. Today, around 150.000 students participate every year in an exchange abroad within the ERASMUS framework. However, despite the fact that student mobility has become increasingly visible in Europe, empirical research on the subject remains limited (Baláž & Williams 2004, Chirkov, Vansteenkiste, Tao & Lynch 2007, Kehm & Teichler 2007). Current research regarding student mobility is generally limited to descriptive statistics, rarely empirically founded, and is commonly framed in a national context (Gargano 2008, King 2002), in spite of the international character of the phenomenon. Even though several scholars have tried to frame student 1 Original text in Dutch: “Europa is een reeks namen van mensen, rekeningen en kaartjes die ik bewaar. Dit is mijn geschiedenis, mijn aardrijkskunde. Steden zijn plaatsen waar we worden wie we zijn”.

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mobility theoretically over the years (e.g. Findlay, Stam, King & RuizGelices 2005, King & Ruiz-Gelices 2003, Murphy-Lejeune 2002, Papatsiba 2003, Tsoukalas 2008), much remains to be done. Two rationales underlie the European exchange programmes (Corbett 2003, Papatsiba 2005, 2006, Wiers-Jenssen 2008). The economic rationale aims to promote the European labour market; students who participate would move easier during their future professional careers whereas the civic rationale aims at the creation of European citizens or a European identity feeling. As a result, it is striking that empirical evidence on these themes remains inadequate (van der Veen & Lustick 2001, Van Mol, 2009). In this article, we present the preliminary results of a first quantitative data collection at twenty-four European universities in sixteen countries as part of our research project concerning the influence of European student mobility on European identity and subsequent migration intentions.

Background European Identity As mentioned before, European student mobility has been considered one of the ways to promote European identity among Europeans. With the much cited Lisbon agenda of 2000, the circulation of talent and brains in a knowledge economy has been put on the foreground again, with as a valuable consequence the construction of a European identity (Favell 2009). Several authors who study European identity refer to students as possible carriers of a European identity feeling (Favell 2008, Fligstein 2008), but they rarely ground their assumptions empirically. Moreover, existing research on European identity with student samples focuses primarily on the student population in general, without taking into account the influence a European exchange experience may have on the creation of such an identity. Mobile students take full advantage of a Europe characterised by the free movement of persons, goods and capital, and represent a new generation of students who may be building a new mobile Europe in an unconscious way (Van Mol 2009). Nevertheless, the concept of a European identity is a subject of controversy among scholars from various disciplines, and what is meant by the term remains very unclear (Fuchs, Guinaudeau & Schubert 2009, Strath 2006). Originally, the idea of such an identity was launched in Copenhagen, at the European Community summit in 1973, where a “Declaration concerning European Identity” was adopted (Kraus 2008,

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Strath 2006). Since then, the concept has attracted the attention of scholars of various disciplines, among which are social scientists. Nevertheless, social scientists seem divided over the significance of European identity in everyday lives. Consequently, research on European identity can take different directions. The advocates of the so called no-demos-thesis (e.g. Wintle 1998) argue—on a theoretical level—that there are not enough reference points for citizens to support a European identity (Fuchs et al. 2009). In defence of this position, they refer to the lack of a clear border, culture, history, language or religion in Europe (Fuchs et al. 2009). On an empirical level, they state that identification with the European Union stays at a very low level for several years and that no affective feeling of citizens toward the European Union has been observable. Conversely, other authors, who adopt a constructivist perspective on collective identity basing their assumptions on the analysis of peoples’ attitudes toward Europe, suggest that European identity is being strengthened (Ros, Rodríguez & Casado 2008)2. Theories of multiple identities are applied frequently in this perspective, which basically means that each individual disposes of several identities which correspond to different levels of abstraction (Fuchs et al. 2009); our sense of self is open for change and the result of everyday social interaction with each other and with outsiders (Grundy & Jamieson 2005, Mayer & Palmowski 2004). Moreover, identities are not considered as mutually exclusive; on the contrary, they can be combined. Concerning European identity, this means that most academic researchers who follow the constructivist perspective consider European identity to be built on, complementary to, or interacting with national identities (Grundy & Jamieson 2007). In this context, various authors already empirically confirmed the compatibility of a local, regional, and national identity with a European identity (Bruter 2005, Fuchs et al. 2009, Grundy & Jamieson 2007, Robyn 2005, Ros et al. 2008). Two possible ways are described in the literature to study a European identity feeling: a “top-down” and a “bottom-up” approach. For our research project, we focused on the individual level, with the aim of discovering if and, if positive, how a European identity feeling is formed at a micro level. Nevertheless, this does not mean that we eliminate the top-down approach since everyday social interactions of students in an 2 However, various scholars argue that the differences in research results on the topic are due to the way how European identity is measured, given the fact that there does not exist a standardised way for studying it (Herrmann & Brewer 2004).

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international context are made possible by macro processes which they cannot influence directly, such as the creation of a European educational framework. One of the main points in the discussion on European identity is whether it concerns an EU-identity or a wider European identity (Savvides 2006). In this context, we followed the work of Michael Bruter (2005), who distinguished between a “cultural identity” and a “political identity”. The author argued that the political identity is much more present among Europeans than the cultural one. Interesting for our study is the fact that Bruter’s sample consisted mainly of university students. Sue Grundy and Lynn Jamieson (2007) concluded in the same way as Bruter that students’ narratives mixed “cultural” and “civic” elements at some point in their talks. However, these authors did not distinguish between mobile and nonmobile students, and we hypothesised European exchange programmes to influence the development of a European identity (Van Mol 2009), since research on international student mobility revealed that successful experiences lead to changes in students’ self-perception and their perceptions of the world (McLeod & Wainwright 2009). Hence, this topic will be explored in the first part of our article.

Student Mobility and Subsequent Migration Behaviour Several authors have already explored the migratory behaviour of former mobile students (e.g. Bracht et al. 2006, Findlay, King, Stam, & Ruiz-Gelices 2006, Parey & Waldinger 2008, Teichler & Janson 2007, Wiers-Jenssen 2008). They all conclude that a study period abroad during university degree increases the likelihood of mobility after graduation. However, many of these authors (e.g. Bracht et al. 2006, Teichler & Janson 2007), did not include a control group of non-mobile students in their research design. As a result, they mainly collected perceptions of former mobile students, which should be compared with those of nonmobile students. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions. For example, Matthias Parey and Fabian Waldinger (2008) demonstrated that studying abroad increases the probability of migrating again after graduation up to twenty per cent. They base their assumptions on a sample of last year’s students, both mobile and non-mobile. Jannecke Wiers-Jenssen (2008) also demonstrated empirically that former mobile students hold more jobs with international components compared to their non-mobile peers, and she also based her assumption on a sample of last year’s mobile and nonmobile students.

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In this article, we adopt a different perspective. Given the time-limit of our research project, it was not possible to plan longitudinal research on actual migratory behaviour. We chose a cohort research design, and opted for studying migration intentions before and after the international exchange experience. However, we are aware that mobility intentions do not necessarily have to result in actual mobility behaviour; there may exist a discrepancy between intentions and actual behaviour (Epstein & Gang 2006). We will explore the influence of European student mobility on migration intentions in the second part of the article.

Methodology Sample The preliminary results presented in this article are based on an online survey conducted at the end of the academic year 2008-2009 at twenty-six European universities in nineteen countries with students of Language Studies, Economics & Business Studies, Political & Social Sciences, and Engineering3. In this article, we focus on the results of twenty-four universities of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. Incomplete answers, answers from students from other disciplines, and answers from students with a foreign nationality or second generation immigrants were filtered out, in order to streamline the analysis. In the end, our database contained 2,886 complete answers. A descriptive analysis of the gender distribution revealed that 67.8 per cent of the respondents were female, versus 32.2 per cent male. This distribution reflects more or less the gender distribution of European exchange students in general. No significant differences were found in the age of respondents; 92.8 per cent of the sample was aged twenty-five or younger.

Instrument The questionnaire was developed through the adaptation of existing questionnaires on student mobility and European identity (e.g. Bruter 2005, Findlay et al. 2006, King & Ruiz-Gelices 2003, Murphy-Lejeune 2002), and refined after transcription and analysis of twenty-three explorative interviews with students at the Universiteit Antwerpen 3

For a detailed list of the participating universities, see www.ua.ac.be/cemis/esm.

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(Belgium) and the Universitat de València (Spain) in February-March 2009. These interviews were conducted with both mobile and non-mobile students, and respondents came from different European countries, namely Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Slovakia and Spain. In addition, an online pilot study with students of nineteen European countries was conducted in April 2009. This pilot study was distributed on students’ internet panels and in groups at social network sites such as Facebook. The instrument was divided into five parts. All scales were tested on internal validity after the pilot study and proved to be consistent (Cronbach’s alpha of at least .7 for all scales). The design of the survey was treated carefully, since various authors suggested that the design of an online survey can affect the response rate, the dropout rate, and even the quality of the responses (Thorndike et al. 2009, Tourangeau, Couper & Conrad 2004). Additionally, answer categories were randomised where possible to reduce possible response bias. For the same reason, students did not know the exact aim of the survey. They knew the questionnaire was asking about their student life and Europe. However, at the end of the questionnaire, they were directed to the homepage of the survey, where they could gain more detailed information about the exact purpose of the research project. Average completion time of the questionnaire was between five and twenty minutes and participants were free to backtrack and review all responses before submitting the questionnaire. Response rates for the questionnaire could not be calculated, since some universities could not provide the exact number of students to whom the e-mail invitation was sent. However, the response rate of the universities that provided us with the exact number was 8.02 per cent. This low response rate seems to be typical for web surveys (Conrad, Couper, Tourangeau & Peytchev 2005, Fricker 2008, Vehovar & Lozar Manfreda 2008). One possible explanation for this apparently low response rate may be the fact that we did not offer incentives to the students. However, Anja Göritz (2006) demonstrated that incentives are less effective in online surveys compared to offline surveys. Moreover, it has been argued that incentives in web surveys may affect the data quality of the answers (Göritz 2006). Another possible explanation is the fact that the questionnaire was forwarded at the end of the academic year 2008-2009, so the response rate can be affected by the fact that students may have been busy studying, and early university drop-out students may even not have seen the invitation email. This article is mainly based on the fourth and the fifth parts of the questionnaire, more specifically the part that aimed to investigate students’

The Influence of European Student Mobility on European Identity

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feelings toward Europe and future migration intentions. Nevertheless, it is important to remark the limitations of these preliminary results. They provide empirical evidence on the subject based on answers from sixteen counties; however, we did not take into account the possible differences between countries even though we are building such an analysis at present, and results will soon be presented.

Method The final sample was divided into four groups of students, based on their mobile situation. The first group (n = 1054) contained currently mobile or formerly mobile students. The second group (n = 798) consisted of future mobile students, more specifically those students who answered “definitely” to the question “Would you like to spend some time abroad during the remainder of your degree?”. The third group (n = 786) was formed by potential mobile students, namely those students who answered “perhaps” at the same question as group number two. The final group (n = 248) contained the non-mobile students; those who answered “no” to the previous mentioned question4. Three different methods of non-parametric analysis were applied on the database. First, the Monte Carlo version of the Kruskal-Wallis test—which can be considered as the non-parametric equivalent of a one-way independent ANOVA—for testing general differences between the four groups. Second, the Monte Carlo version of the Mann-Whitney test—the non-parametric counterpart of the independent t-test—between all groups on the differences which came out of the Kruskal-Wallis test. However, the use of many Mann-Whitney tests for examining the differences revealed by the Kruskal-Wallis test can inflate the Type I error rate (Field 2009). For that reason, a Bonferroni correction was applied on all the conducted Mann-Whitney tests in the following section. Consequently, all effects of these tests are reported at a 0.0083 level of significance. In addition, we applied a Jonckheere Terpstra test for testing trends between the groups. For this test, groups were ranked as follows: (1) non-mobile students; (2) potential mobile students; (3) future mobile students; and (4) mobile students. For most items tested, we expected a trend from a low score for non-mobile students toward a high score for mobile students. 4

Interestingly, only a small part of the group answered that they never want to go abroad. This contrasts with the fact that only a ten percent goes abroad during university career. However, it can be possible that non-mobile students are less interested in questionnaires about Europe than their mobile peers.

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Results Identification with Europe Students were asked in the questionnaire to rate their identification with their village/town/city; region; country; Europe; and the world, on a seven-point Likert scale5. An application of the Kruskal Wallis test revealed significant differences between the four groups considering students’ identification with Europe (H(3) = 151.69, p < .001) and the rest of the world (H(3) = 70.27, p < .001). Examining these differences more closely with Mann-Whitney tests the differences between the groups become clear (see table 1). Table 1: Students’ identification with Europe and the rest of the world Groups Non-mobile vs. Potential mobile Non-mobile vs. Future mobile Non-mobile vs. mobile Potential mobile vs. Future mobile Potential mobile vs. mobile Future mobile vs. mobile

5

Europe U 78859 r -.14 p .000 U 65899 r -.25 p .000 U 77399.5 r -.28 p .000 264197.5 U -.14 r .000 p U 316021.5 r -.21 p .000 U 387514 r -.07 p .002

Rest of the world U 80161 r -.14 p .000 U 68842 r -.23 p .000 U 94484.5 r -.20 p .000 274217.5 U -.11 r .000 p U 373095 r -.09 p .000 U 409805 r -.02 p .169

The last factor “rest of the world” was added since it was hypothesised that students may become more cosmopolitan after their exchange experience. It was argued that a student’s international experience does not have to lead necessarily to a European identity since mobile students meet peers from all over the world abroad.

The Influence of European Student Mobility on European Identity

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All comparisons revealed higher scores for the second group. As shown in Table 1, non-mobile students feel less attached to Europe than potential mobile students. Subsequently, potential mobile students feel less attached to Europe compared to the group of future mobile students, and future mobile students feel less European than mobile students. Nevertheless, this finding indicates that there already exists certain identification with Europe for the group of potential and future mobile students. The same pattern can be found if we compare students’ identification with the world. Interestingly, the group of future mobile students did not differ in this aspect from the group of mobile students. Further, when we compare the mean ranks of the two groups, future mobile students have a higher score, but not statistically significant. These results suggest that student mobility stimulates a European identity rather than a cosmopolitan identity. However, more research is needed to support this assumption. Therefore, in a second phase of the project, potential mobile students and future mobile students will be checked again after their mobility experience, in order to underline this assumption empirically. In addition, we checked if students consider themselves citizens of Europe and/or European on two five-point scales in order to provide further empirical evidence on this identification with Europe. The application of the Kruskal Wallis test revealed significant differences for both factors (H(3) = 146.44, p < .001 for the factor “citizen of Europe”, and H(3) = 137.06, p < .001 for the factor “European”). As Table 2 shows, a more thorough analysis of the differences between all groups with Mann-Whitney tests revealed the same pattern as the identification of students with Europe on the seven-point Likert scale. All groups reported significant differences, ranging again from a low identification for the group of non-mobile students, increasing over the groups of potential mobile students and future mobile students to a significantly higher identification for the group of mobile students.

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Table 2: Students’ feeling as a European citizen and European Groups Non-mobile vs. Potential mobile Non-mobile vs. Future mobile Non-mobile vs. Mobile Potential mobile vs. Future mobile Potential mobile vs. Mobile Future mobile vs. Mobile

European citizen U 81614.5 r -.08 p .000 U 71099 r -.23 p .000 U 82847 r -.27 p .000 271912.5 U -.13 r .000 p 320473 U -.21 r .000 p U 380745.5 r -.09 p .000

European U 82471.5 r -.13 p .000 U 72941 r -.21 p .000 U 85046 r -.26 p .000 274278.5 U -.12 r .000 p 322399 U -.21 r .000 p U 380519 r -.10 p .000

Meaning of Europe Despite the fact that these results suggest the emergence of a European identity feeling among students who spent a study period abroad, it does not explain what Europe means for those students. For this reason, we included a question in our questionnaire asking about the meaning of Europe. In this way, we were able to observe if students interpret Europe in more cultural or civic terms, on a five-point Likert scale containing fifteen items. The application of a Kruskal Wallis revealed several between-group differences concerning the items “democracy” (H(3) = 30.99, p < .001), “free movement of people” (H(3) = 82.33, p < .001), “common values” (H(3) = 45.24, p < .001), “common traditions” (H(3) = 39.87, p < .001), “the European Union” (H(3) = 23.16, p < .001), “Europe is a continent” (H(3) = 18.19, p < .001), “common history” (H(3) = 38.34, p < .001), “Europe is the future” (H(3) = 28.70, p < .001), “the European Economic Area” (H(3) = 57.91, p < .001), “different countries that have something in common” (H(3) = 89.82, p < .001), “Europeans are similar” (H(3) = 20.58, p < .001), and the item “common culture” (H(3) = 47.78, p < .001).

The Influence of European Student Mobility on European Identity

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Once again, we applied Mann-Whitney tests to discover the differences. As Table 3 shows, potential mobile students and non-mobile students do rate the items “common values”, “common traditions”, “the European Union”, and “the European Economic Area” lower in their conception of Europe compared to the mobile and future mobile students. Interestingly, the same can be concluded on the items “free movement of people”, “Europeans are similar” and “different countries that have something in common”, but mobile students on their turn rate these items significantly higher than future mobile students, pointing at a more cultural idea of Europe, which is probably formed in the international environment in which they participated. However, this does not suggest that future mobile students do not interpret Europe culturally, since they do not differ significantly with mobile students on the factor “common culture” and “common history” but they do with all other groups. In addition, mobile students conceive Europe much more as a continent than the other three groups, as Table 3 shows.

The European Economic Area

Europe is the future

Common history

The European Union Europe is a continent

Common traditions

Common values

Free movement of people

Democracy

Item

Non-mobile vs. Potential mobile U 86566.5 r -.14 p .005 U 90725.5 r -.06 p .072 U 91597 -.05 r p .131 U 90819.5 -.05 r p .099 U 93867 r -.03 p .357 U 92953.5 r -.04 p .252 U 84998 r -.10 p .001 U 81860.5 r -.12 p .000 U 90382 r -.06 p .078

Table 3: Meaning of Europe

40

Non-mobile vs. future mobile U 81571 r -.14 p .000 U 80216 r -.16 p .000 U 83791 r -.12 p .000 U 84221.5 r -.12 p .000 U 88136.5 r -.09 p .004 U 93411.5 r -.04 p .155 U 79476 r -.15 p .000 U 80442.5 r -.14 p .000 U 79819.5 r -.15 p .000

Non-mobile vs. mobile U 106823.5 r -.14 p .000 U 96387 r -.20 p .000 U 105491 r -.14 p .000 U 106130.5 r -.13 p .000 U 113890.5 r -.10 p .000 U 113517 r -.10 p .000 U 103338 r -.15 p .000 U 103803.5 r -.15 p .000 U 102011 r -.16 p .000

Chapter Two

Potential mobile vs. future mobile U 291585 r -.06 p .010 U 278869 r -.11 p .000 U 283419 r -.09 p .000 U 285234.5 r -.08 p .002 U 289595 r -.07 p .004 U 309495.5 r -.07 p .658 U 290340 r -.07 p .008 U 302232.5 r -.03 p .210 U 273788.5 r -.11 p .000

Potential mobile vs. mobile U 381823.5 r -.07 p .003 U 340366 r -.17 p .000 U 357818.5 r -.13 p .000 U 359303.5 r -.12 p .000 U 374234 r -.09 p .000 U 379373.5 r -.08 p .001 U 377256.5 r -.08 p .001 U 393988.5 r -.04 p .072 U 350462 r -.14 p .000

Future mobile vs. mobile U 416937 r -.01 p .756 U 391366.5 r -.06 p .004 U 403868 r -.04 p .115 U 401868 r -.04 p .098 U 411944.5 r -.02 p .444 U 391004.5 r -.06 p .006 U 412552 r -.02 p .506 U 416447.5 r -.01 p .734 407762.5 U r -.03 p .266

Common culture

Different countries that have something in common Europeans are similar

91826 -.05 .145

86869.5 -.08 .008 85838.5 -.09 .003

U r p

U r p U r p

U r p U r p

U r p 86586.5 -.10 .002 79287 -.15 .000

84786.5 -.12 .000 U r p U R p

U r p 109281.5 -.12 .000 101220 -.16 .000

98642.5 -.18 .000 U r p U r p

U r p 306551.5 -.02 .438 286262.5 -.08 .001

283479 -.09 .000 U r p U r p

U r p

The Influence of European Student Mobility on European Identity

386069 -.06 .005 364989.5 -.11 .000

328704 -.19 .000 U r p U r p

U r p 401330.5 -.04 .079 407724.5 -.03 .245

371841 -.11 .000

41

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Considering the group of non-mobile students, it is interesting to remark the certain degree of Euroscepticism in this group. They rate the item “Europe is the future” significantly lower than all other groups, even in relation to the items “democracy” and “common history”.

Migration Intentions The application of the Kruskal Wallis and Jonckheere Terpstra test on future migration intentions confirms results from other surveys in which it was concluded that former exchange students are more likely to move again and/or have jobs with an international component after graduation compared to their non-mobile peers. However, our results warn of an overestimation of the effect of student mobility on further migratory behaviour. Given the limited time for our research project, it is not possible to study the actual migratory behaviour of students. However, we have chosen to study migration intentions after graduation, which may lead to actual migration movements. The implementation of a control group in our research design was important to obtain reliable data. As mentioned before, most of the studies on former mobile students’ migratory behaviour are based on perceptions of mobile students themselves, without the involvement of a control group of non-mobile peers. In addition, our distinction between future mobile students and potential mobile students proved to be important. Students’ future migration intentions were measured by three factors on a five-point Likert scale. As Table 4 shows, a Kruskal-Wallis analysis on the data revealed significant differences for all three factors. Table 4: Future migration intentions Factor I can imagine to lived abroad for a year or more after graduation I would like to work in a foreign country after graduation

Kruskal-Wallis Chi-Square 550.70 df 3 p .000 Chi-Square df p

495.67 3 .000

I would like to have a job with an international component after graduation

Chi-Square df p

576.52 3 .000

Jonckheere-Terpstra Observed J-T 1955711 Statistic 21.96 Std. J-T Statistic .41 Effect size Observed J-T 1933955 Statistic 19.95 Std. J-T Statistic .37 Effect size Observed J-T 1953434 Statistic 21.99 Std. J-T Statistic .41 Effect size

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Interestingly, when we applied subsequent Mann-Whitney tests, all but one analysis revealed significant differences (see Table 5). Table 5: Future migration intentions

U r p U r p U r p U r p U r p

51841.5 -.48 .000 42548 -.47 .000 70206.5 -.22 .000 236544 -.41 .000 193461 -.36 .000

47142 -.47 .000 36396.5 -.50 .000 64569.5 -.26 .000 254112.5 -.35 .000 194754 -.35 .000

I would like to have a job with an international component after graduation 41751.5 -.54 .000 34039 -.54 .000 60113 -.29 .000 253172 -.38 .000 203791 -.33 .000

U r p

398588 -.06 .015

415871.5 -.01 .687

400500.5 -.05 .027

Groups

Non-mobile vs. mobile Non-mobile vs. future mobile Non-mobile vs. potential mobile Potential mobile vs. mobile Potential mobile vs. future mobile Future mobile vs. mobile students

I can imagine to lived abroad for a year or more after graduation

I would like to work in a foreign country after graduation

No significant differences were found between future mobile and mobile students. This finding is important, since it shows that students who already made the decision to participate in an international exchange programme are more inclined toward jobs abroad or jobs with an international component after graduation. This means that the importance that has been attached in several studies to international exchange programmes as catalysers for mobility in students’ later professional life has to be nuanced; the influence of student mobility on future migration

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and international job searches may not be as pronounced as stated in several studies. Moreover, this may indicate the existence of a “migrant personality” (Boneva & Frieze 2001, Frieze et al. 2004, Frieze, Hansen & Boneva 2006) or “mobile personality”, i.e., some people are more likely to move than others. An in-depth analysis of the real influence of student mobility on future migration plans and/or behaviour should take this into account. Therefore, in the follow-up of our research project we will study the group of potential mobile students in order to grasp the real influence of a mobility programme on migratory behaviour. Our cohort research design allows us to study this group again at the end of the academic years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. In this way we might discover how their participation or non-participation in mobility programmes change their perception of working abroad or having jobs with international components. This will allow us to get a better empirically based insight in how international exchange programmes influence the future mobility aspirations of students.

Conclusion The preliminary results presented in this article raise some significant points concerning the influence of European student mobility on European identity and subsequent migration intentions. First of all, participation in a mobility programme seems to have an influence on the formation of a European identity feeling. However, our results suggest that student mobility acts as a catalyser for European identity; this identity feeling is already present before participation in such programmes. Secondly, our results indicate a significant shift from a mix of civic and cultural elements in students’ European identity toward a more cultural interpretation of Europe after participation in an international exchange programme. To state it differently, exchange students move from an EU-identity to a wider European identity. Nevertheless, it remains an open question how this identity transformation takes place. Our hypothesis is that socialisation patterns abroad play an important role in the development of such an identity. However, more qualitative research is needed—and already planned during the current research project—to investigate this issue more in-depth. Considering future migration intentions, this article provides strong evidence of the intentions of former mobile students to work abroad or search for a job with an international component after graduation. Interestingly, our analysis showed that the influence of a mobility experience on migration plans and/or behaviour should not be

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overestimated, since future mobile students and mobile students’ migration intentions do not differ significantly. As a result, studying only formerly mobile students may introduce bias in the results since future mobile students already have these intentions before they participate in such international exchange programmes. Future research—studying in-depth the mobile or non-mobile experiences of potential mobile students—will help us to discover empirically how future migration plans and/or behaviour are influenced by international exchange programmes. To conclude, it is important to remark that we did not take into account possible differences between countries for this article. Nevertheless, such an analysis is needed to fully understand the phenomenon of European student mobility.

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Wiers-Jenssen, J. 2008. “Does Higher Education Attained Abroad Lead to International Jobs?”. Journal of Studies in International Education. 12, 2, pp. 101-130. Wintle, M. 1998. “Cultural identity in Europe: Shared experience”. In M. Wintle (ed.). Culture and Identity in Europe. Perceptions of divergence and unity in past and present. Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Singapore & Sydney: Ashgate, pp. 9-32.

CHAPTER THREE DISCOURSE OF BI-NATIONAL EXCHANGE STUDENTS: CONSTRUCTING DUAL IDENTIFICATIONS DINA STRONG

In today’s globalized world, mobility as a phenomenon, has fundamentally changed its essence from being a single instance of travel to becoming an ongoing, multiple process, even a lifestyle, associated with meeting and dealing with numerous “strangers” (Murphy-Lejeune 2002). Migration, including work mobility and academic mobility, as well as tourism have significantly contributed to “the social and cultural blending of diverse national groups” (Gaspar 2008), whereas “identity” has inevitably become one of the primary concepts in an attempt to grasp “the complexities of the existence of contemporary men and women in the globalizing world” (Nowicka 2006). Children born into “transnational marriages” are confronted with several dilemmas and psychological choices, unknown to children of “unicultural” couples, particularly with regard to “the choice of ethnic/national loyalty and identification” (ibid.). Bi-nationals are inadvertently faced with identity position that requires special attention. Although in recent decades a large amount of sociological research on immigrants and their children emerged (e.g., Zhou 1997, Sabia 2007), European scholars have mostly focused on underprivileged social groups and their struggles in the host country (Thomson and Crul 2007, Crul and Vermeulen 2003). With the exception of few studies (Nowicka 2006, Gaspar 2008) research on bi-nationals is scarce (Morano-Foadi 2007). The existent studies assert that while bi-nationals’ “adaptability to a moving culture” is highly dependent on the family’s educational and social choices in raising their bi-national children (Gaspar 2008), bi-nationalism could be a burden, “a stigma rather than a social capital in the individual’s life or within his/her social perspective” (Nowicka 2006: 1072). Therefore, the

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focus of our study is on what could be called as one of the most underresearched yet one of the brightest examples of the times we live in, Binationals (BNs) who embark on an exchange program in search of their “roots” in the country of origin of one of their parents and the dilemma of identification they are faced with upon their arrival. As the existing research is very limited, this study will expand our knowledge in the field and add to the debate on bi-nationals and their identifications. By drawing on post-modern theories of identity and discourse, the aim of this paper is to investigate BNs’ use of language in constructing their dual identifications (to both national groups that they claim their belonging to) in the course of their stay. Thus, we wish to understand by using what discursive strategies and what linguistic means of realization BNs construct their (non-) affiliations to the locals and another national group, while, unlike the majority of exchange students, being “half-local”.

“Tribulations of Self” and Bi-national Exchange Students: Academic Mobility and Identifications Being away from home, “the student-travellers” (Murphy-Lejeune 2002) are immersed into linguistically, culturally, academically different environment and have to find ways to understand and deal with both other exchange students as well as the locals. However, this challenge may be even more profound for the BNs in our study, for whom the choice of the host country (here, Latvia) was far from incidental—being primarily determined by their wish to discover the “roots” and learn the local language as a way of reasserting their dual identification. Also, unlike other exchange students, upon their arrival in Latvia, BNs may have been to a varying degree familiar with the local language and certain cultural elements (some of them claimed being bi-national and bi-cultural) that they had learned from their Latvian parent/grandparents. Overall, Erasmus students1 appear to have a good image in the host countries, since they are neither tourists nor migrants (MurphyLejeune 2002: 200). Thus far, the attitudes of the locals towards the “half-local” binationals have not been studied or theorized except for few scholars who suggested that the degree of proficiency in the local language and positive attitude towards the local community was a crucial factor in becoming “a 1

In our study some of the BNs were on Erasmus Mundus exchange program (from outside the EU), while others were on Erasmus exchange program (from within the EU), however in this paper we will refer to all of the BNs in our study as “Erasmus students” or “exchange students” interchangeably.

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legitimate bi-national” (Nowicka 2006, Gaspar 2008). Similarly to other Erasmus students, BNs in our study had a fixed date for when they arrived in the host country and when they had to return to their home countries. Erasmus students are normally young people without family responsibilities and stay at the university provided accommodation together with other exchange students. However, most of the BNs in our study chose to rent a flat, while others stayed at the university provided student accommodation. The courses exchange students take at the university are normally the ones expressly designed for exchange students and run in English as a lingua franca. Thus, as the BNs in our study did not have a sufficient command of the local languages (Latvian and/or Russian); they were unable to follow the subjects that were not run in English. The majority of exchange students do not work, while the BNs in our study chose to work part-time next to their studies. Also, unlike the exchange students, who tend to remain marginalized throughout their stay, only having limited contact with the locals, BNs in our study were privileged, as some of them had family members living in Latvia and who they were in contact with throughout their stay. All of these factors have a major impact on the BNs’ experiences and their opportunities to meet the locals and construct their “dual affiliations”. The participants of this study resemble the people whom Goffman (1963) would categorize as persons with “a spoiled identity”, bearing “a sort of stigma”. Having one parent who came from a foreign country, BNs are likely to be perceived as different. However, they do not match Simmel’s concept of “stranger” (Simmel 1950), since they do not constitute a group of people who are “geographically close and culturally or socially distant” (ibid.). Nevertheless, they possess a degree of “geographical and cultural strangeness” due to the origin of the non-Latvian parent. Goffman (1963) argues that “in order to maintain, or gain a ‘proper’ place in a society individuals need to acquire a cultural mask”, which is difficult for foreigners and often for “transnational people” (Nowicka 2006). Therefore, BNs have to find a way to manage their “strangeness” in a number of social situations. Thus, for the present study regarding bi-national students and their identification management and construction of representations in discourse, the concept of post-modern identity formation seems to be useful, as the participants of this study experience social situations and problems that are very common today. It seems that people of transnational descent, such as the bi-national exchange students in our study, concur with the model of a late modern individual (Giddens 1991) or that of post-modernity (Bauman 1996), as such people are “open to self-

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awareness” (Giddens 1991). Furthermore, Giddens describes today’s globalized world in terms of “reflexivity”, that is the tendency of a postmodern individual to constantly reflect on the circumstances of their life (Giddens 1991). Today, as Nowicka (2006) explains reflexivity exists because, “people have to make choices which are rooted in their family, place of birth, life conditions etc.”. Despite the reflexive and flexible nature of identifications, the problem of identity does not lose its importance for a postmodern individual, what Hall (1996: 2) refers to as “irreducibility of the concept of identity”. For that reason, we wish to resort to Bauman’s interpretation of the term, as it is close to our study: “One thinks of identity whenever one is not sure of where one belongs […] “Identity” is a name given to the escape sought from that uncertainty” (Bauman 1996: 19). Critical Discourse Analysis scholars in favour of the post-modern concept of identification argue that migrants’ identification can be theorized as being synonymous with individual’s claims for belonging or attachment to a group (Krzyzanowski & Wodak 2007), which we find prominent also in our data on BNs. Therefore, here we follow Probyn (1996: 19) in our understanding of “belonging and attachment”, which, according to this scholar “capture the desire for a strong affiliation, be it to other people, places or modes of being”. This concept allows us to concentrate on “the ways in which individuals and groups are caught within wanting to belong, wanting to become” (ibid.). As a result, two processes, namely those of difference and recognition are central here, and manifest “the subject’s uncertainty stemming from the fact that he/she is not yet what he/she wants to become” (Rewers 2000: 86). Belonging as such as well as the lived experiences of BNs are highly fragile and unstable; therefore, we believe that the constructions of identifications (as belonging) can be traced through systematic linguistic analyses of discourses (of bi-national exchange students, in our case).

Construction of Identifications in Discourse Post-modern theory has closely associated identity with discourse, while identity is often claimed to be “an effect of discourse, constructed in discourse” (Fairclough 2001). Current understanding of discourse and its relation to identity are founded on the idea that “the selves we present to others are changeable, strategic and jointly constructed” (Johnstone 2008:155). That is, the ways in which people display their identities include their language use and their interaction with others. Discourse in this respect is not only a matter of using language in a way that reveals a

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particular identity, it is also about “a socially-constructed self that people continually co-construct and reconstruct in their interactions with each other” (Cameron 2001, Paltridge 2006). Therefore, it has also been suggested to replace “identity” by “identification”—which “invites us to specify the agents that do the identifying” (Brubaker and Cooper 2000), thus requiring “discursive work” (ibid.: 14). This understanding of identity has lead to the vision of “polyphonous identities” (Barrett 1999), or multiple identities, which may co-exist within a single individual and may change, depending on the context, the situation or/and the interlocutors, and it is this vision that particularly suits the context of our study. As we assume that BNs make discursive choices in constructing their identities, we resort to the theoretical stance of CDA, which asserts that the role of discourse in social practices should be established by means of thorough “textually-oriented discourse analysis” (Fairclough 1992). The CDA stance that discourse both constitutes the social practices and is constituted by them (Fairclough 1992), in addition to the stance that discourse is “the system of lexico-grammatical options from which authors make their choices about what to include and what to exclude and how to arrange them” in their discourse (Benwell & Stokoe 2006: 108), determines our methodological choices and analytical categories.

Methodology The study was conducted in Riga, at the University of Latvia, between December and May 2007 by means of semi-structured interviews (conducted in English) with five BNs, which were recorded and transcribed using the orthographic transcription method, which allowed the researcher to create a textual corpus of data. The interview revolved around two sets of questions: 1) the students’ daily life in Latvia and 2) reflections on the social encounters with others in the course of the stay. All of the interviewees were staying in Latvia for the period of two academic terms and were interviewed either in the second half or towards the end of their stay. Among the interviewees, there were 2 males and 3 females, who were between 19-26 years of age; 1 student was LatvianCanadian, 2 Latvian-Americans, 1 Uzbekistani-German and 1 RussianGerman. All of the students were born outside Latvia and none of them claimed to be proficient in the Latvian or Russian languages at the moment of the interview. Although the Latvian-Canadian student and the LatvianAmerican students had never visited Latvia prior to their study abroad, they had distant family members in Latvia. The other two students had

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never been to Latvia either prior to their exchange, nor did they have any family members in Latvia. Besides, while English was the mother tongue for 3 interviewees, 2 others were native-speakers of German, therefore English (though they claimed and appeared to be fluent in it) was a foreign language for them and it may have affected their discourse production and their discursive choices. Also, we realize that it is inevitable that the situational context of the interview and the national and institutional affiliations of the interviewer (Latvian and member of the university staff) had an effect on the outcome of the interview. People are, above all, “actors” and “acrobats” (Goffman 1963) who play in every life situation, including the interview. Therefore, we adopt Goffman’s assumption that “play, showing and pretending” are inevitably present in all interpersonal encounters.

Design and Categories of Analysis As the aim of this study was to uncover the discursive strategies and particular linguistic choices that the BNs resort to in representations of themselves, our analysis is primarily embedded in Wodak’s (1995, Reisigl & Wodak 2001) Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to CDA, which aims at integrating all available background information about an individual, thus allowing to incorporate the personal history of BNs, while analyzing and interpreting the multiple layers of oral discourse. For the analysis of discursive strategies and construction of identifications, first of all, we resorted to a qualitative content analysis and identification of recurrent topics, according to their relevance to the research issue proposed earlier on. Within this list a number of “topoi” (“‘conclusion rules’ that connect the argument/-s with the conclusion”, cf. Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 75) were developed, based on the recurrent argumentation patterns (ibid.). The analysis that followed allowed us to examine various context-dependent “topoi” that BNs supported their argumentation(s) for or against their attachment and belonging. Along with analyzing “topoi”, we also focused on recurrent metaphors and the “cognitive frames” BNs established through their use (Koller 2004, Lakoff & Johnson 1980). In our analysis we drew on Reisigl & Wodak’s (2001) model of discursive strategies of social actor representation and the associated linguistic means of realization. While examining “reference and nomination strategy”, we focused on the naming of others and their positioning in discourse (i.e., use of personal deictic forms, etc.). Next, in the analysis of “predication strategy”, we differentiated between the ways in which “speakers expressed their involvement in discourse and

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positioned their point of view in the reporting, description, narration or quotation” (Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 45). Lastly, we considered which elements affected these discursive representations “by sharpening or toning them down” (ibid.: 45). By studying the claims and analyzing the choice of discursive strategies to construct identifications, we wish to illustrate the ways BNs positioned themselves in relation to two national groups in their discourse as they reflected on their stay in Latvia and their dual belonging. .

Discursive Constructions of Belonging and Attachment In discursive constructions of identification as belonging in the accounts of BNs, the prominence was attributed to the “time factor”, which has been observed to be common for exchange students (cf. Papatsiba 2006, Murphy-Lejeune 2002) and migrants (Krzyzanowski & Wodak 2007) alike, as a part of adaptation process. Here, the temporal element has been typically realized in the form of a narrative: At first when I arrived I felt very strange, like a fish out of water, because I didn’t know anyone, but then everyone [Erasmus students] had arrived and it became better. […] So we formed a little group and we felt really close and we started to form close bonds among ourselves. Because none of us knew anybody outside the group, so it came natural that we became good friends—it’s special. (Al.: Uz/Ge) The first two weeks like for the first month I was really really lonely and I think it was especially hard […]. So just getting used to living on my own and like at first I have been around the Erasmus students. They were talking their own language, like, German usually, but then I found more and more they got used to talking English, to try and have a more including feeling. But at first it was a lonely feeling and I wanted to leave and I didn’t want to… I guess, I think right after about, just over a month, then I was liking it better […]. (Ch.: Ca/Lat)

In this extract, the initial difficulties of the speaker are characterized by search for contacts with similar others (i.e., Erasmus students). The metaphor—like “fish out of water”—emphasizes the initial attachment to the student’s “own group” (left behind) and search for the fellow others with a similar status—the other exchange students. The time element is marked by the temporal clause “at the beginning” and by the adverb “later”, indicating the various stages of the stay, where the initial stages are characterized by being alone and the later stage as by having formed affiliations, relations with others. Subsequently, the topos of “friends/

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friendship” fluctuates between the willingness to meet different others and creating a circle of friends/ a group. The BNs that have been interviewed for the study emphasized the importance they ascribed to meeting the locals and becoming similar to the locals in the course of their stay as a way of affirmation of their second identification. Similarly, Dervin (2006) pointed that “becoming somewhat like the locals” was the aspiration of a number of exchange students. However, while other exchange students quickly realized the impossibility of this becoming true (ibid.), our second example points that among the BNs such initial stance towards the locals, later on only made them realize the “in-betweenness of their belonging” (cf. Probyn 1996). This inbetweenness is discursively constructed as the strive for self-definition, marked by the topos of “multiple attachments”, both the attachments to the local community and the second community of origin: Now that I’m in Latvia I feel more like German, because I’m so used to German customs, but in Germany I’m constantly comparing Germany and Russia and Uzbekistan. Well, when I talk about it with my boyfriend in Germany, I talk about myself as an Uzbekistani or Russian—it’s very strange because when I’m here, I feel German. It’s interesting I keep jumping back and forth, as if when it’s more suitable for me, somehow, depending on the situation I opt for a more relevant identity: Russian or German. I don’t know why…I compare myself more with a German or with a Russian woman when I talk to Russians, because I feel closer and what we have in common with them gets revealed... yeah err... but even now I don’t know who I am in fact... (Al.: Uz/Ge) I’ve learned about my roots—which was very important for me. I got to know my Latvian side of the family, who both my grandmother and my mother and myself belong to. I certainly feel that I cannot say that I’m Latvian, to say that I’m missing a fundamental part of life that would have to have taken place in Latvia, when so many of the national, cultural basis are being formed. This part of life I spent in the US. However, well, now having lived here, having met Latvians, my Latvian part of me has come alive, I can say. (N.: Am/Lat)

Here, the emotional dilemma and the sense of ambivalence, characteristic of the discourse of BNs, are based on the contrast between knowing and not knowing how to define one’s belonging, thus characterized by movement “back and forth” between different attachments. Mitigating particles (“somehow”, “well”, “but”), disclaimers (“I don’t know why”) accompany the topos of multiple attachments, therefore increasing the speaker’s subjectivity, indefiniteness and uncertainty of self-identifications.

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Mental verbs, such as “feel” and “know” play a predominant role here— the prevailing self-reflective strategy is further intensified by the metaphor of “roots”/ “having roots”. Self-reflective constructions can be identified frequently in the discourse of this group. Also the multiplicity of identifications and strive for self-definition is reflected here in the use of ontological metaphors, such as “Latvian side of the family” and “my Latvian part of me”, marked by de-toponymic labeling “Latvian”. The multiplicity of identities is further supported by the importance of context the speaker finds him/herself in, the change of perspectivation one adopts—indicated by spatial deixis “when I am here (in Latvia)” and “having lived here” (in Latvia), as determining the choice and the fluctuation between the contextually available identifications. The strive for and the difficulty of self-definition is recurrent in the accounts of BNs and is constructed by means of the topos of “neither nor”, which is illustrated in the following extract by referring to oneself as a “stranger” to either group in either location, not knowing how to define oneself—indicating the instability and potential arbitrariness of selfdefinition, being torn between belonging to two national communities. It’s difficult... it’s a difficult situation. Somehow, I think, maybe I don’t belong anywhere—neither here nor there, a sort of a stranger. (Ka.: Ru/Ge)

The speaker’s claim is mitigated by modifying particles “somehow” and “maybe” as well as the mitigating formulation “I think”, all of which indicate the speaker’s subjectivity and doubtfulness about the claim. The functional reasons and the choices for constructing identifications are reflected in the following examples: Or maybe because I respect Germany… I started to appreciate more the way we live in Germany, the human rights, for instance. Because I started to notice more what I dislike here, the same things as I disliked in Uzbekistan and Russia, there is a lot in common between the way people live there and here. It’s not like… In Toronto it’s more like as the graduate community, we spend a lot, like a lot of time together and there are a lot of club nights and other activities to sort of encourage us to make friends and have a community and when I first got here I was expecting something similar, but it’s really different, because the Latvian MA students have to work full time during the day and then at night they go to class so they don’t have as much time for socializing. (Ch.: Ca/Lat)

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The functional reasons for belonging (to the home country (there)) and juxtaposition by the situation ((here), in the host country) is marked by the spatial deixis as well as the person deixis, “we” and “us”—referring to the speaker’s identification with the graduate community of co-nationals as opposed to “they”, which in both examples refers to the target country and its graduate community. Identifications are further emphasized by the topos of “difference”, where difference in social practices between the groups is developed as a point of reference for one’s pronominal choices and the choices of attachment. Although this pattern has been noted as a common feature of discourses of identification among the exchange students by Dervin (2006, 2009), here, the pronominal shifts concerned the shifts in affiliation from the distant/unspecified locals (“they”) to the speaker and local-inclusive (“we”), something that has not been observed in other studies of exchange students, who rarely identify themselves with the locals. The following excerpt suggests that explicit attachment to the locals and the host country allows for developing a sense of belonging through “symbolic recognition” by the locals: I find that people here… it’s a hard-working society, like my cousin has to do so much homework, even though he is only eight. […] When I met her [a Latvian relative] and she heard that I’m studying here, she thought that I was some sort of a goofball, like I’m not working enough and I’m here and I have so much free time and I’m not doing anything that she almost… to some degree that’s partly why I’m babysitting my nephews. I don’t want to feel like I’m just doing nothing and others are working so hard on other things that I should do too. (Pa.: La/Am)

First, the speaker constructs the reference to the target group as “people here”, further elaborated by the emotionally colored topos of family (“cousin”) and intensified by possessive pronoun “my”, positively portraying the target group as “hard-working society”, which she ascribes to a Latvian family member. The desire for recognition, inclusion, as well as being positively labelled by the locals appears throughout the narrative account, where, the narrator, in her view, was labelled with evaluative “goofball” (change in perspectivation: voicing a local) that connotes negative characteristics of being lazy and useless, having not fulfilled the requirements for belonging to the “in-group”, marked by the repeated use of negation (“not working”, “not doing anything”). Identification is understood as belonging to the local community by being viewed positively, as possessing positive characteristics or being similar to the locals (i.e., “as hard working” and not “the one doing nothing”).

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Furthermore, the topos of “language”, as the crucial element of national identification and access to the in-group is understood here as the determining factor in being accepted or rejected by the locals. Because of the status of the Latvian language (being only spoken in Latvia), few exchange students in Latvia choose to study it during their stay, while the BNs claimed having made additional effort and, though finding it very challenging, having invested their time and resources in acquiring it during their stay: So, in my building there are a lot of Latvians. I think, maybe, it would be different if I’d been fluent in Latvian, but I don’t know. I don’t really have so much interaction with other people in the building, unless, I run into my next door neighbour in the hall, because she speaks English and I can talk to her in English but otherwise, they just see me as a sort of a foreigner, who doesn’t speak Latvian… (Ka.: Ru/Ge) I’m sure I had a feeling that maybe it’s better for me just not to talk at all, but I can’t remember when I was in that situation. […] I was like at the central market… I tried for people not to… well… and I tried to cast off as Latvian as possible to avoid being ripped off and but it wouldn’t always work, because I’m pronouncing it bad, so it’s hard, it’s tough… (Ch.: Ca/Lat)

In both examples the speakers resort to constructive strategies (De Cilia et al. 1999), with the help of which they establish the locals as “theygroup” respectively of the neighbours and the sales staff at the market. Here, the determining factor of belonging is one’s linguistic fluency, which marks the difference and becomes both a symbolic and a physical “divide” for BNs. The justification for the speaker’s lack of fluency in the local language is marked by repeated use of synonymous adjectives “hard” and “tough” and intensified by the topos of “anguish” (“better not to talk at all”). An element of interdiscursivity appears through the use of “foreigner” (as being different), ascribed negative characteristics of not speaking the local language—a “particularizing synecdoche, describing a ‘collective singular’” (De Cilia et al., 1999), which is the constructed selfrepresentation by change in the speaker’s perspectivation, as in her view, she is perceived by the locals. In the second excerpt the speaker resorts to the ontological metaphor of “theatre/acting”, where he wears a mask—in “cast off as Latvian as possible” and the use of the comparative “as… as” form, suggests varying degrees—the multiplicities of possible identities— of what constitutes “being Latvian”. The speakers claim that being treated as an “in-group”, thus being accepted by the locals, requires both, linguistic fluency and “a mask” (acting like a local). Modifying particles,

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among which “so”, “sort of” and “maybe” as well as the use of hedges “I think”, disclaimer “I don’t know”, and frequent use of mental verbs “think”, “feel”, “see” together with the use of subjunctive “it would be different if”, generally emphasize both subjectivity and uncertainty of the speaker’s stance.

Conclusion Numerous discursive-grammatical features appearing in the accounts of BNs, accentuate the emotional character of identification, the ambivalence associated with it as well as the importance attributed to the construction of the categories of “affiliation” and “withdrawal”. The emotional nature and the salience, the BNs ascribe to their search for new identifications, are marked by such elements as metaphor of “roots”, topos of “family”, topos of “home” and abundant use of mental verbs. The processual nature of belonging is manifested by the temporal reference to various stages of the stay, as well as topoi and metaphors indicating the BNs search for contact with the locals, while at the same time expressing BNs’ desire and struggle for affiliation. The students recognized the multiplicity of their attachments by making claims to the “polyphonous identities” available to them at different times with different interlocutors. The topos of multiple attachments and “in-betweenness” of self are framed by the high degree of uncertainty regarding one’s status, thus suggesting the instability of the BNs’ perspectives. A recurrent pattern in the accounts is discursive construction of identification based on difference, frequently marking the boundaries between the BNs and the locals, while emphasizing students’ own difference and affiliation to the second country is similar to the regular exchange students’ experiences. Generally, due to the BNs’ personal histories, which are used as “specific points of reference for their identifications” (Brubaker & Cooper 2000), there appears an impressive number of ways in which these students discursively construct their belonging. The discursive construction of belonging or not belonging is reflected in the topos of “language” and “behavior”, perceived as the key to their “exclusion”—which is seen as determined by the locals and not by the BNs themselves. As regards the theoretical stances framing present analysis and its interpretation, it becomes apparent that this study illustrates the ways different choices for belonging are realized in BNs’ constructions of affiliations. Consequently, we may conclude that, indeed, BNs’ duality of identifications is often perceived as having “too much… or too little”

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identification and never accomplish “a proper fit” (Hall 1996) in either of the two communities they associate themselves with. The analysis of the multiple meanings and forms of belonging demonstrates the complexity and “multilayered character” (Krzyzanowski & Wodak 2007) of BNs’ identifications, theorized earlier in this paper. The (necessarily brief) analysis of the narratives occurring in the course of the interviews, puts emphasis on the “in-betweenness” as well as the “ambivalence” of identifications, which, in the course of the exchange program, BNs construct for themselves. These are some of the prominent features that are reformulated and recontextualized in discourses of BNs in our study, thus illustrating the inconsistencies in affiliations to different national group in different contexts and with different interlocutors. Such linguistic features as the recurrently stated “not knowing” or the high degree of hesitance in the greater part of the quoted statements also point to the “uncertainty of belonging” (Rewers 2000) as one of the principal characteristics of the analyzed discourses of BNs.

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Reisigl, M. & R. Wodak. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge. Rewers, E. 2000. “Toz˙samos´c´—Utoz˙samienie—przywl⁄aszczenie”. In Z. Drozdowicz & Z.W. Pus´lecki (eds.). Przezwycie˛z˙ anie Barier w Integruja˛cej sie Europie. Poznan: Humaniora, pp. 81-89. Sabia, D. 2007. “Migrant families in transition: a case study in the deep south”. Electronic Journal of Sociology. http://www.sociology.org/content/2007/_sabia_migrant_families.pdf (accessed on 03.09.2010). Simmel, G. 1950. The Stranger. In K.H. Wolff (ed.). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe: Free Press. Thomson, M. & M. Crul. 2007. “The second generation in Europe and the United States: how is the transatlantic debate relevant for further research on the European second generation?”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 33, 7, pp. 1025-1041. Wodak, R. 1995. “Critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis”. In J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman & J. Bloomaert (eds.). Handbook of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Benjamins Publishing Co, pp. 204-210. —. 2001. “The discourse-historical approach”. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer. (eds.). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage, pp. 6394. Zhou, M. 1997. “Growing up American: the challenge confronting the immigrant children and children of immigrants”. Annual Review of Sociology. 23, pp. 63-95.

CHAPTER FOUR THE EXPERIENCE AND LONG-TERM IMPACT OF STUDY ABROAD BY EUROPEANS IN AN AFRICAN CONTEXT JAMES A. COLEMAN AND TONY CHAFER

Introduction Academic mobility is often fun, but its principal justification is as a learning experience. The expanding research literature on the educational phenomenon which is variously known as academic mobility, study abroad, or by at least a dozen other labels, tends to focus on one or more of six categories of learning outcome: academic, cultural, intercultural, linguistic, personal and professional (Coleman & Parker 2001, Coleman 2007, Coleman 2009a). Coleman (2009b) has estimated that nearly half of the published research accounts concern Second Language Acquisition (SLA), but increasing attention is also paid to the ways in which the new context impacts upon the individual’s identity, their awareness of and openness to a diversity of cultures, and their emergence as intercultural mediators. A relatively small number of studies has addressed the gains in vocational or professional insights and the longer-term career choices of sojourners. Perhaps surprisingly, given that one of the few constants of study abroad research is its location within a formal educational context, little attention has been given to academic outcomes. There is no doubt that a well designed study abroad programme can lead to gains in all six domains, but it is equally clear that, despite folk wisdom that immersion must lead to linguistic fluency, an appreciation of cultural diversity, and a capacity to operate maturely and effectively in any new situation, such gains are by no means automatic. The eccentricities of the context combine with the personality, outlook and aims of the student to produce outcomes which are predictable only to a limited extent. While research can successfully discern patterns of student learning, a high level

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of variation within and across studies is a distinguishing feature of study abroad research. Some of the variability is systematic, and although Coleman (Coleman 2009b) has attempted to define the contextual variables (such as encadrement, accommodation and formal tuition arrangements) which may correlate with differences in outcome, other differences result from the high individual variation found even within coherent groups of participants. Learning outcomes are, of course, just one of the features of study abroad, and while working with real individuals may prove an obstacle to easy generalisations, it also embodies the fascination of study abroad research, especially in the light of the “social turn” in SLA and study abroad research. Within the field of academic mobility, the social turn is evidenced by a number of in-depth qualitative studies focusing in more detail on the personal changes triggered by contact with new cultural settings. Such studies (Dervin 2008, Ehrenreich 2004, de Federico 2005, Isabelli-García 2006, Jackson 2008, Kinginger 2008, Murphy-Lejeune 2002, Papatsiba 2003, Pellegrino Aveni 2005) relate to individual sojourners, their fluid poststructural identities, their personal narratives, the formation and development of social networks, and changing perceptions of self and of other. Study abroad has also been shown to frequently have a profound long-term impact on participants’ professional lives and where they subsequently travel and live (Akande & Slawson 2000, Dwyer 2004, Opper et al. 1990, Parey & Waldinger 2007, Teichler 1997), and although a minority will “turn the page” and choose to put the whole experience behind them, “those who enjoyed the YA [year abroad] tend to follow careers which allow them to be intercultural mediators” (Alred & Byram 2006: 230, cf. Alred & Byram 2002). Summarising research findings across so many domains cannot be done briefly; the most recent book-length overview of SLA in study abroad (Kinginger 2009) alone contains well over 300 references. Coleman is, however, engaged in writing a book designed to provide a comprehensive picture. The present study seeks to build on in-depth studies, while not neglecting the more conventional issue of language gain. It also seeks to acknowledge the variation across both time and place in the context of study abroad. The authors believe that an extreme contrast between the home and host contexts may throw up conventional issues in a heightened form, as well as issues specific to the individual programme. Senegal is a developing country whose climate, culture, belief system and linguistic profile could hardly be more different from the temperate, predominantly white, English-speaking Western European country that is the United

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Kingdom. And while much is known of the experience of African students in Europe, we have found virtually no studies of European students in Africa. However, US student Demetri Blanas prefaces his study abroad report on Senegal (Blanas 2008) with reflections on going through a number of phases, from “almost a state of shock” through “a phase of disillusionment” to an appreciation of another way of living. He writes of gaining insight into the culture, the extended family structures, and the “communal systems of support” which are absent from US society (Blanas 2008: 17). He required both Wolof and French for his interviews, and his future medical career will be shaped by the recognition that health issues cannot be addressed without “a comprehensive understanding of the cultural factors involved” (Blanas 2008: 18). The present article concentrates on student profiles, accommodation, homesickness, language progress and its relationship with language contact and the length of stay, ethnicity, gender, and social networks during and following the stay abroad. Lack of space precludes in-depth coverage here of several aspects of the study abroad experience which are highly relevant, namely religion, sex, links with home, non-linguistic learning outcomes and subsequent employment. Separate articles will be devoted in due course to these facets of academic mobility. The questionnaire research reported, conceived as the first part of a two-part study, was designed to provide both quantitative data and a limited amount of qualitative data, while establishing contact with informants and seeking agreement to a subsequent interview. The findings of the questionnaire study will inform the projected interview study, for which external funding will be sought, and in which all respondents have expressed willingness to participate. The goal of the study was to explore the experience of study abroad in the particular context of Francophone West Africa, and the longer-term impact of the experience on the former students involved. Rather than focusing on a single cohort of students, the present study involved students whose study abroad took place during a span of over two decades. By covering such a wide timespan, it was hoped: • to identify continuing features of the context and of students’ experiences there • to capture changes in the context which might have impacted on the experience, in particular new developments in telecommunications • to trace the longer-term impact of the study abroad experience on the attitudes, employment and life path of the students involved.

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It was hypothesised that, in respect of some questionnaire items, results would add to the existing broad picture of how students live and behave during study abroad, and what they gain from the experience. In other respects, the questionnaire was expected to reveal findings related to the specific context. It was anticipated that the long-term impact on individuals would in some respects reflect earlier studies, but would also show distinctive patterns tied to the specific African experience. All these hypotheses were borne out by the data.

Context Situated at the end of a peninsula, Dakar is the capital of Senegal, a former French colony which gained its independence in 1960. Senegal is a multi-party democracy and its economy, dominated by agriculture, fishing, and recently tourism, is one of the most stable in West Africa. Most Sénégalais are multilingual: while French is an official language, Wolof is the most widely used. The population is overwhelmingly Muslim, with some distinctive local practices, some animism, and a minority of Catholics. The population of Dakar, the administrative centre of the country and home to several national and regional institutions, is over a million, with some 2.5 million in the metropolitan area. The sprawling, congested city has, like many big, bustling cities in developing countries, an over-strained infrastructure and widespread poverty. Although Senegal is far from the poorest country in Africa, annual earnings for the average Sénégalais are one-twentieth of those in the United Kingdom, so it is no surprise that all toubabs (Europeans), even students, are perceived as wealthy. Outside the rainy season (July to September, when students are not there), the climate is hot and dry. Tourists are attracted by the sights of Dakar, by the nearby and beautiful Île de Gorée with its museum of slavery, and by the resorts along the sunny coastline. The local population is black; all but one of the respondents to the questionnaire are white Europeans. The second author established an exchange between Portsmouth and Dakar in the mid-1980s and has coordinated it since then. The link person at the University of Dakar organises initial accommodation for the incoming students, and is also available to advise and support. His work is supplemented by departing stagiaires, who meet newcomers at the airport (which is, in the words of one respondent, “one of the worst impressions Senegal gives”). In return, the University of Portsmouth hosts each year a French-language lecteur selected from Dakar’s highest achieving graduates.

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While it has been traditional since colonial days for African students to come to Europe—Léopold Senghor, first President of Senegal and a Nobel Prize winner for literature, studied in France—it is highly unusual for European students to go to Africa, as indeed it is for North Americans: “in 2001-2002, under 3 percent of American students studying abroad went to Africa” (Altbach 2004: 22). We are not aware of any other comparable scheme involving sub-Saharan Africa. The British Council is responsible for sending English language assistants across the world, and until recently, in a separate programme, placed three UK graduates a year at the British-Senegalese Institute in Dakar.

Method The first phase of the study is based on a questionnaire, although funding is being sought for follow-up interviews. The questionnaire draws on existing knowledge and, where available, on existing instruments, and was piloted and revised before administration. For convenience and cost reasons, the initial questionnaires were sent as an email attachment rather than by post. Although the sending institution had not systematically collected students’ personal email addresses, a number were on file. Once ethical and data protection approval had been obtained, an email (Appendix 1) with a questionnaire attachment (Appendix 2) was sent in early June 2009 to a total of 63 students who were believed to have spent time on work placement in Senegal. Messages to 21 addresses (16 individuals) were returned as undeliverable. During July and August, a reminder was sent to those who apparently had a valid email address but who had not so far responded. By 27 August 2009, responses had been received from 32 students. Data from closed questionnaire items was entered into a PASW Statistics (formerly SPSS) 17 spreadsheet for analysis. In late June 2009, an identical questionnaire was sent to the 21 individuals who had worked as English language assistants in Dakar since 2001. By 27 August, 3 responses had been received. The present analysis concerns responses from the 32 former students and 3 former assistants, but statistics refer only to the former. The email had been carefully worded in order to maximise response rate and to elicit valuable data even on sensitive issues through openended questions, while also meeting the very strictest ethical constraints. The approach was vindicated by the good response rate, the robust

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statistics from closed questions, and over 22,000 words of commentary on the eight open questions. Self-report, with its potential for inaccurate selfportrayal, is a limitation of all questionnaire data, but in this study the use of email—to judge from the frequency of typos and grammatical nonsequiturs in the open answers—has typically prompted spontaneous and revealingly frank rather than carefully crafted and edited responses. This does not mean, however, that responses do not show evidence of a reflective process having taken place. Many aspects of the Dakar experience have seemingly become integrated into the memories and life history of the respondents, who can thus draw on a narrative already rehearsed with friends and family and at employment interviews. The expression may therefore not always be spontaneous, but the views expressed, emanating from the individual’s identity constructed over time, remain fully authentic. In this report, all names are pseudonyms; sex is indicated by M or F; text is reproduced entirely unchanged.

Respondents and their Placements The first questionnaire items were factual, seeking to identify respondents’ sex, and when, for how long and in what role they had stayed in Senegal. Most of the respondents (25 out of 32 students) were female: this more or less reflects the gender balance of the relevant population, i.e. students on UK specialist Modern Language degrees. The respondents were drawn from thirteen different cohorts; their graduation year ranged from 1989 to 2010: the latter date refers to students who had just returned from Senegal for their final year at Portsmouth, and hoped to graduate a year after completing the questionnaire. The period spent in Senegal covered the 1980s (one respondent), the 1990s (ten respondents) and the 2000s (21 respondents). Many of the work placements were available in successive years, sustained by regular visits from Portsmouth staff (including both authors). Placements included Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working for example in health and micro-finance, press and media (Radio-Télévision Sénégalaise offers short news summaries in English), a law office, and English teaching at one of West Africa’s most prestigious postgraduate business schools. All are located in Dakar, although some offer scope for working in rural areas of Senegal. The particular placement seems sometimes to have had a determining effect on later career choices: Grace (F), who worked for RTS and later as an English Language Assistant, now occupies a senior position at the BBC, and many now work in the voluntary or charitable sectors. The planned article on outcomes will expand on this feature.

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Accommodation Most initially had a room in an apartment shared with foreigners, though eight lived with a host family. By the end, two had moved into a residence, three remained with a host family, and three were sharing with locals, but the majority were sharing with other foreigners. Homestay is generally considered to provide a good context for linguistic and cultural learning, although there is wide variation in individual cases (e.g. Jackson 2008), and research results are consequently variable (Kinginger 2009: 130-139). Homestay proved important for Victoria (F), who “had become incredibly close to my Senegalese family” and was delighted to interpret between them and her visiting biological family. Homestay provided the link into wider society for Emily (F), who “really bonded with my host family and many of their family friends, both African and European, meaning that I had a wide group of friends, and not just student friends”.

Homesickness Homesickness is normal, especially when people are to live in a very different society far from home for an extended period, although respondents did include a few people who had already experienced life in other continents. A narrow majority (17/32) experienced some homesickness at first, but for most the feelings abated—to the extent that some were more sorry to leave Senegal than looking forward to returning to the UK. However, for some the homesickness grew during their sojourn, so there is no simple pattern. Most (19/32) were visited by friends, family or partners from home. Like many other findings—and as in all study abroad research—the intensity and duration of homesickness showed high individual variation.

Language Contact and Language Progress Whilst most respondents (81.3%) claimed to have learnt some useful words and phrases in Wolof, most of their professional and social communication was in French. The questionnaire items 8 and 9 were adapted from the Language Contact Profile (Freed et al. 2004), which is widely used in study abroad research. However, LCP data is self-reported, so subject to social desirability, and may be influenced by changes in learner beliefs during study abroad: students increasingly recognise the

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significance of independent target language interactions (Amuzie & Winke 2009). Median number of days per week on which students spoke French was seven (mean 6.13), with a median of three-four hours per day. More than half (17) claimed that their French had improved a lot, ten a bit, and five noted no progress but no attrition. The results suggest that study abroad in a country where the target language is a lingua franca can bring linguistic benefit even where other mother tongue(s) predominate. According to the study abroad literature, self-assessed post-sojourn proficiency is higher than that obtained by objective measures. However, academics who have been involved with the Senegal programme have noted that it can be easier for UK students to interact with locals there, where a foreigner is a subject of interest and will be engaged in conversation at every opportunity, than on an ERASMUS exchange to France, where the locals may be indifferent to the presence of Brits, and other Brits and non-locals are always around. Although no systematic assessment is undertaken, it has also been informally noticed that those returning from Senegal generally do well on oral assessments: while proficiency may vary, they have lots to say and the confidence to say it.

Duration and its Impact on French and Wolof 18 had spent one semester in Senegal, 14 two semesters. A longer stay allowed different patterns of accommodation and socialisation to occur. No individual remained in homestay for two semesters. Duration of stay was not the determining factor in any of the non-linguistic experiences or outcomes. Nor is there a statistically significant relationship between duration and French language contact or self-assessed French language outcomes. However, those who stayed longer claim to have spoken French on average on more days per week (6.50 as opposed to 5.83). Interviews should bring out the links between contexts, linguistic functions, frequency and perceived progress. Longer stayers were also more likely to have achieved a good basic level of Wolof. Speaking the local language at whatever level had a clear impact on social integration. Alan (M), Ed (M) and Lorraine (F) found their ethnicity less prominent, their outsider status less marked and the hassle reduced once they could speak Wolof. Emily noted: Learning Wolof really makes a difference in this respect, as the locals treat you differently if you make the effort to communicate with them in their native tongue.

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Use of Wolof was linked to adoption of other local ways, including dress and transport. One of the British Council assistants summed up language use and assimilation: trying to learn a few words of Wolof […] rapidly became an irresistible, obsessive desire to write down every new word […] and in a matter of weeks, we were able to speak, and the more we spoke, the more integrated we became, and the more integrated I became, the more I enjoyed myself! […] it’s amazing to see how much pleasure you can give someone by speaking their language, and for me, seeing that spark is what makes it all so precious and worth the effort. [Speaking their language] is what I have used to access the Senegalese; from their endless haggling games to leisurely ‘waaxtaan’ (chats) in the streets…it has enriched all of my experiences, whether visiting someone’s family or travelling deep inland. The ability to communicate in Wolof has made my stay here incredibly rewarding, it has been the source of much laughter and happiness and I would urge anyone interested in the programme to learn some.

Enhanced language proficiency is clearly not just a learning outcome of study abroad, but a valuable instrument in the achievement of other outcomes.

Ethnicity Where incoming students’ physical appearance is very different from the majority of local people, it is harder to integrate, and may trigger incidents which will impact upon, for example, attitudes, identity, language and cultural learning, as they did for the Hong Kong Chinese in Jackson’s (2008) study. All Dakar informants experienced incidents related to their race in the early days, and for most (87.5%) such incidents continued, although not in local environments where they had become known. This is not unexpected in a country where white faces are very much a minority, even in the capital. The majority of incidents related to “bumstering”, i.e. locals begging or trying to sell small items to those identified as European and therefore relatively wealthy, although there were also instances of attempted over-charging, con tricks, mugging or theft. The word “toubab” was heard ad nauseam, although for most students there was no derogatory intention or hostility attached. In rural areas, many Senegalese had never met a white person before, and were naturally curious. Diane (F) commented that “children were amazed by the colour of my skin and often came to get a closer look”. Students might be followed, but most typically the Senegalese wanted to be friendly and to offer to strangers the traditional hospitality (or teranga—both Imogen (F)

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and Rhiannon (F) use the Wolof word) dictated by local culture— “generally just very good natured interest”, as Lorraine put it. Imogen found her perceptions of ethnicity clashing with her cultural understanding of age: Older people who would normally have commanded respect and deference from someone of my age would instead be asking me for money, or treating me with deference, or with wariness and hostility.

If being European consistently drew attention in the streets, it caused no problems at work, except for Fred (M) whose colleagues would recall the colonial past: in the work place I was regularly subjected to comments like “are you not embarrassed that your grandfathers killed our grandfathers” .

Brian’s (M) experience as a dark-skinned European was exceptional and unsettling: Senegal is the first time in my life I have received direct racism. This included name calling and being asked to leave shops because I was a nyak. It was quite hurtful at times, as well as quite bizarre given the fact I was experiencing racism from other black people.

Since neither researcher had encountered the term, Brian accepted an invitation to elucidate. “Nyak” is evidently a vernacular Wolof word which refers to a non-Senegalese African or more broadly a black person. It can have pejorative connotations. “Le français de nyak” refers to the more marked varieties of African French spoken outside Senegal, e.g. in Côte d’Ivoire. Ethnicity was often linked to gender, and even if the incessant attention was unthreatening and easily handled once students got used to it, “being a white young woman in Senegal can be extremely tiring” (Emily). Imogen drew an explicit parallel: I felt that the kind of attention that one receives as a white person might be likened to the kind of attention to which women are often subjected. For example, feeling highly visible, receiving stares and comments, and feeling patronised (as people demonstrate what to do in unfamiliar situations, or when one is mocked or perceived as weak or incompetent) may be more familiar to women than to men.

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For the present informants, the study abroad experience thus triggered reflection on the different elements of individual identity, and on the role they play in an unfamiliar community of practice.

Gender Life is gendered to some extent in all cultures, and study abroad is naturally a gendered experience, especially in societies where gender roles are sharply differentiated, as is the case in Senegal. 64.5% of student respondents—1 of 7 men and 19 of 24 women (one no response)— recorded gender-related incidents early on, a proportion which rose to 81.4% (3 of 7 men and 23 of 25 women) by the end of their stay. Women were very frequently approached by men in the street. Imogen’s experience was typical: I often received attention from men. Sometimes this was persistent and unwelcome, but at other times it simply came from curiosity and interest, and this facilitated friendships - once romantic advances had been deflected!

Some Senegalese men evinced less respect for European women than for their local counterparts, but most were interested in marriage rather than just sex. In Europe, it may be a cultural taboo to ask an unknown woman whether she is married, but not in Senegal. Some students resorted pragmatically to subterfuge. Hannah (F), who was in any case living with her European boyfriend, would refer to him as her husband. Rhiannon “sometimes would wear a wedding ring just to less the likelihood of the marriage proposals”. Sherry (F) “often resorted to saying I was married to a Senegalese man”. Victoria, Jackie (F) and the language assistant Queenie (F) found it hard to make real friends with local women, since social contacts with them were limited. And while there are instances in the data of genuine friendships with Senegalese men, initial contacts were often complicated by gender roles, sex, and the fact that marriage with a European woman is a guaranteed route to an immigration visa. In Imogen’s words, “in general, I found it easier to make friends with men, given that men were typically more confident, independent and autonomous. Girls my age tended to be shyer around me and didn’t have as much freedom to spend time together outside of their homes”. Diane put it differently: “I found it difficult to meet any local friends because the girls were all kept locked away by their husbands and the guys would not understand the concept of ‘friendship’ and would want to marry me after a few hours”.

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Men found interacting with locals easier, as Hugh (M) noted: Being of the male gender I think I found it much easier to integrate into the Senegalese way of life. Tamsin (F) too “was aware that my male friends were more easily able to strike up conversations without then having to field questions about relationship status and assumptions of anything further”.

Anna (F) felt frustrated by “the assumptions that were made about me in terms of being a Western women, especially as the majority of local people I met were men”. And while other forms of behaviour dictated by assumed gender roles were less obvious than the street propositions, both males and females observed how the treatment of Europeans was differentiated by gender in a way that has become less common in the UK. Gareth (M), a language assistant, noticed that, although he was living and working with two British women, “I’d be approached first and spoken to instead of my colleagues”. Wendy (F) concurred, as did Emily: a woman’s opinion did not seem to be ranked as high as those vis-à-vis males; this I noticed outside the academic world and the workplace, and again this was hard to understand as I have not experienced this in the UK.

Some women felt constrained not to act more independently than local women would do. Phoebe (F) felt that “there was always a certain amount of surprise that I was a lone female travelling and working in Dakar”. Imogen concluded that her Europeanness could outweigh the expectations placed upon her gender: “in some ways my relative freedom afforded me the status of an honorary man”. Some respondents rejected the different gender roles played by Senegalese women, seeing polygamy for instance as “sexist”. Emily was “shocked” by the inequalities. Imogen perhaps best embodies the liminality and contradictions involved in occupying the third space of the interculturally competent: In other ways I was still subject to the patriarchal attitudes and expectations of women. I was often torn between wishing to show respect for Senegalese (and Islamic) culture and customs, which would generally elicit approval from Senegalese people, and then not wishing to compromise my own principles and beliefs about women’s equality.

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Like ethnicity, gender plays differently in different cultures, and study abroad can lead to adaptive behaviours and sharpened awareness of the relativity of cultural norms.

Social Networks Social networks, formed soon after arrival but modified over time, are a major factor in the study abroad experience, influencing the extent to which acculturation and learning take place. The typical pattern of study abroad socialisation may be represented as three concentric circles, with co-nationals (compatriots) at the centre, other outsiders (such as fellow study abroad sojourners) in the middle ring, and host country nationals (local native speakers) in the outer circle. Socialisation during study abroad is not uni-directional, but with time, motivation and effort, and with (as always) huge individual variation, there tends to be centrifugal movement. Social integration can be accelerated, for example by homestay, work placement or close personal relationships, but such shortcuts may provide access only to a narrow segment of the outer circle. Several respondents to questionnaire items 27 and 28 ticked more than one box, evidently to indicate that no single geographical origin dominated their initial friendship group. At the start, as might be expected, social networks revolved principally around other Brits (16 responses) rather than other non-Senegalese (seven) local Senegalese (six respondents), with three ticking both Brits and other non-locals. Both other non-locals and Senegalese became increasingly socially important, with Brits less exclusively so (five, 11 and seven respondents respectively). Brits were also named by the eight respondents opting for multiple answers to item 28, of whom three named Brits and other non-locals, one British and Senegalese, one other foreigners and Senegalese, and the other three all three groups. The substantial individual variation invites further investigation. Most socialised with (84.4%) and had a close friend (71.9%) among non-Senegalese; seven people (21.9%) reported a new partner who was not Senegalese. At least one of these relationships ended in marriage: in 2009 Ed was living in the US with the American wife he met in Dakar. Most (28 of 31 or 90.3%: one did not reply) had Senegalese friends, many (18 or 58.1%) close friends, and six students (all females) a Senegalese partner; at least two of these relationships were continuing in 2009. Of the three former assistants, one male met a non-Senegalese partner, and one female a Senegalese partner.

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As in Federico’s study (2005), Anna’s social group formed soon after her arrival: I found it quite hard to meet people. I was quite a lot younger than the people I worked with so only socialised with them on a few ocassions. I had a group of five good friends, two of whom were Senegalese and the other three non-Senegalese that I met early on and we tended to always socialise together.

But social groupings did evolve, as for example with Lorraine: I was very fortunate to make a really strong friendship with one of my fellow students from Portsmouth, which continues to this day. We were 3 Brits—from Portsmouth—together in fact and fairly inseparable, making friends and socialising a lot together with both Senegalese and other expats. Initially, we were with some Americans who we went around with for the first month or so, but then formed friendships with more Senegalese people and colleagues, and then quite a number of Brits through our work at the British Senegalese Institute/British Council.

Or with Hugh: At first I got along very well with my host family, but I did not feel I could relate to them, so I made relationships with people [mainly US citizens] who were studying at my place of work. […] A month into my stay, I met an English guy […] and we became best friends and our group grew with a French and a German guy […] The English guy and I started living together beginning of 2006, and lived together all the way until I left. […] We made many friends who were local, and hung out less with the american students who were coming and going from the NGO. We kept in touch with the families we started our stay with, and went back regularly to their compounds for dinner, social events, etc. In the end of our stay together, I wanted to discover more of Senegal, so I went on long trips to different parts of the country to gather more information for my dissertation, and when I returned, the relationships were not the same.

Students took advantage of whatever openings were available. Although claims made for study abroad tend to be systematic, exactly who our students socialise with is in fact highly serendipitous. For example, Hannah “made friends with a French lady at work, who was married to a Senegalese. She introduced me to her family and I became good friends with her sister-in-law […] I also made an effort to make friends with Senegalese people in my block of flats and even with my maid.”

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For Diane, “Meeting other European people was my life line.” However, she persisted and eventually met a Senegalese postgraduate who “understood the idea of just being friends and used to take me to his lovely family who would feed me and look out for me”. For Sherry, “My main social group consisted of other young Europeans, however I also bonded well with my Senegalese colleagues and I was invited on many occasions to their homes and social events.” When Tamsin arrived, the university was closed (not an uncommon phenomenon), and although she socialised well with her colleagues and through her host family, she found to her regret that her circles included few Senegalese. However, she “did get to know a lot of people from throughout francophone Africa” and “made a lot of solid friendships with people from all over the world who were working in Dakar at the time, which I have sustained.” Chris (M) initially socialised with the three people he had travelled with, but later made “many friends, who were mainly French, Cameroonian, Senegalese, and Canadian in that order”. Given how often in ERASMUS or American study abroad reports locals are described as distant, hard to get to know, or actually hostile, the Senegalese frequently come across as open and warm: We met lots of local people who were very welcoming and friendly and would have dinner or lunch with […] some of the Sengalese friends we made out there were very caring and generous in a way which I think British people very rarely are with foreigners. (Carole (F)) The majority of Senegalese people I met were so welcoming and lovely, work colleagues always invited me to lunch and dinner and welcomed me into the group. (Natalie (F))

Students inevitably came into contact with the British and other Europeans who were living in Dakar. However, Imogen and Jackie soon became disillusioned with the attitudes and behaviour of the expatriate community. The two women’s reflections show how, in a study abroad context, individual differences in attitudes can become more significant than nationality. The insightful comments of Imogen, who worked at the prestigious Centre Africain d’Etudes Supérieures en Gestion or CESAG, are worth quoting at length, since they also show how social networks can be reflected in accommodation, and the fact that, in the Senegalese context, as we have already seen, non-local friends are as likely to be African as European:

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Chapter Four When I first arrived in Dakar, I moved in to an apartment with the two other British girls working on placements organised from Portsmouth. We rented it from a family who lived in the adjoining house. One of the girls spent a great deal of time with other ex-patriates, and welcomed me into that group. I spent some time with them at first, but found that many of them could be quite negative about Senegal and Senegalese people, and would make a distinction between ‘us and them’ that I didn’t appreciate. Some people I encountered were openly rude or racist, and exploited the status that their race or highly salary afforded them. I found this deeply disturbing and wished to dissociate myself from such people as far as possible. Other ex-patriates were nice, but seemed to hold a strong attachment to things they missed from ‘back home’ that I didn’t identify with—perhaps because they had been away from home longer or would be away for longer. I had come because I was interested in learning about Senegal and relished all the differences, whereas many of them worked for embassies or organisations that had posted them to Senegal for a certain period before they would move on elsewhere. Therefore many of them did not wish to ‘invest’ in learning about the culture in the way that I did. Perhaps they had had negative experiences of feeling lost or excluded in Senegal, as I had, and they had instead chosen to disengage from the society and to mix with others in similar situations. I therefore spent a great deal of time with students from CESAG. They were all African, but many were not Senegalese—they came mostly from other West African countries. Teaching English involved facilitating discussions and this was a great way of getting to know people. I loved to hear about my students’ families, experiences and cultures. We would also have passionate debates about African culture, politics and development. I found this all so fascinating and learned a great deal from them. Soon we began to spend time together as a group outside of classes. I had one close female friend from Gabon at CESAG and she and I spent all our time together. We would also hang out with a group of guys from Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Benin and Burkina Faso. Later on I moved in with my Gabonese friend and two British girls into an apartment closer to CESAG and all my friends there. It was a really sociable environment and I got to know many more people in the neighbourhood too. By the end of my stay in Dakar I rarely sent any time with ex-patriates, aside from a few close British friends who were also really enjoying their time in Senegal.

Among the former assistants, Gareth “had many friends of many nationalities, but the majority were not senegalese.” Nor did Rhiannon develop close links with locals:

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Although I would do things with Senegalese people the notion of ‘socialising’ and ‘friends’ is really quite different. So I might spend time after school chatting with people and drinking tea, I have included that as socialising. For me ‘friend’ refers to someone that I spend a lot of time with and build close relationships with. I spent most time with one of the assistants, one teacher from the BC and another Brit. We were a similar age, had few commitments to other people in the country, arrived about the same time and wanted to engage with the country in similar ways.

However, Queenie’s reflections on her year in Senegal (2003-04) echo the narratives of those who have explored, intellectually and emotionally, a cultural territory on the border between the securely familiar and the excitingly new, gaining insights from comparisons between the cultures: When I first arrived I spent a lot of time with British people who were very different from my usual friends. it took a while to meet people I really wanted to be friends with. I socialised with Senegalese from the beginning, but it took a while to find senegalese people who I was really really comfortable with. I had a relationship with a senegalese man and once I was with him spent a lot more time with senegalese people (his friends and family), but we also socialised with my western friends). By the end of the year I felt I had about 4 really close western friends and about 4 really close senegalese friends. I found it increasingly uncomfortable to hang out in big groups of westerners, particularly as some of them seemed to have no interest in getting to know senegalese people and culture. But my western friendships were really important, as I liked being able to talk about things that they were experiencing in the same way as me. Many of my closest senegalese friends had spent time in europe or USA and so had an interest and understanding in my culture.

Such reflections underline how social networks can be shaped by the interplay between personality, attitudes, affect and the chance encounters which may arise through work or accommodation.

Keeping in Touch Most students (27 of 30, i.e. 90%: there were two non-responses) had kept in touch with people met during the study abroad, and over half (16 or 53.3%) were still in touch, especially if the experience was recent. All those graduating in 2006-2009 were still in touch. Four had been back to Senegal, while seven had visited friends met in Senegal somewhere outside the UK. Anna “will be visiting a Senegalese friend who is now living in Cote d’Ivoire later this year and it will be the first time I have

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seen him since”. Emily, whose homestay, as we have seen, provided access to Africans and Europeans, “really bonded well with a few Europeans, and I’m going to visit one of them in Germany soon”. Queenie was returning to Senegal in December 2009. Grace, whose stay dates back to 1992-93, says “I have a lasting bond with my fellow Portsmouth student with whom I shared much of my time”. She links friendship and telecommunications: I have not kept in touch with the Senegalise people I became friendly with. However, this was a given bearing in mind the inferiority of the international communications at that time. In fact, rather than inhibit the quality of the friendships that I made, this acknowledgement of limited communication outside Senegal made relationships very strong and real.

Imogen (graduated 2006) “went to visit a Malian friend in Bamako during the summer, and visited a Burkina-bé friend in Ouagadougou during the next year that I spent in Senegal. I am still in fairly regular contact with all of my close friends from that year”.

Religion, Sex and Communications Questions about communications with home were designed, like those on religion and sex, to address issues which are highly relevant to the experience and impact of study abroad, but which have not been captured in most study abroad research. Each of the three topics will be addressed more fully in a separate publication, so only a brief note is included here. All but the most well-travelled individual were led to think about religion: it became a live and divisive issue. The fact that more than one in three found a new partner during their study abroad has implications for identity, intercultural and cultural learning, and language progress, especially for the six students and one assistant, all female, whose new partner was Senegalese. The growth of travel and telecommunications meant, predictably, that more recent participants had more frequent contact with the UK. The intensity of the immersion experience may of course be diluted if the student is skyping with home every day or two, and in this respect it is misleading to assume, as study abroad literature reviews typically do, that a 1990s context is equivalent to a 2000s context (Coleman & Chafer in press).

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Outcomes Space regrettably precludes covering learning outcomes in detail. At the end of a lengthy questionnaire, yes/no items were used rather than more nuanced Likert scales in order to maximise responses. Table 1 lists the response statistics to items 38 to 42, questions designed, with items 8 to 11 discussed above, to address the six categories of study abroad objectives or outcomes originally defined in the late 1990s and refined since (Coleman & Parker 2001, Coleman 2007, 2009a, 2009b). It is fair to say that the narratives provided evidence to back up claims of personal, cultural and intercultural gain. Table 1: Perceived outcomes of the stay in Senegal Academic Cultural Intercultural Linguistic (see above) Personal Professional

Yes 6 32 32 31 31 20

No 26 1 1 12

Regarding the reported lack of academic progress, it is worth noting that university attendance was optional and often impractical, owing to the stagiaires’ other commitments or frequent closures of the university. Only eight (28.6%) had attended university, and another five (17.9%) had attended sometimes, but only two of these felt they had achieved academic outcomes during their period abroad. The fact that three of those who had not attended university also claimed to have achieved academic outcomes suggests that some may have been thinking rather of the dissertation which had to be researched and largely written during the period abroad. Those reporting no academic outcomes were probably thinking in terms of knowledge acquired through conventional university teaching. It should also be noted that, in the evaluation of Portsmouth academic staff, the subsequent academic work of students returning from Senegal benefits more than that of their peers from their enhanced personal maturity, although such gains are near impossible to quantify or measure objectively. Fred alone (graduated 2004) registered no linguistic progress in either French or Wolof. Although he explained that he had good French from living in France and that “the standard of spoken French that I encountered in Senegal was quite low”, it is noticeable that his questionnaire makes some negative comments on the local cultures and behaviours, that he

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experienced a significant off-putting incident, and that he had already dropped all contact with people met in Senegal. He seems to have “turned the page” on his African experience. The one respondent recording no personal gain was Alan, already a very well-travelled citoyen du monde before his time in Senegal. Longer-term outcomes were manifest, in terms of career, identity and personal journey, but again cannot be fully covered here. All respondents used the linguistic, personal, professional and intercultural skills developed during the Dakar period in their professional lives. The experience very definitely enhanced graduates’ employability, and nearly all have followed a career with international links, especially though by no means exclusively with Africa. About half of the informants work in the NGO or charitable sector.

Conclusion The study has confirmed that a placement of one or two semesters in Francophone West Africa is an inevitably challenging but ultimately highly rewarding learning experience. Every one of the respondents had gained a great deal from their time in Dakar, but it was never going to be easy: Diane talks of a “hard time”, Julie “not an easy stint”, Grace found it “sometimes scary”, and Lorraine “scary and challenging”. Diane is “not sure I would choose to go through the experience again”. There are tales of stolen passports, of crime, and of fear and isolation beyond those typically encountered in European settings. But the overwhelming consensus is that the stay was “invaluable” (Anna) in countless ways, often awakening an enduring love for Africa while shaping a level of understanding and empathy which are a true mark of education in its fullest sense. One could debate the extent to which students self-selected for the Dakar placement. Applicants are volunteers, and are screened for their suitability for such a potentially rewarding but extremely challenging sojourn. However, they themselves attribute many of their attitudes and subsequent career choices to the insights they gained and the skills they developed during their time in West Africa. If study abroad can lead to the kind of cultural openness and social commitment which are common factors in the student narratives, then calls for programmes like the Senegal work placements to be promoted and expanded are fully justified. If funding is obtained, it will be possible to broaden and deepen through interviews the findings from the relatively small-scale questionnaire survey reported here. Topics will include personal and professional identities, social networks and their impact on personal development, the

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issues of telecommunication and virtual versus physical location, and the whole question of what lasting benefits students drew from their placement in Senegal. However, existing findings already vindicate the decision to explore the experience of study abroad in a context hugely different from the home environment. Residence in a country where the target language is not the mother tongue, but has the status of an official language and lingua franca, typically leads both to substantial progress in the target language (French), and to acquisition of partial proficiency in the vernacular (Wolof), at least if self-report and anecdotal evidence from programme administrators can be relied upon. The complexity and evolution of social networks reflect the three communities (compatriots, other non-locals and locals) typically found in the literature, but they are overlaid both by the not unexpected ethnic issues confronting Europeans in an African country, and by gender roles. Such roles, and student unfamiliarity with them and uncertainty as to how to deal with them, appear to be one aspect which is inescapable in Senegal but may be less apparent, at least initially, where there is less cultural distance between home and host contexts. The same observation applies very obviously to other aspects of culture, both at a transactional (e.g. taxis, bartering) and a deeper level (e.g. family relationships), and not least to religion: students may return from a séjour in France without much insight into Catholicism or the secular state, but Muslim observances in Senegal cannot be ignored, and all our informants had learnt about Islam and other religious beliefs; some had reflected on religion for the first time. While a lasting love of Africa is a specific outcome of the Senegalese placement, other long-term impacts, on subsequent mobility and career choices, reflect earlier findings for language assistants (Alred & Byram 2002, 2006), ERASMUS students (Opper et al. 1990, Teichler 1997) and US students (Dwyer 2004), although the involvement here of several respondents in NGOs and/or developing economies reflects the particular nature of their study abroad placements.

Bibliography Akande, Y. & C. Slawson. 2000. “A case study of 50 years of study abroad alumni”. International Educator. 9, 3, pp. 12-16. Alred, G. & M. Byram. 2002. “Becoming an intercultural mediator: A longitudinal study of residence abroad”. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development. 23, 5, 339-352. Alred, G. & M. Byram. 2006. “British students in France: 10 Years On”. In M. Byram & A. Feng (eds.). Living and Studying Abroad: Research

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and Practice, 210-231. Altbach, P.G. 2004. “Higher Education crosses borders. Can the United States remain the top destination for foreign students?”. Change (March-April). pp. 18-24. Amuzie, G.L. & P. Winke. 2009. “Changes in language learning beliefs as a result of study abroad”. System. 37, 3, pp. 366-379. Blanas, D.A. 2008. “The cultural implications of primary health care and the declaration of Alma-Ata: The health district of Kédougou, Senegal”. Frontiers, The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. 16, pp. 17-59. Coleman, J.A. 2007. “A new framework for study abroad research”. In C. Way et al. (eds.). Enhancing the Erasmus Experience: Papers on student mobility. Granada: Atrio, pp. 37-46. —. 2009a. New perspectives on study abroad research: goals, variables and methods. In Paper delivered at the University of California at Berkeley. —. 2009b. “Study abroad and SLA: defining goals and variables”. In K. Kleppin & A. Berndt (eds.). Sprachlehrforschung: Theorie und Empirie, Festschrift für Rüdiger Grotjahn. Bochum: AKS-Verlag. Coleman, J.A. & L. Parker, L. 2001. “Preparing for residence abroad: staff development implications”. In J. Klapper (ed.). Teaching languages in Higher Education. Issues in Training and Continuing Professional Development. London: CILT. pp. 134-162. Coleman, J.A & Chafer, T. in press. Study abroad and the Internet: physical and virtual context in an era of expanding telecommunications. Frontiers: the Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, XIX (Fall 2010). Dervin, F. 2008. Métamorphoses identitaires en situation de mobilité. Turku: University of Turku. Dwyer, M. 2004. “Charting the impact of studying abroad”. International Educator. 13, 1, pp. 14-17. Ehrenreich, S. 2004. Auslandsaufenthalt und Fremdsprachenlehrerbildung, Munich: Langenscheidt. de Federico, A. 2005. Réseaux d’identification à l’Europe. Amitiés et identités d’étudiants européens. Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille / Universidad Pública de Navarra. Freed, B.F. et al. 2004. “The Language Contact Profile”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. 26, 02, pp. 349-356. Isabelli-García, C. 2006. “Study abroad social networks, motivation and attitudes: implications for second language acquisition”. In M. Byram & A. Feng (eds.). Language Learners in Study Abroad Contexts.

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Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 231-258. Jackson, J. 2008. Language, Identity and Study Abroad: Sociocultural Perspectives. London: Equinox Publishing. Kinginger, C. 2009. Language Learning and Study Abroad: A Critical Reading of Research. London: Palgrave Macmillan. —. 2008. “Language learning in study abroad: Case studies of Americans in France”. Modern Language Journal. 92, s1, pp. 1-124. Murphy-Lejeune, E. 2002. Student Mobility and Narrative in Europe: The New Strangers. London: Routledge. Opper, S., U. Teichler & J. Carlson. 1990. Impact of Study Abroad Programmes on Students and Graduates. London: Jessica Kingsley. Papatsiba, V. 2003. Des étudiants européens. “Erasmus” et l’aventure de l’altérité. Bern: Peter Lang. Parey, M. & Waldinger, F. 2007. Studying Abroad and the Effect on International Labor Market Mobility: Evidence from the Introduction of ERASMUS. London: Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE. Pellegrino Aveni, V.P. 2005. Study Abroad and Second Language Use. Constructing the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Teichler, U. 1997. The ERASMUS Experience. Major findings of the ERASMUS Evaluation Research. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

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APPENDIX 1: INITIAL EMAIL TO STUDENT RESPONDENTS Subject line: Your Experience in Senegal: can you help us? Dear [forename] When you were a student, the University of Portsmouth arranged for you to undertake a placement in Senegal. We know that for many people this was a significant time in their lives. Now that the link with Dakar has been in place for over twenty years, we are conducting an academic study to explore students’ experience in Senegal and the impact it had on them. We would be very grateful if you could fill in the attached questionnaire. Please email the completed questionnaire as an attachment to either Tony or Jim. Most sections end with an open question, allowing you to say as much or as little as you wish about the topic. Longer answers can provide very valuable insights, but we recognise that not everyone will have the time or inclination to add details. There is no reward for taking part, but we will send those who respond a copy of any resulting publications. Thank you in advance for taking part in this study, which will help us understand the Senegal experience, and, we hope, improve advice and support for future students, so that they can better appreciate the challenges and potential benefits of residence abroad. If you are still in touch with any other students who did a placement in Senegal, please pass on this message and/or—with their permission—let us know their email so that we can invite them to participate. All best wishes from Jim [email protected] Tony [email protected]

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Jim Coleman is Professor of Language Learning and Teaching at the UK’s Open University. Previously at Portsmouth, he has visited students on placement in Senegal and conducted extensive research on student residence abroad. For a full profile, visit http://fels-staff.open.ac.uk/jimcoleman. Tony Chafer is Professor of Contemporary French Area Studies at the University of Portsmouth. He set up the exchange with Senegal and has been overseeing it for more than twenty years. For a full profile, visit http://www.port.ac.uk/research/ceisr/members/title,7244,en.html.

Anonymity and confidentiality Your identity will remain entirely confidential to the two of us. We intend to aggregate the data in order to gain a representative picture, which we hope to write up as an academic article and present at academic conferences. In reporting the study, we may also quote from individual responses, but if we do so, it will be anonymously: we will ensure that there is no means of identifying the individual participant. You are free to omit any questions you are not comfortable with. You may also contact us at any point after returning the questionnaire to ask that your responses be destroyed, and we will comply with such requests up to the point when data has been aggregated for analysis. No data will be passed to any third party. All the data collected will be destroyed once the study is complete. Research ethics also require us to provide details of someone who is not involved in the study, but who is aware of the details of it and of the ethical approvals which have been obtained. She is Professor Sue Wright at the University of Portsmouth: [email protected].

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APPENDIX 2: STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE Click to put an x in the appropriate box About you 1. Gender Male 2. Year of graduation: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃

Female

Placement in Senegal 3. From 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 (month) 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 (year) to 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 (month) 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 (year)* 4. Duration: One semester / two semesters (delete as appropriate) 5. First Employer: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 Role: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 6. Second Employer (if applicable): 㻃㻃㻃㻃㻃 Role: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 * Give approximate dates if you do not remember exactly Accommodation 7. Which situation best describes your living arrangements in Senegal? Initially I lived in the home of a local family, who mostly spoke to each other in Wolof / French / English / other (delete as appropriate) I lived in a student residence I lived alone in a room or apartment I lived in a room or apartment with local peers I lived in a room or apartment with other foreigners Later on I lived in the home of a local family, who mostly spoke to each other in Wolof / French / English / other (delete as appropriate) I lived in a student residence I lived alone in a room or apartment I lived in a room or apartment with local peers I lived in a room or apartment with other foreigners Language Use On average, excluding any French classes, how much time did you spend speaking in French? 8. Typically, how many days per week? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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9. On those days, typically how many hours per day? 0-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 more than 5 10. By the time I left, I felt my French had Improved a lot improved a bit neither improved nor got worse got worse 11. By the time I left, with regard to Wolof, I had made little or no progress learnt some useful words and phrases achieved a good basic level become pretty fluent Experiences Ethnicity 12. In the first few days, I had some experiences linked to my appearance or race yes no 13. Later on, I had some experiences linked to my appearance or race yes no 14. Add as much or as little detail on ethnicity as you wish: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 Gender 15. In the first few days, I had some experiences linked to my gender yes no 16. Later on, I had some experiences linked to my gender yes no 17. Add as much or as little detail on gender as you wish: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 Religion 18. During my stay, the cultural context led me to think about religion yes no 19. Add as much or as little detail on religion as you wish: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 Links with home 20. At first, I felt not homesick at all

a bit homesick

very homesick

21. Later on, I felt (delete as appropriate) not homesick at all a bit homesick

very homesick

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22. Internet use: I would typically contact the UK by internet monthly at most weekly several times a week

daily

23. Telephone: I would typically contact the UK by telephone monthly at most weekly several times a week

daily

24. Did going to Senegal mean leaving a partner in the UK? yes no 25. Did anyone from home visit you during your stay in Senegal? yes no 26. Any other comments, e.g. what I found particularly different from home, how I handled long-distance relationships, or how it felt to host visitors from home: 㻃㻃㻃㻃㻃 Social networks 27. In the early days, my friends were mostly other Brits mostly local people 30. Later on, my friends were mostly other Brits mostly local people

mostly other non-Senegalese

mostly other non-Senegalese

31. During your stay in Senegal, you will have met other foreigners, both British and of other nationalities. Among this group—or beyond it—did anyone nonSenegalese become a friend with whom you socialised? a close friend with whom you could discuss private issues? a partner? Put a cross in all the boxes which apply. 32. During your stay in Senegal, you will have met local Senegalese. Among this group—or beyond it—did any local Senegalese become a friend with whom you socialised? a close friend with whom you could discuss private issues? a partner? Put a cross in all the boxes which apply. 33. Did you keep in touch with anyone after you left Senegal? no yes, initially yes, for a while touch today 34. Have you been back to Senegal to see people? yes no

yes, and still in

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35. Have you visited any of them outside the UK? yes no 36. Any other comments, e.g. how your social contacts and relationships changed during your stay in Dakar: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 Outcomes 37. Did you attend university in Senegal yes no

sometimes

38. Was academic learning a significant outcome of your stay in Senegal? yes no 39. Was insight into the local ways of life a significant outcome of your stay in Senegal? yes no 40.Was understanding of aspects of professional life a significant outcome of your stay in Senegal? yes no 41.Was being able to operate effectively in different cultural contexts a significant outcome of your stay in Senegal? yes no 42. Was personal development a significant outcome of your stay in Senegal? yes no 43. Any other comment on what you got out of the year: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 Employment 44. When you landed your first long-term job after graduating, what role did the residence abroad play in helping you get the job? no part at all one factor among many a significant factor the determining factor 45. In any subsequent job move, estimate the role played by residence abroad in helping you to get the job. Please tick one. no part at all one factor among many a significant factor the determining factor 46. In your career since graduation, have there been times when the experience of residence abroad helped you perform your job? Please tick one. not at all a bit a lot 47. Is residence abroad a good investment, i.e. is the expense and time worth it? yes no

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48.Was residence abroad the most valuable part of your degree? yes no 49. Would you like to comment on what contribution—if any—you think residence abroad has made to your working life? You may want to summarise the main features of your career. 㻃㻃㻃㻃㻃 Looking back 50. Was your time in Senegal a turning point in your life? yes no 51. Do you see the experience differently now, with hindsight, from the way you lived it at the time? yes no 64. Has your professional life involved mediating between cultures in any way? yes no 65. Any other comments, e.g. about the hopes and fears you had before going, and to what extent they were realised, or about the experience as a whole and its impact on your life: 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 㻃 66. Would be willing to be interviewed by telephone in relation to your time abroad in Senegal? yes no Telephone number: Best time to ring: Thank you very much for helping us with this research project!

CHAPTER FIVE VIRTUAL ACADEMIC MOBILITY: ONLINE PREPARATION AND SUPPORT FOR THE INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCE ROBERT O’DOWD

Introduction To date, concepts such as virtual academic mobility and Virtual Erasmus in the context of European Higher Education have focused principally on enabling students to access geographically distant university programmes without the necessity of being physically mobile. However, the Bologna Process underlines the belief that academic mobility should not only provide access to academic courses and their content, but should also lead to other beneficial outcomes such as helping students to develop the transversal skills they need in a changing labour market, empowering them to become active European citizens and also developing their capacity to work and interact with members of other cultures. A recent communiqué by EU ministers of Education, for example, states that… “mobility… fosters respect for diversity and a capacity to deal with other cultures” (Leuven/Louvain Communiqué 2009). The challenge is for virtual mobility to also support the development of these skills and attitudes. With this in mind, in this paper I propose to look at how online tools are currently being used in student mobility programmes. I will also focus on one particular realization of virtual academic mobility—foreign language telecollaboration—which can help to achieve the social and intercultural aims of student mobility, but which, in my opinion, has yet to be sufficiently integrated with “traditional” mobility set-ups. Telecollaboration refers to the activity of virtual intercultural interaction and exchange between learners in geographically distant locations for educational purposes. Different variations of telecollaborative activity have been present at university level foreign language education contexts for over

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two decades now, and models such as e-tandem (O’Rourke 2007) and Cultura (Furstenberg et al. 2001) have been employed in many FL classrooms around Europe and elsewhere. Extensive academic research into the outcomes of these exchanges (Müller-Hartmann 2000, O’Dowd 2003, Ware 2005) has demonstrated that the activity of virtual negotiation and collaboration with geographically distant partners can contribute to students’ linguistic competence, intercultural communicative competence and electronic literacies as well as other transversal and generic skills which are greatly valued in the current labour market. However, to date it appears that this online learning activity has been considered independently of Erasmus and other student mobility programmes and it has not yet been fully explored how this form of virtual mobility can be used in an integrated manner with its physical counterpart. In the following sections I will begin by outlining the aims of virtual academic mobility and present some well-known examples of this practice. I will then describe how typical models of telecollaborative exchange usually function and look at how this activity has contributed to intercultural education and, in particular, to the preparation of students for the social and intercultural aspects of academic mobility. I will then refer to a survey of university-level practitioners of telecollaboration in order to identify the reasons for the limited impact of telecollaboration to date and explore why it has not been more widely taken up around Europe. Finally, I will describe a practical example of how virtual and “traditional” physical academic mobility can be successfully integrated together.

Virtual Academic Mobility: Aims and Examples of Current Practice It goes without saying that study abroad programmes can offer a huge variety of learning opportunities for university students. Study abroad allows students to experience university education in another country and also to develop their language skills, to spend time living and learning in a new culture and to develop personal skills as they learn to live abroad for perhaps the first time in their lives. There are perhaps so many possible learning outcomes from the year abroad, it is possible that many are overlooked or taken for granted as students and their coordinators often focus on the intended academic outcomes of their stay in the foreign culture. For example, it appears that very often the cultural and intercultural learning outcomes of the year abroad are ignored or taken for granted and are expected to be an automatic outcome of student mobility. Kinginger comments:

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Received wisdom sustains the assumption that study abroad offers unlimited learning opportunities in which students are confronted with difference and learn from it… [however] our students are at increasing risk of failing to notice their own ignorance of the communities they join through study abroad. As educators, we need to upgrade our ability to argue in favour of meaningful study abroad experiences explicitly including an emphasis on language learning as negotiation of difference. (Kinginger 2010: 2)

In order to raise awareness among educators and students of the wide range of possible learning outcomes from student mobility, Coleman and Parker (2001) drew up a comprehensive list of explicitly stated learning objectives applicable to all forms of residence abroad, covering academic, cultural, intercultural, linguistic, personal, and professional domains. The objectives were intended for use in the development of programs preparing students for their study abroad programme and to structure a process of assessment based on personal goals set by agreement before departure, however they can be of use here to gain an overview of the objectives to which models of virtual mobility also needs to attend. The main objectives outlined in Coleman and Parker (2001: 137-41) include:

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Table 1: Objectives for Study Abroad (Coleman and Parker 2001: 137-41) Academic • course at a foreign university, which may have a defined curriculum, core plus options or a free choice • dissertation, project and/or language work for the home institution • preparation for final year including reading and researching. Cultural • insight into institutions, way of life • can overlap with academic outcomes. Intercultural • amalgam of knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, skills, behaviours • awareness of relativity of cultures— including one’s own • recognition that culture is a social construct • cognitive and affective learning • ethnographic skills allowing observation without misunderstanding, objectivity free of ethnocentrism • inter-personal skills allowing adaptation to multiple cultural milieux, respecting local values without abandoning one’s own • work-related: ability to function in new linguistic/cultural environment

Linguistic • the four skills • grammar / vocabulary • sociolinguistic (register) • fluency • language learning strategies. Personal • independence and self-reliance • confidence • self-awareness Professional • transferable skills • work experience • intercultural competence • awareness of target country work conventions.

The obvious question which arises is how can students be prepared and supported to meet these myriad of objectives during the stay abroad— especially those related to cultural and intercultural learning. Various projects have been carried out to achieve this, including the Ealing Ethnography Project (Roberts et al. 2001) which aimed at developing students’ ability to carry out ethnographic projects during their stay abroad in order to develop a broader and more complex understanding of the foreign culture. However, with the rise of online communication tools and devices in our society and in higher education, it seems only logical to explore how Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and social networking can be employed to prepare students for study abroad and to support them in the learning process when they are in the target culture.

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A review of the literature would suggest that virtual tools and networks can be employed in two principle ways to support the study abroad experience. Firstly, students can employ online tools to complete eportfolios or e-journals in order to reflect on their experiences during their stay abroad. Secondly, in an activity which is much less-common, online telecollaborative exchanges can be organised between universities in order to bring students into contact together before they actually travel to their partner universities. Before exploring the option of telecollaborative exchange in more detail, the first option of using e-portfolios and ejournals will be reviewed here briefly. In this e-portfolio approach, a growing number of reports demonstrate how online communication tools such as blogs and learning platforms can be used to link students with their home university during their period abroad and also to encourage students to engage in critical reflection of their learning during their time abroad. Elola and Oskoz (2008), for example, report on a study which involved American students taking part in a study abroad programme in Spain maintaining contact with other American students at their home university through blogs. The students at the home university posed questions related to Spanish lifestyle and culture and the study abroad students endeavoured to provide feedback on these topics by carrying out in situ research and reporting their observations and findings to their partners at home. Similarly, Aguilar Stewart (2010) reported on the use of blogs (described here as e-journals) by study abroad students to report and reflect on their experiences in the target culture. The author found that e-journals helped to make students more aware of what they were learning during their time abroad. He also found that the students’ academic coordinators in the home university were able to use the e-journals to understand aspects of the students’ experience such as their living situations, classroom instruction and interaction with native speakers as well as their ability to tackle the challenges of living and studying abroad. The author recommends that course credit be offered by the home institution in order to ensure that students update their journal regularly. Furthermore, he also suggestions that as students return from their study abroad period, the journals could be used as a record that they can reflect back upon and identify errors. Finally, a report by Goria (2009) reports on the Year Abroad project at the University of Nottingham, England where students can achieve a “Year Abroad Certificate in Language and Cultural Awareness” by successfully completing an online learning portfolio. The e-portfolio is completed on the Blackboard Learning System and includes sections

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dealing with a language log-book, reflective essays and other learning artefacts which students collect during their time abroad. The author reports that the project has had rather limited success during its first year and that students have been slow to complete the e-portfolio. She suggests that this is due to the fact that the activity is not compulsory and that this has weakened students’ motivation. Secondly, there has been a low level of contact between the study abroad students and their coordinators at the home university and this too has had a negative effect on their participation. Finally, may of the students are taking part in non-academic work experience activities and this has diverted students’ attention from this rather academic task.

Telecollaboration as Virtual Academic Mobility: Well known Models Traditionally, online intercultural exchange projects in foreign language education has been organised independently of physical mobility programmes. Indeed, in some institutions it has been seen as a “second best” option for students who are unable to take part in Erasmus or similar programmes. The question arises as to why it has not been seen more as an integral part of preparing students for physical mobility. Before answering this question, it is perhaps useful to explore in more detail what telecollaboration is and what it has contributed to intercultural language learning. Telecollaboration has generally taken one of two forms or models, but it would appear that both have been used independently of mobility programmes and have not been used as an integral part of Erasmus or similar initiatives. In the e-tandem model (O’Rourke 2007), two native speakers of different languages communicate together with the aim of learning the other’s language. These exchanges are based on the principles of autonomy and reciprocity and the responsibility for a successful exchange rests mainly with the learner. In these exchanges, learners are expected to provide feedback on their partners’ content and on their foreign language performance. In this sense, tandem partners in many ways take on the role of a peer-tutor who correct their partners’ errors and propose alternative formulations in the target language. Messages are meant to be written 50% in the target language and 50% in the mother tongue, thereby providing each partner with an opportunity to practise their target language and, at the same time, to provide their partner with authentic input in their target language.

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A second, alternative model of online intercultural exchange could be described as Blended Intercultural Telecollaboration (Belz and Thorne 2006). This model involves international class-to-class partnerships in which projects and tasks are developed by the partner teachers in the collaborating institutions. Generally, the exchange is strongly integrated into the students’ contact classes where online interaction and publications are prepared, analyzed and reflected upon with the guidance of the teacher. The emphasis of the exchanges is on developing cultural awareness and other aspects of intercultural communicative competence. For this reason, common activities include collaborative research projects comparing both cultures and the analysis of “parallel cultural texts”. For example, French and American students are often engaged in comparative studies of the film “Three men and a baby” with French original (Furstenberg et al. 2001). Incarnations of both of these models have been used extensively in foreign language education programmes over the past two decades and the analysis of the outcomes of online foreign language interaction and exchange has become an important area of study in CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) journals and publications and this activity has become a powerful tool for the development of aspects of intercultural competence in the foreign language classroom. I will now look briefly at what I consider these contributions to have been. Firstly, telecollaborative exchanges have been found to contribute to culture learning by providing learners with a different type of knowledge to that which they usually find in textbooks and in other traditional Cultural Studies resources (O’Dowd 2006). As opposed to objective factual information, the accounts which students receive from their partners tend to be of a subjective and personalised nature. For this reason, exchanges can be particularly useful for making students aware of certain aspects of cultural knowledge (Byram 1997) such as how institutions are perceived in the target culture and what the significant events and people in the target culture’s “national memory” are. Secondly, it has been found that telecollaboration can also contribute to the development of critical cultural awareness as learners have opportunities in their online interaction to engage in intense periods of negotiation of meaning in which they can discuss cultural “rich points” and illicit meanings of cultural behaviour from ‘real’ informants in the target culture. Learners are also led to become more aware of the relativity of their own cultural beliefs and values as they try to make them explicit for their partners. However, researchers emphasise that this is only the case when online exchange involves explicit comparison of the two

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cultures and the expression of direct opinions and reactions to the comments of others (O’Dowd 2003). Such dialogue between partners contrasts with interaction which involves an unreflective exchange of information between partners. Thirdly, Belz and Kinginger (2002, 2003) have highlighted the potential of telecollaborative exchange for making learners aware of cultural differences in communicative practices and their work has demonstrated how online exchange can contribute to the development of L2 pragmatic competence in foreign language learning. The authors have found that this is the case because interaction with native peers can lead to the exposure of the learner to a broad range of FL discourse options and also because learners consider their partners to be “people who matter” and therefore are more motivated to establish successful working relationships with them in the foreign language.

Telecollaboration: Weakness and Limitations Despite these significant contributions to the cultural turn in foreign language education, there has been a growing level of criticism with traditional approaches to telecollaboration in recent years in the literature and in the classroom. Firstly, many educators have highlighted the organisational complexity of these exchanges and the difficulties which many teachers find in trying to dedicate time to the organisation of an exchange while attending to their other duties and obligations. Ware & Warschauer (2008: 231), for example, suggest that the type of learning which telecollaboration involves can often be at odds with the institutional demands within which teachers are working: …classroom teachers… are under pressure to raise test scores, and most thus shy away from creative project-based instruction in order to concentrate on more narrowly focused interventions related to state examination material.

Secondly, although the emphasis in online exchange is often on the development of intercultural awareness, many teachers have found that engaging learners in short periods of virtual contact with members of other cultures can actually serve to confirm stereotypes and increase a negative image of the other culture. The literature is full of examples of this (see Ware 2005), but I present here a case in point from one of my own Spanish-American exchanges. At the end of the exchange one of my Spanish students submitted an essay based on 5 months intensive interaction with her American partner:

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The exchange with American students has been very important for me. It has been very interesting as well because it has helped me to prove that Americans don’t care about human beings.

There are two further lines of criticism which are worthy of mention here. Firstly, there has been a growing criticism of the underlying belief in the research approaches to online intercultural exchange that members of different cultures use different genres and cultural communication styles in their online intercultural interactions. Goodfellow and Lamy (2009: 6), for example, warn that “…the assumption that a coherent ‘genre’ or ‘style’ is characteristic of national cohorts is rarely interrogated.” In other words, the authors question whether it is possible to speak about something which can be called “French communicative style” and whether it is not a little over-simplistic to describe one monolithic cultural communicative style clashing or causing misunderstandings with another. Finally there is also the question of authenticity in class to class partnerships. The authors Hanna and de Nooy (2009: 88) have pointed out that in class to class telecollaboration… “[i]nteraction is restricted to communication with other learners, a situation that is safe and reassuring for beginners and younger learners, but somewhat limiting for more advanced and adult learners, who need practice in venturing beyond the classroom.” The authors propose that it is more authentic and more advantageous to engage learners in interaction in authentic L2 discussion forums such as those related to L2 newspaper and magazine publications. For example, they report on studies of their own learners of French as a foreign language who participated in the discussion forums of French magazines such as Le Nouvel Observateur. This brings me to what I currently consider the main challenge for online intercultural exchange in foreign language education. After having studied this area in some detail for many years (O’Dowd 2003, 2006, 2010) I am concerned that after being in existence for almost 20 years, telecollaboration continues to be seen as an “add-on” activity which essentially depends on “pioneering” teachers and highly motivated students. My findings to date suggest that it is still not considered an integrated or “normalised” part of study programmes and syllabi at university level. Why is this the case? A qualitative survey which involved carrying out semi-structured interviews with over 70 practitioners of telecollaboration in university institutions revealed various problems with this activity in its current state. Participants answered an opening set of questions and then, when deemed appropriate, were asked to expand on their answers and provide examples of what they meant in further email correspondence.

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This protocol was based on the factors in the normalisation of online technologies in foreign language education by Chambers & Bax (2006). The main questions put to the participants were the following: 1. Does your institution provide easy access to up-to-date computer laboratories or provide online technologies (e.g. laptop + beamer, interactive whiteboards) in your standard classrooms? 2. Does your institution provide sufficient technical support and back-up for using online activities in classes? 3. Does your institution provide pedagogical and technical training for staff members in how to use online activities (such as online intercultural exchange) in classes? 4. Are participation in online intercultural exchange projects and the development of online literacies explicitly mentioned in course syllabi in your institution? 5. In general, do you feel that your teaching colleagues consider online intercultural interaction and exchange as important and relevant activities for your students? What are their reactions to you engaging your students in online exchange? 6. Do you find that your students find online interaction and exchange as relevant and important for their learning? 7. What aspects of your students’ online activity do you assess when they take part in online exchanges? 8. Finally, what weight do online exchanges carry in the overall assessment of the course?

The interviews were carried out with 73 foreign language instructors working at university institutions around Europe who had carried out online intercultural exchanges. It is perhaps useful to look at these briefly, along with some representative excerpts from the interviews: 1. While many colleagues of telecollaboration practitioners tend to regard telecollaboration as a generally positive activity, they usually choose to “admire the activity from a distance”. Many are put off by the extra work involved in organising and running telecollaborative exchanges and, as a result, practitioners usually fail to convince their colleagues that the activity is worthwhile. One practitioner comments: I guess the cost-benefit ratio is negative for them [my colleagues]. In other words, they realise these exchanges are relevant for the students but it takes too much effort to organise it and I think they wouldn’t introduce it in their teaching.

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2. Practitioners also find it difficult to integrate exchanges into their study syllabi due to a lack of certainty that they will have a reliable international exchange group to communicate with the following year. Practitioners also find it difficult to find partner groups which have equal numbers of students and therefore are put off from making the activity compulsory. Some representative comments included the following: The exchange is… not in course syllabi, because not everybody can participate. We have many students and participation depends on the quantity of native students willing to participate at the partner institutions. …I never know whether they [the exchanges] are going to be on or not the following year so I don’t include them [in course programme] just in case they are not possible one year.

3. The issue of assessment is a significant problem for telecollaboration at third level. As exchanges are not mentioned in study programmes, it is often difficult for teachers to assign a great deal of students’ final grades to their online interaction. However, participating in online exchanges can often involve a great deal of work for students and many complain that it is unfair that such a heavy workload is not compensated with a high percentage of the final grade. Two practitioners explained: In the recent two exchanges… we’ve only had a tiny fraction of their mark available to us. It was given basically on commitment and participation. …the students only get informal feedback, no grades.

4. A lack of integration of exchanges (i.e. the absence of telecollaboration from study programmes and assessment rubrics) can lead to a sense of frustration for teacher and learners: …none of my projects have been the main focus of my classes, so students still see a “standard” curriculum occurring alongside the telecollaboration. Of course, from my perspective, having done 5 different telecollaborative projects, I feel now that they are not good “on-the-side” projects because there is no time to really bring students’ attention to the communication taking place and the language being shared. All of my projects felt rushed. It was frustrating, though I will say there were also good things that came of all of them.

These findings of the survey on telecollaborative exchange paint a rather bleak picture of the extent to which telecollaboration is being fully

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integrated into foreign language programmes. A lack of stability in project partners, the lack of support from colleagues and the difficulties in including online exchanges in course programmes and course evaluation schemes suggest that, unless action is taken, telecollaboration is doomed to remain on the periphery of foreign language teaching and that its potential will only be exploited by teachers and students who are willing to take it on as an extra “add-on” activity along with traditional skills-based language activities. Of course, the danger with this “add-on” approach is that both teachers and students are likely to eventually tire of the extra effort and work which these projects require. It is also likely that projects will not be exploited to their maximum and their potential for intercultural learning will not be taken advantage of. The challenge, therefore, is for researchers and educators to look for ways of making the integration of online intercultural exchange into tertiary education—and into student mobility programmes—a more seamless and fluid process. With this in mind, in the following section I will explore various approaches in which telecollaboration can be successfully integrated with physical academic mobility.

Integrating Virtual and Physical Academic Mobility: Some Examples of Good Practice As mentioned earlier, it would appear that virtual academic mobility in the form of telecollaboration seems to have been used very little as a tool for supporting or preparing for physical academic mobility. Indeed, telecollaboration is often referred to as a “second-best” replacement for those students who are not willing or not able to take part in Erasmus or other student mobility programmes. This is surprising because a closer integration of online intercultural exchange and student mobility could be beneficial to both students and educators. Engaging students in online communication with members of the target culture could serve as excellent preparation—both linguistically and culturally—for a period of study abroad in that culture. Universities could also use their existing academic mobility partnerships to set up direct online exchanges between students who planned to visit each others’ campuses in the coming term. Students at the University of León, Spain, for example, who were planning to attend classes at the University of Sterling, Scotland could be linked virtually with students from Sterling planning to attend classes in León. This online interaction could be guided by a series of questions and tasks about the target culture which the students would find in their study abroad portfolio

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and which would have to be completed in order to qualify to take part in the Erasmus exchange programme. This is merely a proposal of an approach which could be integrated into university study programmes, however there is at least one example of virtual exchange being used to support physical mobility with considerable success. The Spanish-American Cultura programme is a virtual exchange project which combines phases of online and physical student mobility. A class of students of English as a Foreign Language at the University of León, Spain spend 3 months of their classes in intense virtual contact with a class of Spanish as a Foreign Language students at Barnard College, New York using an online platform. During these three months, students in both classes make multimedia presentations and videos about their hometown and university for their partner class and carry out various online tasks together which require the analysis of documents from both cultures and intensive discussion in text-based discussion forums. Following that, in the second stage of the project, students from Barnard travel to León and take part in student life in the Spanish city for two weeks. They participate in classes in the English department as language and cultural assistants and they carry out research for ethnographic projects and interview the families and classmates of their Spanish partners. When the American group return to Barnard, it is the turn of the Spanish class a group of 5/6 students to spend another two-week period studying at Barnard college. Here again the students take part in various classes in the Spanish department, they carry out research on-campus and maintain their classmates in León up to date with their experiences by maintaining a daily blog in English. In the third phase of the project, students update the project’s virtual platform with the reports of their ethnographic projects carried out in the target culture, digital photos of their trips with commentaries as well as essays and other materials related to the exchange. This final phase of the project also involves a reflection of the periods in the target culture and students continue their online interaction, discussing each others’ projects and experiences. In this example, we can see where virtual and physical academic mobility can be integrated together in a coherent educational experience. It is also notable that the content of the classes is based principally on the exchange itself. Spanish students watch videos and analyse texts written in English by their American partners, while the American students use the content created by their Spanish partners to improve their Spanish.

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Conclusion To summarise, I attempted to offer in this article a brief overview of how online technologies are being used and could be used in the future to support and enhance programmes of physical mobility. I also provided a review of some of the contributions which telecollaborative exchange has made to foreign language teaching and I identified the weaknesses and limitations of these models which have been discussed in greater detail in the recent literature. The initial findings of my survey on the normalisation of online intercultural exchange also paint a rather bleak picture of the extent to which telecollaboration is being fully integrated into foreign language programmes. A lack of stability in project partners, the lack of support from colleagues and the difficulties in including online exchanges in course syllabi and course evaluation schemes would seem to suggest that telecollaboration is doomed to remain on the periphery of foreign language teaching and that its potential will only be exploited by teachers and students who are willing to take it on as an “add-on” activity apart from traditional skills-based language activities. Of course, the danger with this “add-on” approach is that both teachers and students are likely to eventually tire of the extra effort and work which they involve. The challenge, of course, is for researchers and educators to look for ways of making the normalisation of online intercultural exchange a more seamless and fluid process. The aforementioned example of Cultura between León and Barnard College New York is, I believe, an example of how telecollaboration can be successfully integrated into the curriculum and also into student mobility programmes. More sample projects and experiments such as this will be necessary but I imagine that greater European integration in education through the Bologna process may facilitate the development of more models which combine virtual and physical student exchange. The key to their success is stability in university partnerships which will permit long term planning of bilateral exchanges which involve combinations of virtual and physical contact between students in different institutions.

Bibliography Aguilar Stewart, J. 2010. “Using e-Journals to Assess Students’ Language Awareness and Social Identity During Study Abroad”. Foreign Language Annals, 43(1), pp. 138-159. Bax, S. 2006. CALL—past, present and future. System, 31, 1, pp. 13-28.

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Belz, J.A. & C. Kinginger. 2002. “The cross-linguistic development of address form use in telecollaborative language learning: Two case studies”. Canadian Modern Language Review/Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 59, 2, pp. 189-214. Belz, J.A. & C. Kinginger. 2003. “Discourse options and the development of pragmatic competence by classroom learners of German. The case of address forms”. Language Learning, 53, pp. 591-647. Belz, J. & S. Thorne (eds). 2006. Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Byram, M. 1997. Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Chambers, A. & S. Bax. 2008. “Making CALL work: Towards normalisation”. System, 34, 4, pp. 465-479. Coleman, J.A. & L. Parker. 2001. “Preparing for residence abroad: staff development implications”. In J. Klapper (ed.). Teaching languages in Higher Education. Issues in Training and Continuing Professional Development. London: CILT. Elola, I. & A. Oskoz. 2008. “Blogging: Fostering Intercultural Competence Development in Foreign Language and Study Abroad Contexts”. Foreign Language Annals, 41, 3, pp. 455-477. Furstenberg, G., S. Levet, K. English & K. Maillet. 2001. “Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The Culture Project”. Language Learning & Technology. 5, 1, pp. 55-102. Goodfellow, R. & M.-N. Lamy. 2009. “Introduction: a Frame for the Discussion of Learning Cultures”. In R. Goodfellow & M.-N. Lamy (eds). Learning Cultures in Online Education. Continuum Studies in Education. London: Continuum Books, pp. 1-14. Goria, C. 2009. “‘Integrating the Year Abroad’ an integrative approach to Language Learning supported by WebCT ePortfolio”. The EUROCALL Review. 15, March-September 2009. Hanna, B. & J. de Nooy. 2009. Learning language and culture via public internet discussion forums. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kinginger, C. 2010. “American students abroad: Negotiation of difference?”. Language Teaching. 43 (2), pp. 216-277. Müller-Hartmann, A. 2000. “The role of tasks in promoting intercultural learning in electronic learning networks”. Language Learning & Technology. 4 (2), pp. 129-147. Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education. 2009. The Leuven/Louvain Communiqué. Retrieved from:

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http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/conference/doc uments/Leuven_Louvain-laNeuve_Communiqu%C3%A9_April_2009.pdf Levy, M. & G. Stockwell. 2006. CALL Dimensions. Options and Issues in Computer-assisted Language Learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. O’Dowd, R. (2003). “Understanding ‘the other side’: intercultural learning in a Spanish-English email exchange”, Language Learning and Technology 7 (2), 118-144. Retrieved from: http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/odowd/default.html —. 2006. Telecollaboration and the Development of Intercultural Communicative Competence. Berlin: Langenscheidt. —. (in press). “Online foreign language interaction: Moving from the periphery to the core of foreign language education?”. O’Rourke, B. (2007). “Models of telecollaboration (1): eTandem”. In R. O’Dowd (ed.). Online intercultural exchange. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 41-61. Roberts, C., M. Byram, A. Barro, S. Jordan & B. Street. 2001. Language learners as ethnographers. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Ware, P. 2005. “Missed communication in online communication: Tensions in fostering successful online interactions”. Language Learning & Technology. 9, 2, pp. 64-89. Warschauer, M. & M. Ware. 2008. “Learning, change, and power: Competing discourses of technology and literacy”. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear & D.J. Leu (eds.). Handbook of research on new literacies. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 215-240.

PART II. THE PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL IMPACTS OF ACADEMIC MOBILITY AND MIGRATION

CHAPTER SIX HOW TO EXPLAIN THE TRANSNATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY OF FORMER INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS? SUGGESTIONS FOR A CHANGE IN RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES SÖREN CARLSON

Introduction Geographic mobility in Europe is situated in a specific social and political context, as the European Union (EU) is actively aiming at creating a pan-European labour market via the harmonisation of national legislation and the draft of respective regulations. These efforts are further supported by the construction of a European higher education area, in which job qualifications and educational degrees should be acknowledged as being equal, and by the promotion of occupational and student mobility across countries. Despite all these political efforts to ease and encourage inner-European mobility, the number of such “pioneers of European integration” (Favell 2008: x) is still rather small compared to the nonmobile population: in 2007, only around 1.7 % of the total EU-15 population (before the 2004 EU enlargement) lived in an EU-15 member state other than his or her nationality, and the share of the EU-10 citizens (from the new member countries) among the EU-15 population was 0.5 % (European Commission 2008: 116). Given these low numbers, one group which, according to public and academic discourse, is widely expected to be more prone to bordercrossing occupational mobility are students who go abroad to study. The general assumption is that there is an inherent relationship between these two kinds of mobility (cf. exemplarily Guellec & Cervantes 2002, Tremblay 2002, King & Ruiz-Gelices 2003). For this reason, one can find

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formulations in the literature which describe student mobility as “a precursor of subsequent migration” (Tremblay 2002: 43) or as “a kind of apprenticeship for [...] cross-border professional [...] activities” (King & Ruiz-Gelices 2003: 242). Some studies also argue empirically that studying abroad is positively linked to a transnational career. Teichler and Jahr (2001: 451-452), for example, estimate that the probability of occupational mobility after graduation doubles when geographical mobility took place before studying and triples when mobility occurs during studying. Parey and Waldinger (2008: 22) come to the conclusion that studying abroad heightens the probability of working abroad by 15-20 % (cf. also Oosterbeek & Webbink 2006, Wiers-Jenssen 2008). In spite of these optimistic findings, one should not exaggerate the impact of studying abroad on future occupational mobility: in fact, becoming transnationally mobile after studying abroad is probably more of an exception than the rule. One tentative indication for this is provided by the British survey Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education 2002/2003: one year after completing a Bachelor degree course at a British university, 42 % of the 450 German Bachelor students were still in the UK, 47 % of them had returned to Germany and only a few of them were in another EU country (5 %) or outside of the EU (7 %) (Sibson 2006: 113). One might therefore ask how mobile students actually turn into a transnationally mobile workforce. Regardless of whether these people are called highly skilled migrants (Koser & Salt 1997) or transnational professionals (Kreutzer & Roth 2006, Nowicka 2006, Waters 2007),1 what is it that makes them move across national borders, live and work in different countries for some time or go back and forth between them? There are, however, two aspects preceding this question which should be considered beforehand, because they have far-reaching implications for the kind of answers one will get. The first has to do with the issue of sampling, i.e. the decision on which kind of student mobility the analysis is actually based. Therefore, a differentiation between various types of student mobility will be made, leading to the argument that we should focus on those completing an academic course at a foreign university, if our interest lies in the relationship between student and occupational mobility and the process of becoming transnationally mobile. Secondly, a 1

Other terms which could be used to designate this group are, for example, “strangers”, “nomads” or “wanderer” (cf. Murphy-Lejeune 2002, Kreutzer & Roth 2006). But as the following arguments focus more on the (non-)occurrence of actual geographical movements than on the relations between the mobile individual and the non-mobile members of the receiving society, these concepts are not applied here.

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closer look will be taken at current theoretical explanations and argued that these seem insufficient for a full understanding of how mobile students become transnationally mobile. The discussion will then end with a few suggestions on how to proceed when analysing the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility.

Conducting Research on Student Mobility— but Which One? Student mobility—generally defined as “crossing country borders for the purpose of or in the context of tertiary education” (Richters & Teichler 2006: 78)—is a broad term which actually comprises a variety of different kinds of studying abroad, depending on its purpose and form of organisation. The most well-known kind of student mobility is probably the one initiated by the European Union via the so called ERASMUS programme2. It allows students to follow academic courses at a foreign partner institution for a limited period of time (usually, one or two semesters) and to recognise their study achievements (via a Europe-wide accepted credit point system) when returning to their home university. This form of student mobility is often referred to as credit mobility which is “temporary and denotes going to another country to gain knowledge and experience in addition to what is learned at home. As a rule, this mobility is undertaken in the course of study, and students return to the country of prior study in order to continue and complete their programme there”. A different kind of student mobility is the so-called diploma mobility for which “students [...] spend the whole study period, up to the award of a degree or other qualification, in the same country” (Richters & Teichler 2006: 92). Another binary distinction—“organised” versus “spontaneous” student mobility (Gordon & Jallade 1996: 133)—allows for a differentiation with regard to who is responsible for the organisation of the mobility experience. In the case of “organised” mobility, universities facilitate going abroad via institutionally defined pathways, either by co-operation agreements between universities in different countries (as in the case of the ERASMUS programme) or by branches of their own university in 2 The programme started in 1987; its name is an acronym for “European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students”. For more information on the programme, see for example the website of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture (http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme /doc80_en.htm, 16.9.2009).

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another country. The students’ study periods abroad are sometimes an obligatory part of the study curriculum, sometimes optional. “Spontaneous” student mobility differs from this kind of student mobility as students are individually responsible for the arrangement of their mobility. Given these basic differences, the question arises as to which kind of student mobility research should focus on. So far, the existing research on student mobility has extensively dealt with credit student mobility, often, but not always, within the ERASMUS programme (cf. for example Teichler 2002, King & Ruiz-Gelices 2003, Bracht et al. 2006, Messer & Wolter 2007, Parey & Waldinger 2008). In contrast, diploma mobility of students has been hardly addressed (as an exception, cf. Wiers-Jenssen 2008). This bias may have to do with data problems (Gordon & Jallade 1996, Richters & Teichler 2006) or the EU’s interest in an evaluation of its programmes. It can be argued, however, that we should primarily direct our attention to the group of diploma mobile students. This, of course, should not imply that credit student mobility is irrelevant for later transnational mobility. But due to the following reasons, diploma mobile students constitute a more significant group for the study of the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility. The first reason for such a reorientation has to do with the numerical importance of this kind of student mobility (cf. Gordon & Jallade 1996), at least in the case of German students going abroad. Although there are no general statistics to compare the total amount of German diploma versus credit student mobility, foreign national statistics on higher education provide at least some information. For example, British and Dutch data on higher education suggest that in both these countries, student mobility for diploma reasons by far outnumbers credit mobility: 78 % of the 15,085 German students in the UK (academic year 2002/2003) were there for diploma reasons compared to only 22 % for credit reasons (Sibson 2006: 110). Similarly, 91 % of the 10,118 German students staying in the Netherlands (academic year 2004/2005) followed an entire course of study, whereas barely 9 % were there for credit mobility reasons (NUFFIC 2005: 26, 30). Both countries receive nowadays the biggest shares of German students going abroad (Statistisches Bundesamt 2008: 10, 18). In other words, research on student mobility would miss an important part of the ongoing student flows if it omitted those students that go abroad for a whole academic course3. 3

At least for the German context another development has to be mentioned: Contrary to the rising numbers of ERASMUS students for a long period of time, this kind of student mobility now seems to have come to a halt. Whether this is indeed due to the change of study curricula which came along with the

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Secondly, one can assume that diploma mobile students differ from the other group with regard to their motivation to go abroad, as their mobility is not organised via a university, but by themselves. According to a survey among non-British students in the UK who had gone there either for credit or diploma mobility reasons, the latter group explicitly chose the UK because of the quality of its academic institutions and the expectation that a degree from a British university would be advantageous for its job prospects (West et al. 2000: 4-5, 7-8). Although one should certainly not expect all students who go abroad to be oriented towards later occupational mobility, it seems more likely to find such an orientation amongst diploma mobile students than amongst the other group. Their stay abroad depends more on institutional factors, either because it is an obligatory part of the curriculum or because it depends on the number of places a department can offer. Thirdly, and most importantly, diploma mobile students appear to be a more appropriate test case for those current theoretical approaches which try to explain the above-mentioned relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility. As those explanatory approaches will be dealt with in the next section in more detail, it suffices for the moment to state that one approach hints at the acquisition of specific skills and human capital (e. g. language skills, country-specific knowledge, customs etc.), which “make” students occupationally mobile in their later career, while the other approach points to processes of learning and the development of certain (habitual) dispositions, which are seen as the cause for transnational occupational careers. Whether one follows one approach or the other, both the acquisition of skills and/or of certain dispositions require time (Bourdieu 1997)—something which diploma mobile students following a whole academic course are likely to spend a higher amount of abroad than credit mobile students. Indeed, the assumption that diploma mobility leads more often to a transnational career than credit mobility is empirically supported by a study of Wiers-Jenssen (2008: 124-125), which not only compares mobile and non-mobile Norwegian students concerning their respective likelihood to work abroad after graduation, but also differentiates between credit and diploma mobility. It revealed the wellknown fact that generally mobile students statistically have higher chances of working abroad than non-mobile ones, but additionally it indicated that introduction of the consecutive degrees of Bachelor and Master is still a debated question in research on higher education (cf. Wolter 2006). But the implication might be that more students will follow an entire course of study at a foreign university or opt for bi-national (or tri-national etc.) degree courses in the future instead of relying on credit mobility.

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those who graduated abroad are far more likely to do so than those who returned from abroad and graduated at their home university.

Attempting Explanation: Current Approaches Looking at the Relationship between Student and Transnational Occupational Mobility Having argued that we should look at diploma student mobility when interested in the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility, the discussion now proceeds to the question of how to explain this relationship. To this end, two main explanatory approaches are contrasted with each other. As will become apparent, both have some shortcomings, thereby necessitating further theoretical and empirical research. Some of the open questions and issues will therefore be named at the end.

Market Forces and Human Capital as Drivers of Transnational Occupational Mobility? One approach theorising the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility can be found within the discourse on highly skilled migration which regards the mobility of students not only as a part of highly skilled migration, but also as a precursor to job-related mobility later in life (Koser & Salt 1997: 294, Guellec & Cervantes 2002: 77, Tremblay 2002: 43). Therefore, the explanations given for the geographical movements of the highly skilled should also hold for those among them who studied abroad. As this discourse is dominated by concepts and theories of the economic sciences, the basic argument is that the international migration of the highly skilled is determined by macroeconomic factors of supply and demand of labour power. That means, people move where their skills and qualifications are asked and paid for. Additionally, there are (country-)specific push- and pull-factors which also influence migration flows of the highly skilled, e. g. differences in wage levels, career and earning prospects, underemployment for skilled workers, political instability, demand for labour in certain occupations, immigration legislation (Koser & Salt 1997: 293-294, Meyer 2001: 9395). These macro factors are supplemented by a specific perception of individual (mobility) behaviour at micro level: individuals are expected to react to these market signals, trying to “maximise return on their investment in education and training by moving in search of the highest paid and/or most rewarding employment” (Iredale 2001: 8, cf. Guellec &

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Cervantes 2002: 79). In other words, individual actions are modelled according to the concept of the homo oeconomicus as results of individual rational calculations which include specific interests and a weighting of pros and cons, costs and benefits. The central concept used to explain the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility is thus human capital, which refers to the knowledge, skills and competences people have acquired through their educational investments (cf. Becker 1964, Mincer 1958). More recently, a distinction between country-specific and general human capital has been made (Chiswick & Miller 2003, Duvander 2001, Friedberg 2000). The former refers to language and cultural skills or those professional skills which are closely linked to specific national requirements. Accordingly, students who study and graduate in a foreign country can be expected to dispose over such country-specific human capital contrary to non-mobile graduates. But they also differ from their fellow students in their country of study, as they have brought with them a certain amount of country-specific human capital, which is linked to their different national background and might help them to find employment in the country of study (e. g., because employers are asking for foreign language skills)4. Certainly, economic thinking is right to stress the influence of market processes on transnational mobility: without a demand for specific skills and human capital, a lot of occupation-related movements would probably not happen. The problem is though that the strong emphasis on human capital and rational action overlooks other important aspects, which should not be left out when trying to explain the relationship between student and occupational mobility. Research on transnational mobility in the European context has shown, for example, that the general assumption of individual mobility behaviour as being based on rational calculations and complying with market forces is more of a theoretical construct than being supported by empirical facts. People do not move around only for occupational, but also for social and cultural reasons (Verwiebe 2004), which are often not linked to some kind of market logic at all. Looking more closely at the way transnational mobile people report on their mobility decisions shows furthermore that there is only little resemblance to the rational actor model often used theoretically to explain their mobility (Favell 2008: 94). The more general problem with the human capital perspective is that it 4

Given this specific perception of highly skilled migrants, it is not surprising to find many studies which regard them as “the best and the brightest” and as being more innovative and productive than the non-mobile native highly skilled (Guellec & Cervantes 2002: 88, Batalova & Lowell 2006: 100).

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disconnects the individual from his/her wider social context so that differences in life chances, resources and opportunity structures disappear from view: [...] the real power of the global mobility myth stems from its individualist faith; the idea that the human capital of education can take you where you want to go regardless of social structure or social reproduction. The globally talented are supposed to be able to make it anywhere, even without local connections or embedded networks (Favell, Feldblum & Smith 2006: 17)

Thus, explaining the process of becoming transnationally mobile by only pointing at the students’ acquisition of human capital in a foreign country is in several ways misleading. First, as the quote of Favell, Feldblum and Smith reminds us, it is an illusion to see the group of highly mobile people as being free to choose if and where they want to go. Their life trajectories are—like everyone’s—affected by the unequal disposal over economic, social and incorporated cultural capital (Bourdieu 1997). These are factors which might be much more influential for transnational mobility than the disposal over specific human capital. Furthermore, such a human capital-centred explanation naturally tends to forget about life phases which differ from those linked to education. However, in order to become a “highly skilled migrant”, these might be even more important than the actual study period abroad. Thus, being interested in the process of becoming transnationally mobile, research should look out for more influencing factors than just human capital and also re-embed the student mobility phase in the wider life trajectories of those people. Such an approach seems also necessary, as there is the question of causality involved: some of the aforementioned studies interpret the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility as causal and regard the acquired country-specific human capital automatically as the decisive factor which brings the latter about. But without having a look at other factors and life phases, it seems impossible to say whether it is really the study abroad period which caused transnational occupational mobility later on.

Dispositions and Mobility Capital as Causes for Transnational Occupational Mobility? Unlike the economic perspective and closer to an actual analysis of processes of becoming are studies (from different research areas such as sociology, human geography or linguistics) which point to processes of

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learning and the development of certain (habitual) dispositions. Becoming a transnationally mobile person is not (only) regarded as a matter of having the “right” qualifications (i.e. disposing over human capital demanded by the market), but as a question of having acquired certain inner dispositions and attitudes which accordingly “guide” people to transnational mobility. To illustrate this way of arguing, three different studies are referred to in the following: one by Kreutzer (2006) on “expatriates”, i.e. employees being sent to a foreign country by their employer, one by Waters (2007), who analyses the significance of a distinctive habitus for becoming a transnational professional in Hong Kong, and, lastly, the study by Murphy-Lejeune (2002) on the mobility experiences of European students. Asking how people become expatriates, Kreutzer (2006: 34-35, 58-59) points to a variety of factors, such as a privileged socio-economic family background and a globalised economy with internationally operating organisations and companies. But most importantly, he stresses that these expatriates undergo processes of learning and acculturation by which they acquire and habitualise necessary motivations and competences for being (and functioning as) an expatriate: to be open and motivated for a life in a foreign country and to be able to enjoy living abroad and find it advantageous compared to a non-mobile lifestyle. These dispositions— perceptible as a specific “expat habitus” (Kreutzer 2006: 59)—in conjunction with a certain occupational context thus trigger transnational occupational mobility. The idea that transnational professionals display a distinct habitus is also expressed by Waters (2007). Drawing on interview material with East Asian students and graduates who studied abroad (mainly in Canada), she argues that transnational professionals are created by specific educational practices (e. g. sending children to international schools and studying at a foreign, Western university). These practices lead to an accumulation of specific cultural capital which is recognised by East Asian employers as a symbol of an exclusive elite identity and regarded as important for their employees. Both studies refer explicitly to Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitus, the latter meaning an acquired system of dispositions, i. e. lasting schemes of thought, perception and action (Bourdieu 1997). Cultural capital, especially its embodied form, is more than just specific skills or qualifications (i. e. human capital), it is an integral part of a person and forms his or her habitus (Bourdieu 1997). Although Kreutzer and Waters differ with regard to the group of people analysed—employees of a multinational company in one case, Chinese students returning from Canada to Hong Kong in the other—, they both point to a more general

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idea which goes back to Bourdieu: certain dispositions can lead to specific actions, in this case to mobility. But as the following discussion will make clear, something more is needed in order to “activate” such dispositions. In her study on European mobile students, Murphy-Lejeune broadens the narrow focus of the human capital paradigm not so much by drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts, but by introducing another type of capital: [...] the main difference between student travellers and their peers rests in the acquisition of what we shall refer to as mobility capital. [...] Mobility capital is a subcomponent of human capital, enabling individuals to enhance their skills because of the richness of the international experience gained by living abroad. (Murphy-Lejeune 2002: 51)

According to Murphy-Lejeune (2002: 52), such mobility capital is constituted by four elements: the family and personal life history, previous experiences of mobility including the acquisition of language competences, the way the first instance of adaptation to a new surrounding is experienced and the personality features of the potential wanderer. The argument is that, by studying abroad, people develop a “taste for living abroad” (Murphy-Lejeune 2002: 51) which will lead them again to transnational mobility in their future life. Although Murphy-Lejeune defines mobility capital as a “subcomponent of human capital”, the general idea is thus rather similar to the one advanced by Waters and Kreutzer. All of these studies share a processual perspective, take longer timespans into account and focus on experiences and family contexts prior to studying abroad. They are thereby able to re-embed the student mobility phase in the wider life trajectory. They also highlight the role of other factors than just human capital for becoming transnationally mobile and thus avoid the rather limited perspective of economic explanatory approaches. However, although the idea that certain habitual dispositions and mobility capital are equally necessary conditions for becoming a highly skilled migrant, these elements also seem insufficient for a full explanation of how renewed mobility after studying abroad comes about. If the acquisition of a transnational habitus or mobility capital while studying abroad is the decisive factor for later transnational occupational mobility, why does it only have an effect on some of them, but not on others? What does happen to the “taste for living abroad” and the quasi transformative quality of studying abroad these authors are ascribing to it? These questions lead to two problems with Murphy-Lejeune’s concept of mobility capital, the first concerning a methodological aspect: the empirical study is based on a rather young interviewee sample (aged 20 to

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26; Murphy-Lejeune 2002: 48), people who moreover experienced a rather privileged moment in life. Therefore it is difficult to estimate how much influence those experiences based on studying abroad retain once people go on with their lives and are subjected to new circumstances and experiences (cf. Favell 2008: 110-113). Even if people retain their “transnational habitus” and the thereby associated (cosmopolitan) attitudes and outlook on the world, one should not necessarily expect further geographic-occupational movements. As Mau, Mewes and Zimmermann (2008) show with a survey of the German population, a lot of people sustain transnational affiliations and show cosmopolitan attitudes today, but they can do so without having to work or live abroad. The other problem is of a more general theoretical nature: as mobility capital is defined as a subcomponent of human capital, it remains unclear under which conditions it operates (even the worth of human capital depends on its supply and demand on the labour market). But Bourdieu (1993, 1997) has repeatedly pointed out that capital (meaning all sorts of it) can only show its true worth within a specific corresponding field, while it allows for less advantage in other fields: “When one speaks of specific capital, this means to say that this capital is effective in relation to a particular field, and therefore within the limits of that field, and that it is only convertible into another kind of capital on certain conditions” (Bourdieu 1993: 73). Thus, what is missing for the concept of mobility capital is some kind of specification in which fields—or less Bourdieuan “contexts”— the “taste for living abroad” actually leads to renewed transnational mobility. Interestingly, Kreutzer and Waters have implicitly acknowledged this by focussing on mobility within a specific “field”: Kreutzer’s expat habitus is linked to the confined world of multinational companies. In Waters’ case, the value of the Chinese students’ overseas education depends on the symbolic worth these foreign qualifications have from the perspective of employers in Hong Kong.

Conclusion The starting point for this discussion was the observation that students who go abroad for studying reasons are often expected to be transnationally mobile later on as well. Empirical research has ascertained that there is an inherent link between these two kinds of mobility, yet, it remains unclear as to how this evolves. Having argued then that research should look more at diploma student mobility than is currently the case, two types of theoretical explanations for this process of becoming transnationally mobile have been discussed: those which regard market forces and human

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capital as the central factors responsible for the occurrence of transnational occupational mobility and those which point to the role of habitual dispositions. While the latter diminishes some of the shortcomings of the economic perspective, it still seems insufficient for a full understanding and explanation of the underlying process. With regard to the question of how mobile students become transnationally mobile, some suggestions follow in which direction research could go and which issues still need to be solved. In order to avoid the narrow focus of human capital theory and to link up with the work of Waters and Murphy-Lejeune, Bourdieu’s notion of different sorts of capital seems to be a valuable heuristic starting point for analysis. But what is mostly missing is an analysis on how the unequal disposal over economic and social capital influences the realisation of transnational mobility. At the same time, it seems necessary not just to look at the (non-)existence of different resources, but also to ask under which constellations or circumstances (i.e. fields) they become effective. Only then will we understand in which instances mobility capital accumulated by studying abroad leads to transnational mobility as well. Using a processual perspective on the life trajectories of highly skilled migrants will furthermore allow for a better causal understanding of the importance studying abroad, relative to others factors, actually has for later transnational mobility. Redirecting the analysis of the relationship between student and transnational occupational mobility will finally also help to clarify if there are different pathways of becoming transnationally mobile: is the main path to transnational occupational mobility via an internationally operating firm (the “expat model”) or is it possible to take other routes as well?

Bibliography Batalova, J. & B.L. Lowell. 2006. “‘The best and the brightest’: Immigrant professionals in the U.S”. In M. P. Smith & A. Favell (eds.). The human face of global mobility. International highly skilled migration in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific. New Brunswick: Transaction, pp. 81-101. Becker, G.S. 1964. Human capital. A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. Bourdieu, P. 1993. “Some properties of fields”. In P. Bourdieu, Sociology in question. London: Sage, pp. 72-77.

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—. 1997. “The forms of capital”. In A.H. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brown & A.S. Wells (eds.). Education: culture, economy, society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 46-58. Bracht, O., Engel, C., Janson, K., Over, A., Schomburg & U. Teichler. 2006. The professional value of ERASMUS mobility. Kassel: Universität Kassel, Internationales Zentrum für Hochschulforschung. Chiswick, B.R. & P.W. Miller. 2003. “The complementarity of language and other human capital: immigrant earning in Canada”. Economics of Education Review. 22(5), pp. 469-480. Duvander, A.-Z.E. 2001. “Do country-specific skills lead to improved labor market positions? An analysis of unemployment and labor market returns to education among immigrants in Sweden”. Work and Occupations. 28(2), pp. 210-233. European Commission. 2008. Employment in Europe 2008. Report of the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Favell, A. 2008. Eurostars and Eurocities. Free movement and mobility in an integrating Europe. Malden: Blackwell. Favell, A., Feldblum, M. & M.P. Smith. 2006. “The human face of global mobility: A research agenda”. In M.P. Smith & A. Favell (eds.). The human face of global mobility. International highly skilled migration in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific. New Brunswick: Transaction, pp. 1-25. Friedberg, R.M. 2000. “You can’t take it with you? Immigrant assimilation and the portability of human capital”. Journal of Labor Economics. 18(2), pp. 221-251. Gordon, J. & J.-P. Jallade. 1996. “‘Spontaneous’ student mobility in the European Union: a statistical survey”. European Journal of Education. 31(2), pp. 133-151. Guellec, D. & M. Cervantes. 2002. “International mobility of highly skilled workers: From statistical analysis to policy formulation”. In OECD. International mobility of the highly skilled. Paris: OECD, pp. 71-98. Iredale, R. 2001. “The migration of professionals: theories and typologies”. International Migration. 39(5), pp. 7-26. King, R. & E. Ruiz-Gelices. 2003. “International student migration and the European “year abroad”: Effects on European identity and subsequent migration behaviour”. International Journal of Population Geography. 9, pp. 229-252.

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Koser, K. & J. Salt. 1997. “The geography of highly skilled international migration”. International Journal of Population Geography. 3(4), pp. 285-303. Kreutzer, F. 2006. “Becoming an expatriate: die transnationale Karriere eines dual-career couple”. In F. Kreutzer & S. Roth (eds.). Transnationale Karrieren. Biografien, Lebensführung und Mobilität. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 34-63. Kreutzer, F. & S. Roth. 2006. “Einleitung zu Transnationale Karrieren: Biographien, Lebensführung und Mobilität”. In F. Kreutzer & S. Roth (eds.). Transnationale Karrieren. Biografien, Lebensführung und Mobilität. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 7-31. Mau, S., Mewes, J. & A. Zimmermann. 2008. “Cosmopolitan attitudes through transnational social practices?”. Global Networks. 8(1), pp. 124. Messer, D. & S.C. Wolter. 2007. “Are student exchange programs worth it?” Higher Education. 54(5), pp. 647-663. Meyer, J.-B. 2001. “Network approach versus brain drain: lessons from the diaspora”. International Migration. 39(5), pp. 91-110. Mincer, J. 1958. “Investments in human capital and personal income distribution”. Journal of Political Economy. 66(4), pp. 281-302. Murphy-Lejeune, E. 2002. Student mobility and narrative in Europe. The new strangers. London: Routledge. Nowicka, M. 2006. Transnational professionals and their cosmopolitan universes. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus. NUFFIC (Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education) 2005. International mobility in education in the Netherlands 2005. Den Haag: NUFFIC. http://files.nihankara.org/mobility-monitor2005-EN.pdf, 16.9.2009 Oosterbeek, H. & D. Webbink. 2006. Does studying abroad induce a brain drain? Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam. Parey, M. & F. Waldinger. 2008. Studying abroad and the effect on international labor market mobility: evidence from the introduction of ERASMUS (IZA DP No. 3430). Bonn: IZA. Richters, E. & U. Teichler. 2006. “Student mobility data: current methodological issues and future prospects”. In M. Kelo, U. Teichler & B. Wächter (eds.). Eurodata. Student mobility in European higher education. Bonn: Lemmens, pp. 78-95. Sibson, R. 2006. “The United Kingdom”. In M. Kelo, U. Teichler & B. Wächter (eds.). Eurodata. Student mobility in European higher education. Bonn: Lemmens, pp. 96-113.

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Statistisches Bundesamt. 2008. Deutsche Studierende im Ausland. Statistischer Überblick 1996-2006. Wiesbaden: Statistisches Bundesamt. Teichler, U. (ed.). 2002. ERASMUS in the SOCRATES Programme. Bonn: Lemmens. Teichler, U. & V. Jahr. 2001. Mobility during the course of study and after graduation. European Journal of Education. 36(4), pp. 443-458. Tremblay, K. 2002. “Student mobility between and towards OECD countries: A comparative analysis”. In OECD. International mobility of the highly skilled. Paris: OECD, pp. 39-69. Verwiebe, R. 2004. Transnationale Migration innerhalb Europas. Eine Studie zu den sozialstrukturellen Effekten der Europäisierung. Berlin: edition sigma. Waters, J. 2007. “‘Roundabout routes and sanctuary schools’: the role of situated educational practices and habitus in the creation of transnational professionals”. Global Networks. 7(4), pp. 477-497. West, A., Dimitropoulos, A., Hind, A. & J. Wilkes. 2000. Reasons for studying abroad: A survey of EU students studying in the UK. Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Edinburgh, 20-23 September 2000. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001602.htm, 16.9.2009 Wiers-Jenssen, J. 2008. “Does higher education attained abroad lead to international jobs?”. Journal of Studies in International Education. 12(2), pp. 101-130. Wolter, A. 2006. “Auf dem Wege zu einem Europäischen Hochschulraum? Studienreform und Hochschulpolitik im Zeichen des Bologna-Prozesses”. In R. Hettlage & H.-P. Müller (eds.). Die europäische Gesellschaft. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 299-323.

CHAPTER SEVEN MOBILE LEARNING COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FOR AND FROM ACADEMIC MOBILITY, THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND SUSTAINABILITY GEOFF DANAHER AND PATRICK A. DANAHER

Introduction The field of academic mobility is currently experiencing a welcome period of florescence (Byram & Dervin 2008, Kim 2007, Papatsiba 2006). A crucial element of that florescence is the ongoing efforts to conceptualise mobility, including academic mobility, and to delineate its parameters as a field of scholarship (D’Andrea 2006, Frello 2008, Gargano 2009, Hoffman 2009). Clearly those efforts both take from and contribute to other areas of research, in the process highlighting the close interdependence and continuing movement among multiple disciplines of study. We contend that two useful contributors to the (re)theorisation of academic mobility are the concepts of the knowledge economy and sustainability. Drawing on areas as diverse as cultural studies, economics, environmentalism, education and politics, these notions are helpful in enhancing our understandings of the character and impact of academic mobility. At the same time, the burgeoning literature on academic mobility can feed fresh insights into the genesis and increasingly broad applications of those two concepts. The paper has been structured around the following four sections: • Some background information about the research project that has framed the approach taken in the paper • A focus on the knowledge economy as a concept and in terms of its applicability to the mobility of specific communities

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• An equivalent focus on sustainability • Selected implications of the knowledge economy and sustainability for extending our understandings of academic mobility and vice versa. Our intention is to problematise the knowledge economy and sustainability, and thereby to interrogate the extent to which they contribute to fruitful educational outcomes in terms of academic mobility. In turn, the notion of academic mobility should be likewise problematised. Our interest, then, is in exploring the encounters among a selection of issues and concepts: academic mobility, knowledge economy (including situated learning and systems thinking) and sustainability (including risk and capacity building). To adopt a pertinent metaphor, these issues and concepts might be apprehended as travelling players, whose encounters can result variously in confusion and conflict or new understandings and fruitful partnerships.

Background This present study builds upon work undertaken in composing a volume (Danaher, Moriarty & Danaher 2009), which drew upon some 17 years of research that the authors had conducted into various geographically dispersed and culturally diverse mobile groups: from Australian travelling showmen to Dutch bargees. While for the most part this research has focused on educational provision for these travelling communities at the school level, we are also interested in exploring possible implications that it might have for academic mobility more broadly. The project has encompassed a series of continuing investigations into the living and learning experiences of a number of mobile groups, principally in Australia but also some of those located in Belgium, England, the Netherlands, Scotland and Venezuela. The communities have traversed different enactments of “occupational Travellers”, including barge, circus and fairground people. While data gathering began in 1992, the book concentrated on the period between 1998 and 2003, with updating of material provided by means of reference to more recent literature and through collaborative publications with a few of the research participants (see for example Currie & Danaher 2001, Fullerton, Danaher, Moriarty & Danaher 2004, Fullerton, Moriarty, Danaher & Danaher 2005). Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews that were mostly audiotaped (but that in 1995 were videotaped, yielding a videorecording [Danaher, Hallinan, Kindt, Moriarty, Rose, Thompson & Wyer 1995]), document analysis and ethnographic observation.

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Methodologically the study exhibits selected features of research that is qualitative, interpretivist, phenomenological and poststructuralist (Somekh & Lewin 2005). Data analysis deployed elements of transformative textual analysis (Rowan 2001) and discourse analysis (Potter & Wetherell 1989). This is the broader study and its associated approach that frame and inform the writing of this paper. As noted above, one aspect of the research has been to relate our findings to particular contentious or pertinent issues emerging within the field of scholarship. Two such issues considered here are the knowledge economy and sustainability, to which we now turn.

The knowledge Economy1 The knowledge economy as an idea can be understood in the context of modifications in employment practices over the last century. It has become customary to categorise industry within three main areas. Primary industry denotes activities related to work directed at the natural environment, such as agriculture, fishing and mining. Secondary industry focuses on converting the raw materials of primary production through manufacturing into finished goods, such as motor vehicles or processed foods. Tertiary or service industries are based on promoting human capital, including sectors such as education, government services, and information and communication technologies (ICTs). A knowledge economy refers to the contribution that information and education services make to facilitating economic production, and as such is connected with the rise in significance of service industries. The knowledge economy entails both the development of new knowledge and also the “more effective use and exploitation of all types of knowledge in all manner of economic activity” (Houghton & Sheehan 2000: 1). While knowledge in various forms has played an integral part in economic activity throughout human history, the extent and intensity of the incorporation of formalised knowledge and information into the economy now are such that that knowledge has fundamental structural and qualitative effects on the character of economic practice. From this perspective, Houghton and Sheehan (2000) perceived the rise in the knowledge intensity of economic activities, driven by the influence of the dramatic increase in ICTs like computers and mobile telephones on business and community life, as a defining feature of the knowledge 1 Portions of this section of the paper are based on Chapter Five of Danaher, Moriarty and Danaher (2009).

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economy. The other defining feature that they identified was economic globalisation, which is signalled by a reduction in the barriers to both foreign investment and trade in goods and services as well as the deregulation of financial and product markets, which has helped to escalate capital flows among developed nations. The knowledge economy entails a diversity of forms of knowledge: for example, knowledge of financial planning, of goods and services, of ICTs and systems, and of markets. The knowledge economy is concerned with global networks and partnerships that are able to respond adaptably and promptly to rapid changes to market conditions. Within the knowledge economy, the language of ‘market forces’ has emerged as the dominant framework for understanding and engaging with diverse elements of life: for instance, education is constructed by this framework in terms of a global market that provides multiple opportunities and challenges. Against the backdrop of this broad sweep of ideas and practices associated with the knowledge economy, we are particularly interested in two concepts that we assert play a constitutive part in its functioning: situated learning and systems thinking. These concepts also provide a direct and illuminating link with studies of academic mobility.

Situated Learning Lave and Wenger (1991; see also Kilpatrick, Barrett & Jones 2003: 7, Wenger 1998) elaborated the idea of situated learning to clarify how the social relationships at the centre of communities of practice provide an influential context in which knowledge is developed and applied. For the knowledge economy to function effectively, different sites within this economy work to provide a context of relationships, services and other elements that make such knowledge development and application feasible and desirable. In some cases, such as agricultural practices, situated learning has been accumulated over centuries, even millennia, of experience in a region, and is passed on through an oral culture. In other cases, situated learning is less enduring and more dynamic, responding to rapid transformations in conditions such as the stock market. A specific and dramatic example of situated learning vis-à-vis the knowledge economy was the disastrous tsunami that inundated coastal locations in a very wide area of the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004. While unfortunately causalities were high among many communities, sea Gypsies called the Moken in the Andaman Sea off the coasts of Burma and Thailand averted the catastrophe by moving to the highest part of their island, as did herds of elephants in the region (Simon 2005); indeed, it was

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recorded that there were relatively few causalities among local animal species (Williams 2005). The tsunami disaster says something very important about the movement and value of knowledge. In current Western culture, scientific knowledge such as seismology holds a high valence, indicated by the considerable financial investment in that knowledge and its location in privileged educational institutions like universities. As Bourdieu (1990) pointed out, such knowledge exhibits both cultural and economic capital. By contrast, the localised knowledge of the Moken has comparatively little cultural and economic value in the global knowledge economy. While that knowledge is clearly derived from situated learning (such as close proximity and attentiveness to the sea), the Moken live a largely subsistence existence in an outpost in the Indian Ocean and lack access to the forms of validated knowledge that derive value within the prevailing logic of contemporary Western civilisation. So, for example, they have minimal global impact compared with a multinational company drawing on developments in marine biology to assist medical research. Yet for all that the Moken became aware of the approaching tsunami and took appropriate action, based on their traditional situated learning within their localised knowledge economy, in ways that Western science and technology signally failed to do.

Systems Thinking We find that the concept of systems thinking, connected with the writing of Capra (1996), has been useful in making sense of the situated (and de-situated) learning of mobile communities. The knowledge that facilitated the growth of industrialisation largely reflected a mechanistic thinking that divided items in their component parts. For instance, the periodic table depicted the various chemical elements constituting particular substances, while engineering was concerned with the most efficient ways to fit the different parts of machinery together. This view of knowledge formation was strongly associated with the construction of taxonomies, such as in the classification of biological species, and also promoted binary oppositions in order to understand differences, as exemplified by certain theories of linguistics. This mechanistic thinking suited the industrial and colonial eras in Western history, and contributed specific advances in learning, such as Darwin’s theory of evolution. By contrast, the systems thinking paradigm is predicated on the principle of interconnectivity. Instead of dividing objects into their component parts, the focus is on understanding their place in a system that

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is larger than they are, investigating how their functioning generates outcomes that impact on other parts of that system. A well-known illustration, derived from chaos and complexity theory, is where the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in Central America can spark a series of reactions that results eventually in a typhoon in Asia. From this perspective, systems thinking is more interested in connections and resonances than in discrete elements. The change from mechanistic to systems thinking has significant repercussions for the knowledge economy of particular minority communities (such as the mobile communities with whom this paper is concerned). According to the mechanistic paradigm, knowledge about specific social groups (that is, part of the social whole) was gained by means of techniques like surveys and ethnographic studies. That knowledge framed the ways that such groups were perceived and positioned by particular educational authorities. This approach authorised central institutions to develop and publicise knowledge about certain demographic groups whose members were regarded as problematic, because of some element of otherness that was considered inimical to the stability and continuity of the broader society. This process in turn derived from and helped to replicate binary oppositions between us and them, lawful and lawless and settled and itinerant, for example. On the other hand, the systems thinking paradigm inverts the focus of attention to examining how the knowledge produced about a specific group and the consequent attitudes and behaviours towards that group influence the social body as a whole. For instance, instead of constructing occupational Travellers as the objects of knowledge generated by institutions authorised to make statements about them and to judge what was most appropriate for their welfare, systems thinking attends to the knowledge perspectives held by mobile communities and how those perspectives exercise a crucial function in framing their actions and those of others. Systems thinking is mobile in the sense that it moves across multiple perspectives and types of knowledge. If we consider a mobile learning community such as a circus, we see a vivid demonstration of systems thinking in action. To be effective, a circus needs to operate as a complex, interdependent system involving such different elements as the audience, performers, animals, the ringmaster, caterers, publicists and local councils. As circus members enact various responsibilities and roles, they come into contact with the system from various perspectives and see at first hand how a change or disruption in one aspect will influence the performance as a whole. That is, their knowledge economy depends for its survival and sustainability on thinking

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that is systems focused rather than mechanistic and discrete.

Sustainability2 We explore below some of the possible implications of the preceding account of the knowledge economy, situated learning and systems thinking for current understandings of academic mobility and vice versa. We turn now to consider the links among sustainability, risk, capacity building and specific mobile learning communities. Sustainability can be understood as the long-term effectiveness and viability of entities, evoking a complex intersection between fulfilling current and future requirements and a potential tension between continuity and change. An ongoing debate in the literature is whether sustainability constitutes an end in itself and/or whether sustainability might provide the vehicle for attaining other sociocultural goals (Dillard, Dujon & King 2008). Scholarship focused on learning communities highlights the assumed dependence of those communities on ensuring their sustainability, with consequent important responsibilities for all members. For instance, Mitchell and Sackney (2000) likened the building of learning communities to “… an organic, evolutionary process that entails the deep involvement of each individual in pursuit of ways and means to promote sustaining and sustainable processes, structures, tasks, and commitments” (p. xii). Such a conceptualisation positions learning constructions as dynamic and fluid systems and highlights the equally significant effect that individuals and groups have on the sustainability of those systems. Other examples of this viewpoint ranged from taking a systems approach to designing a virtual learning community (Castro Laszio 2001) and maximising the benefits for sustainability in such a community of community adaptivity and information accessibility (Teo, Chan, Wei & Zhang 2003) to resisting constraints on community sustainability arising from the attrition of change (Giles & Hargreaves 2006) and using multiple frameworks of indicators of sustainability to carry out holistic evaluations of such sustainability in local communities (Reed, Fraser & Dougill 2006). From all of this it is clear that striving for sustainability in learning communities is complex and requires acting simultaneously across multiple fronts to achieve specific outcomes and thereby to address diverse and possibly contradictory interests. One area of potential conflict relates 2 Portions of this section of the paper are based on Chapter Seven of Danaher, Moriarty and Danaher (2009).

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to using resources for current members versus future generations in a given community. Sustainability principles encourage the exercise of caution in this area: carefully identifying what can be consumed and/or invested today in order to enhance survival tomorrow. Another area is concerned with the most effective balance between what should be retained and what needs to be changed in the fundamental elements of the community’s way of life. The concepts of risk and capacity building are closely intertwined with that of sustainability in relation to learning communities, whether mobile or otherwise. As we elaborate below, they also have important implications for issues of academic mobility.

Risk Considerable ambivalence is attached to the notion of risk. Generally its valence is negative, as can be seen when it is positioned in front of such words as “assessment”, “averse”, “avoidance”, “management”, “minimisation” and “reduction” (Anteliz, Danaher & Danaher 2004: 159, see also Bessant, Hill & Watts 2003). Yet Swadener and Lubeck (1995) argued that discourses of risk are forms of ideological pressure related to identifying supposed causes of and possible solutions to various ‘problems’ connected with particular social groups regarded as ‘at risk’ in terms of both themselves and the broader society. Subsequently Swadener (2000) identified “the hegemony of the risk rhetoric and ideology” (p. 118) and argued that there was a direct link between “the rhetoric of ‘children of families at risk’” on the one hand and “the currently popular language for describing those who are socially excluded or at risk of failure in various systems or concerns” (p. 117; emphasis in original) on the other hand. The learning communities literature provides support for this approach that is more open to risk being a label for other types of sociocultural processes and being potentially the foundation for more positive outcomes. From this perspective, rather than being risk averse, communities whose members are committed to sustainability seek to embrace risks as opportunities for renewing their energies and enhancing their viability. For example, Mitchell and Sackney (2000) held that “… a culture of collegial relations and professional risk taking needs to be in place” (p. xv) if the prospects of long-term professional learning in communities are to be maximised. Likewise Kilpatrick, Barrett and Jones (2003) contended that sustainable learning communities are characterised by a situation in which “… respecting diversity fosters learning by building a climate of trust and

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encouraging risk-taking” (p. 9). Furthermore, Wald and Castleberry (2000) noted that learning in successful learning communities “… requires a degree of initiative and risk taking in the face of uncertainty. It is experimental by nature. The learner must be patient and forgiving because learning is a trial-and-error process, and mistakes are inevitable” (pp. 1112). There was evidence for this connection between accepting rather than avoiding risk and enhancing sustainability in the mobile communities with whom we have conducted research. An educator associated with the Australian fairground community stated explicitly, “The women were risk takers; that’s why I always thought that they were like Rose Kennedy, the power behind the throne”. And also: “It was the women who wanted school for the kids. It’s always been the women who were the risk takers”. Less explicitly, the following account by an English circus proprietor evoked a shrewd communal assessment of the risks attendant on keeping “our business” going, accompanied by an evidence-based optimism that the risks could be mobilised for the community’s eventual survival: Every business struggles; this is not an exception. Recessions and whatever hit every type, and the first type of thing is [that] entertainment suffers first. Everybody eats, everybody dresses, but not necessar[il]y to go to the circus. That is the problem. Normally our audiences are the working class, and the working class suffers all the time. [If] there is a financial problem in the world, then our class of audience is the one who first suffers. Therefore our business suffers. But, as I say to you, there’s always a space. Circus is never going to go. It changes, yes, like everything else, but it is not going to be finished.

Capacity Building It is consistent with the preceding discussion in this section of the paper to conceptualise capacity as the ability to enact socially sanctioned behaviours. The socially sanctioned element becomes significant in relation to communities whose continuity and viability depend on individual capacity being developed in ways that maximise the group’s power. Capacity building in the context of learning communities can likewise be understood as the personal and communal growth of socially sanctioned capacity among individuals and groups belonging to such communities. From this perspective, capacity building is undoubtedly vital to the long-term sustainability of those individuals and groups as well as the communities that they help to constitute.

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Kilpatrick, Barrett and Jones (2003) summarised the crucial interdependence between capacity building and learning communities thus: “Learning communities can provide benefits to individual members and the community as a whole by developing the capacity or enhancing the potential of members…” (p. 10). Specific capacities identified in the literature as being needed to be built if learning communities were to flourish included dealing with uncertainty (Benner 2003), fostering student learning and instruction (Lieberman 2000, Spillane & Louis 2002), assisting a system’s ability to innovate (Putman & Borko 2001), learning from experience (Shulman & Shulman 2004), supporting social interactions (Swan & Shea 2005) and extending community involvement in governance (Taylor 2000). Capacity building understood as depending on individual accountability and self-reliance underpinned this reflection by a member of a Dutch fairground community on the skills required to keep the fairground stalls functioning effectively: “I do it [my]self; most things I do [my]self. I can work with my hands. Other people bring it to special companies for painting or something. That’s different. It’s not so difficult to do painting”. Likewise a member of a Venezuelan fairground community outlined the importance of his being able to make instant judgments about people like competitors and applicants for jobs, by observing body language and the manner of dress—if he made the wrong judgments about their abilities or intentions, the outcome could be deleterious for him and his fellow community members alike. A wider understanding of capacity building as being linked with community development was evident in the reference by an educator associated with the Australian fairground community to “… other results that we’re achieving—the social cohesiveness that’s building and the capacity that we’re developing in a broader community”. The same speaker explicated this view in terms of its implicit contribution to the community’s sustainability: I think we are in possession of something that is unique in the nation in terms of a mode of service delivery and I think there’s learning coming out of that [and] there’s curriculum … out of that. I think the community capacity coming out of that that we need to hook into those strategic elements and continue to promote them across a broader context.

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Implications for Understanding Academic Mobility, the Knowledge Economy and Sustainability We ended the introduction to the paper by positioning the concepts making up the paper’s theoretical framework as being akin to travelling players whose itineraries bring about encounters with various manifestation of academic mobility. We return to that metaphor here, because we regard it as a useful way both of encapsulating the key ideas presented thus far and also of framing our consideration of the wider implications of the argument being propounded here. If we identify academic mobility as the central travelling player in the discussion, we can see that that player’s understanding of herself and the phenomena with which she is most closely associated has been enriched by the earlier account of the knowledge economy, situated learning and systems thinking. For example, as a dynamic and fluid entity itself, the knowledge economy highlights that the knowledge gained through academic mobility is part of a complex web of economic, political and sociocultural interactions that value some forms of learning more highly than others. Similarly, the learning gained in one specific context is situated and not easily transferable to other contexts; this is likely to have implications also for teaching, such as efforts to teach intercultural communication. Likewise the most fruitful ways to understand and promote academic mobility are liable to be ones that exhibit a holistic perspective and engage with the system as a whole rather than a particularistic approach that seeks to break complex interactions into discrete components. Academic mobility might also be presumed to have gained considerably from her encounter with sustainability, ably assisted by risk and capacity building. More specifically, academic mobility is enhanced if notions of medium- and long-term sustainability are taken explicitly into account in approaching the aspirations and dynamics that learners and teachers bring to learning across contexts. Moreover, academic mobility is likely to entail risks of varying degrees of seriousness, and mobilising those risks can often result in greater learning and more enduring understanding. Furthermore, academic mobility can benefit if learners and teachers approach such learning from the perspective of building capacities of various kinds. Yet academic mobility can give as well as receive. In particular, the burgeoning literature on academic mobility has much to say to scholars exploring multiple dimensions of the knowledge economy. For example, Dervin’s (2007) insightful distinction among solid, liquid and fizzy

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strangers articulated three different enactments of academic mobility that we contend represent distinctive economic and sociocultural contributions by the individuals concerned to the local, national and international communities to which they belong. Similarly, Welch’s (2008) account of the changing character, and the increasing significance of the economic dimension, of academic mobility in relation to internationalisation, exemplifies a useful analysis of the intersection between knowledge and mobility that researchers of the knowledge economy are likely to find helpful in extending their own analyses. Likewise in terms of sustainability, academic mobility has an important role to play in helping to sustain individuals and groups alike. For instance, Tsoukalas’s (2008) lively and sometimes moving rendition of Erasmus students in Stockholm and Athens portrayed instances of uncertainty and mutual misunderstanding, but also articulated often effective strategies designed to bridge cultural gaps and thereby to strengthen the long-term durability of relationships. In the same way, the analysis of Erasmus students’ motivations for studying abroad presented by Krzaklewska (2008) exemplified a willingness to take risks and a commitment to build capacity among many of the respondents cited in her study. These are specific examples of how the academic mobility literature is able to augment and strengthen contemporary investigations of sustainability.

Conclusion This paper has investigated some of the travelling players involved in the ongoing dynamics linking academic mobility, the knowledge economy and sustainability. Those dynamics have been explored through the empirical sites of several mobile learning communities as they have exhibited and engaged with various manifestations of situated learning, systems thinking, risk and capacity building. We have argued that the scholars working with those concepts and the researchers analysing issues of academic mobility have much to learn from one another. More specifically, our main finding in the paper has been twofold. Firstly, the concepts connected with the knowledge economy and sustainability suggest potentially fruitful ways of enlarging our understandings of the multiple contemporary enactments and effects of academic mobility across a wide range of contexts. Secondly, envisaging academic mobility from the perspective of mobile learning communities is useful in extending awareness of the knowledge economy and sustainability, as well as other current ‘hot topics’ in sociocultural

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theorising. On that basis, mobile learning communities are indeed able to teach us valuable and significant lessons that extend well beyond their cultural and geographical boundaries.

Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to Dr Beverley Moriarty, their co-author of Mobile Learning Communities: Creating New Educational Futures, and to Drs Fred Dervin, Aleksandra Ljalikova and Kateryn Mänd for their editorial initiative and support. The second-named author received welcome financial assistance from the University of Southern Queensland’s Faculty of Education to attend the 2nd international bilingual academic mobility conference in Tallinn, Estonia, at which helpful feedback on a presentation based on this paper was provided by conference participants.

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CHAPTER EIGHT EUROPEAN OCCUPATIONAL TRAVELLERS: SYNERGIES, TENSIONS AND COMPETENCES IN BRIDGING ACADEMIC AND OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY PATRICK A. DANAHER AND EMILIO A. ANTELIZ

Introduction Focusing on the competences of the mobile person is an ambiguous, even contradictory, undertaking. On the one hand, it is clearly important to delineate the kinds of dispositions and skills that help to render academic mobility meaningful and productive, not only for individuals but also for their families, communities and institutions. On the other hand, this kind of delineation runs the risk of homogenising and essentialising such dispositions and skills, thereby decontextualising them and/or establishing them as innate to particular people rather than as constructed and situated. (This is similar to the risk associated with discussions of generic skills among university students—see for example Coombes, Danaher, Anteliz & Danaher 2000). This paper therefore pursues the identification of the competences of the mobile person as a contested and somewhat sceptical endeavour, while seeking to maximise its analytical and empirical utility. It does so by examining the lived experience of selected groups of occupational Travellers—barge, circus and fairground people—as elicited from extended, semi-structured interviews conducted in England, the Netherlands and Scotland by the first-named author of the paper. The discussion is augmented as appropriate by empirical accounts of equivalent communities in other European countries presented by some of the contributors to a recent edited book about various mobile groups around the world

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(Danaher, Kenny & Remy Leder 2009). It is important to indicate at this point that the focus is on communities whose mobility is associated with their occupational rather than their ethnic status, so that Gypsy Travellers and Roma have not been included in this discussion. (However, see individual chapters in Danaher, Kenny & Remy Leder 2009 for current research involving mobility centred on ethnicity). The paper is divided into the following four sections: • A necessarily selective literature review and conceptual framework considering the links between academic and occupational mobility • A relatively brief account of the project’s research design • Selected data analysis directed at distilling the synergies and tensions between academic and occupational mobility for the European occupational Travellers involved in the study • Implications for taking forward efforts to bridge academic and occupational mobility and for creating new understandings of the competences of the mobile person.

Literature Review and Conceptual Framework There is a burgeoning literature related to the lifeworlds of occupational Travellers, whose livelihoods require them to be mobile for extended and/or regular periods of time. A representative example is Pastoralists: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State (Salzman 2004), whose author was a Western anthropologist using ethnography to analyse the state’s interactions with—and more specifically its displacement of—groups of nomadic pastoralists. The competences of these mobile persons exhibit a definite paradox. On the one hand, they demonstrate skills of survival and sustainability in often hostile environments. On the other hand, they are generally devalued by the state, which positions them as taking from rather than contributing to the collective wealth and as challenging the state’s sedentarist foundations. So too with a different genre of literature, encapsulated by Sideshow Alley (Broome with Jackomos 1998). That book presented archival material, interviews and photographs to trace the rise and (relative) decline of sideshow alley, the collection of rides and amusements in the annual agricultural shows in most towns and cities in Australia. Co-written by a professional historian and a continuing member of the show community, Sideshow Alley asked whether participants in the shows such as Indigenous Australian tent boxers experienced empowerment or exploitation. More broadly, the same ambivalence about the competences of these mobile persons was noted:

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A dominant theme of the book is that Sideshow Alley was a place of power for its participants. This may seem surprising given that show-people were viewed by the rest of society with both fear and wonder, and as outcasts. (p. viii)

The literature about the educational aspirations and experiences of occupational Travellers is also growing rapidly. Much of this literature focuses on individual countries and/or communities. See for example Danaher (1998) about Australian show people; Ezewu and Tahir (1997) about Nigerian migrant fisherpeople; and LeBlanc Flores (1996) and Salinas and Fránquiz (2004) about United States migrant farm workers. Other studies are based in a single country but involve a number of mobile communities within that country. These include Danaher, Coombes and Kiddle (2007), Derrington and Kendall (2004), Kiddle (1999), O’Hanlon and Holmes (2004) and Tyler (2005), all concerned with circus, fairground and Gypsy Travellers in the United Kingdom. More recently authored and edited books have appeared that synthesise findings across countries and communities; see for instance Danaher, Moriarty and Danaher (2009), Danaher, Kenny and Remy Leder (2009) and Dyer (2006). This more specialist literature takes up the interplay between academic and occupational mobility in various ways. One common theme is the mismatch between the rhythms of mobile communities and those of schooling systems, generating problems for mobile learners striving to succeed in the mainstream educational enterprise while maintaining the viability of their parents’ profession. A related focus is on school systems as agents of the sedentarist state helping to undermine—whether intentionally or otherwise—the sustainability of members of nomadic groups. A third emphasis is on the effectiveness of mobile communities in socialising their children and new members via informal learning and pedagogical innovation that potentially contain valuable lessons for largescale systems struggling to engage learners. These diverse themes were encapsulated in two statements by participants in the research project reported here. The first was by a member of a Scottish show community: Years ago, very few people had the opportunity [of schooling] in the travelling business…. You’ve got to be prepared to do a lot of hard work. But I think the opportunities are getting greater; there… [are] more opportunities out there for the travelling children to get an education, if they wish it. We’ve just got to keep chasing it up until every travelling child is entitled to that. (as cited in Danaher, Moriarty & Danaher 2009: 174)

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A very different view of the future was expressed by a Traveller educator: I’m not optimistic [about the future]. I have to say I’m not optimistic. I think there’s an element of the Travellers not wanting to be socially integrated. They want the children to be integrated in school, but that’s different. But the culture is so important to them that they’ve got to keep their identity by being isolated, if you like. (as cited in Danaher, Moriarty & Danaher 2009: 176)

For the first speaker, from an occupational Traveller community, the intersection between academic and occupational mobility was not easy to implement but much could be achieved through perseverance. For the second speaker, working mainly with ethnically identified Travellers, that intersection was impossible to realise, owing to the primacy of culture in their worldviews. Significantly these different perspectives reflected equally varied assumptions about the competences of the two groups of mobile persons. The first speaker saw those competences moving across home, work and school relatively smoothly, while the second speaker perceived the Gypsy Travellers’ home- and work-based competences as being incompatible with those valued by the schooling system. The conceptual framework devised to link this literature with the data analysed here has been taken from three key ideas advanced by Kenny and Danaher (2009). The first idea relates to the crucial connection between identities and mobilities, whereby Travellers “… maintain, as the core of their group identity, a primacy of network over place” (p. 4). Yet it is also important to remember that “… the common tradition/practice of mobility does not indicate homogeneity across the groups” (p. 6). Taking up that heterogeneity, the second point highlights the highly varied forms of mobility enacted by different communities of Travellers. From that perspective, “In short, the groups written about here are diverse, and are engaging to varying degrees in complex cultural transitions to meet the erosion of their traditional occupational niches, and changes in market demands” (p. 8). The third proposition is centred on the nexus between “prejudice and place” (p. 8). More specifically, the supposed absence or lack of a fixed place of residence (see also Danaher 2001: 228-238) positions Travellers at a physical and cultural distance from the benefits and obligations of belonging to the state. That is, “To add to the power of the dominant society’s actions, the key instrument in its marginalisation of nomads is literally located in the site of their relationship to place and space” (p. 10).

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The literature review and conceptual framework outlined in this section of the paper demonstrate that the degree of fit between academic and occupational mobilities for occupational Travellers is not necessarily close or tight. Instead there is evidence of dislocation and disconnectedness that is likely to impact on conceptions of competence of mobile persons. We turn now to apply these notions to the analysis of the project’s data, beginning with the research design.

Research Design The research question framing this study was: “What are the synergies and tensions between academic and occupational mobility for European occupational Travellers?”. This question was investigated by means of a qualitative case study, drawing as needed on elements of ethnography, narrative inquiry and phenomenography (Somekh & Lewin 2005). The principal data source is a large number of extended, semi-structured interviews conducted in the first half of 1999 with barge, circus and fairground people in England, the Netherlands and Scotland. Despite the interviews being more than 10 years old, their currency has been maximised through ongoing contact with several of the interviewees and co-authorship with two of them (Currie & Danaher 2001, Danaher, Coombes & Kiddle 2007). This process has brought the researcher’s knowledge and understanding up to date. Furthermore, these interviews have been selectively augmented in the paper by empirical accounts of equivalent communities in Ireland, Italy and Norway (Danaher, Kenny & Remy Leder 2009). The interpretation of the data presented here has been framed by the broad principles of discourse analysis (Wetherell, Taylor & Yates 2001). More specifically, that interpretation has been enhanced by the techniques associated with transformative textual analysis (Rowan 2001), which search for the gaps and silences as much as the voices that are present and privileged in texts such as interview transcripts. The selection of interview data for reporting in the next section of the paper is based on the widest possible representation across countries and types of occupational Traveller communities.

Data Analysis This analysis is clustered around the following three themes in relation to European occupational Travellers: • Synergies between academic and occupational mobility

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• •

Tensions between academic and occupational mobility Competences in bridging academic and occupational mobility.

Synergies between Academic and Occupational Mobility There were many examples in the interviews of occupational Travellers explicitly valuing the formal education provided by schools and of encouraging their children to work hard and achieve success in that education. A Dutch bargee woman with a prominent role in lobbying for her community talked about her nephew’s situation. She stated: “… my family think it’s important that he learn on the school and not in the practice, so that he had a good [beginning] on the ground, and then start with his business”. Likewise a Dutch circus man commented about circus people in his country: …they are very aware that it’s very necessary to learn, not only the circus skills but also learn the skills you need in life. I think it’s the time at this age shows you even more that maybe in former times even you could not read you still could survive. You had tricks that nobody would know and you still [were] able to earn your living. But I think it’s harder and harder, and of course circus people understand that too… For them it’s very hard to educate their own children because their life at the time is occupied by travelling, building up, building down, maybe even for rehearsing. There is no time nowadays any more because they do “one day stands” they’re called—that is, every day another city. Because otherwise they don’t earn enough to stay alive.

Characteristically this statement encapsulated tensions as well as synergies between academic and occupational mobility for some European occupational Travellers. On the one hand, the implication was that there was a combination of the increasing need for formal literacy and the lack of time available to teach their children informally. This combination encouraged Dutch circus parents to value the opportunities afforded by schooling to teach their children a wide variety of skills. On the other hand, the “one day stands” represented a relatively new routine for circus communities that highlighted their disconnection from the schooling system’s assumption of children and their families living in one location for the duration of that schooling. Another instance of a claimed synergy between academic and occupational mobility related to the asserted facility of children in such communities in counting and handling money. The following exchange between two members of a Scottish fairground community drew attention

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to both the children’s situated learning of such a skill and its apparently easy transferability to the school setting: First speaker: It’s a natural progression. When you’re open, you’re operating, the likes of my granddaughter being in the cash box, we know where she is, we know she’s safe. So she’s sitting there for safety reasons, and while she’s there, while it’s quiet, she’s also giving change and she’s learning how to give change, how to handle money. Second speaker: I’ve seen her, when we went to the teacher, and we’ve said, “How are they getting on compared to the other children?” Because they’ve been away from the end of May, and they’ve maybe missed three or four, six weeks at school. And I’ve had her saying to me that… many times they’ve been better than children that’s at school all the time with their maths, because they’re handling change and things like that, so they’re quite clever at things like that.

A striking example of a close synergy between academic and occupational mobility is the senior secondary schools provided in the parts of Norway for the post-compulsory school age children of the Sami nomadic pastoralists of semi-domesticated reindeer. The teenagers are supported to live in state-operated dormitories or in private dormitories partly subsidised by the state. They are also able to study traditional subjects such as reindeer husbandry and traditional Sami art and handicrafts that are called “duodj”. Moreover, students taking the appropriate academic subjects are able to attend the Sami University College, whose language of instruction is Sami (Özerk 2009: 136).

Tensions Between Academic and Occupational Mobility One area of tension between academic and occupational mobility for European Occupational Travellers derived from a fundamental disjuncture between the rhythms of belonging to such a community and those of attending a school predicated on fixed residence for learners. This disjuncture was illustrated starkly by the custom of the Sami people in Norway to divide the year into eight rather than four seasons and to orient their mobility to those seasons (Özerk 2009: 135). A Scottish fairground girl recalled the long-term deleterious impact of these disjointed rhythms for her formal learning: I think primary school kids should get a lot more support than I got. Maybe they are now; I don’t really know. But I think they should be able to get more support than I got. I just got shoved aside; I don’t think that’s right….

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Chapter Eight You know when you can’t grasp something? I couldn’t grasp telling the time, one of the easiest things.… [The teacher] just didn’t have the time for me. I think a teacher’s got to have a lot of patience for somebody who’s been away for a long time. You need to learn to catch up; you need the support to be able to learn, and make them feel that they’re not losing out on anything, and make them feel that they’re not different from everybody else. Primary school kids should get a lot more support.

An extension of this disjuncture between community and school rhythms was the perception—articulated on both sides—of a fundamental divergence between the goals of and effects on children living in these two separate worlds, (Kenny & Binchy (2009: 123) depicted these realms respectively as “the hostile settled world; and their own Traveller world”). For example, a researcher with Italian attractionist or fairground families observed that the children’s teachers were supportive of their students’ learning. However, “they saw the mobile life of attractionist families as something that had always been distant from theirs, separated by a symbolic border that the teachers portrayed as hardly crossable” (Gobbo 2009: 15). Another site of tension between academic and occupational mobility resulted from the effectiveness of the occupational Travellers’ communities in providing a nurturing and sustainable environment for their children to live, learn and work in. This made them less likely to look to schooling to develop competences of which they were unaware or which they did not value very highly. For example, one English fairground man contended: There’s a business there for my son to go on with, as much as I would have loved to have seen him stay at school and have a good education, and go out[side] the business, because I think he had the ability to go in another profession a long way. I honestly think he did. He didn’t want it. He’s 18 now, and he loves the dodgems, he loves the business, and at that age it’s a lovely thing because he’s got such a wide range of abilities given to him to learn. This winter, he’s been welding, painting, sign writing, doing electrical work, doing carpentry, all basic stuff that he’s taught from watching the rest of us and from doing that nobody else outside our kind of community gets.

A reinforcement of this separation between competences acquired and applied at school and those in situ in an occupational Traveller community was provided by the increasing sophistication of some of those competences. While some of them would be likely to require formal certification, they were liable to be developed informally in a work context and then formalised in a vocational training setting rather than at school. A vivid example of this trend was presented by an English circus woman:

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In the old days you used to have what they called the “men”. And the men would be the workers and the workers would come in and they’d do all the manual tasks. There’d be people from the town; you know the phrase “flatties”. They’d come in and they’d just do all the manual work and that would be it. They’d go. They wouldn’t necessarily have particularly high wages or any great accommodation. But really very few shows operate like that now. Most of the “men” now are well paid, clever people, because it’s not brawn so much as operating machinery. They’re running forklifts; a lot of things are palletised. They’ve got to have a Class One heavy goods licence, so all these people, they’ve to be able to weld, be a competent welder. So they’re people who are of a competent nature. If they’re in the circus they’ll have a history behind them, and if they’re out of [the] circus then they will have some kind of … [curriculum vitae] or background you can draw upon to form your impressions as to whether to employ them or not.

Competences in Bridging Academic and Occupational Mobility A number of the interviewees exhibited varied conceptions of competence among European occupational Travellers. Certainly it is important to avoid the essentialist assumption that all members of such communities are equally skilled at all the skills that render them distinctive. As the English circus woman quoted above noted about her son: …[He] grew up learning to do knife throwing, rope spinning, whip cracking. He had to learn to play the drums and the band and he had to do a little bit of juggling. He wasn’t very good at that. Almost everything, really. Show ponies.

This same respondent amplified the process entailed in developing these distinctive and diverse competences: …you have different aptitudes. And a lot depends on the way in which parents teach them, and the influences that other circus artists have on them while they’re on the show. During the formative years, if you’ve got other children on the show and they’re all practising juggling, and if you practise along as well, then you’re given an incentive to do better. I think that’s how it forms good artists, formed through their formative years playing really on the circus sites, learning with other children.

This account highlighted the situated character of these particular competences; they were forged not only in family and community

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relationships but also in the context of continuing yet evolving cultural traditions. The same can be said at a generic level of competences acquired during formal schooling, as can the speaker’s reference to informal competition being a motivator to enhance the performance of skills. So this focus on specialised competences suggests a potential for bridges to be built across very different sites of performance of those competences, provided that the specificities of each site can be understood and valued. Yet those specificities do not automatically support the notion of this kind of bridge building. For example, a Dutch fairground man explained how he had acquired the specialist skill of attracting customers to his stall on the fairground. He stated: “You learn it from your parents. When I was a kid, I was 10 or 12 years old, in the weekends I got into this. You see it and learn it for yourself”. This particular skill required considerable confidence and articulateness in engaging with adults and strangers that are not necessarily valued in certain schooling contexts. Or as Kenny and Binchy (2009: 126-127) expressed the situation: “… Traveller young people… display many competencies that are problematised, if noticed at all, in formal education settings”. In other ways, however, one potentially fruitful bridge between academic and occupational mobility depends on the kinds of expectations of school-based formal learning and home- and work-based informal learning held by children, their parents and the schooling system. The same English circus woman cited above articulated a view that privileged childhood and adolescence as a series of opportunities to learn new skills and to develop confidence from which learners could develop directions for their lives. She felt that that learning and development might reinforce their membership of a particular occupational Traveller community and that might alternatively take them away from that community: What I would hope that… [my children] attain [at school]? I’m not too worried about them getting great grades or going onto university. If they want to do that, that’s all well and good. I would very much like them to be competent in languages. I would very much like them to be well read and to be able to talk to people on an artistic level. But apart from that it’s up to them what they do really. In school holidays, they’re taught things like the… [ballet], but quite minor performance roles… If they wanted to go into the circus and perform then there’s still an opportunity for them to do that. But they’ve got to show an aptitude, and I don’t think either of… [my children] really is showing an aptitude… [for] doing anything in the circus. I’m really just giving them the opportunities; I don’t really have any great plans for them.

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Implications The previous section outlined examples of synergies and tensions between academic and occupational mobility among occupational Travellers in six European countries. It also suggested some ways that the competences of mobile persons might help to construct and sustain bridges between that academic and occupational mobility. We turn now to consider some of the implications of the preceding data analysis for making further efforts to establish those bridges as well as for creating new understandings of what it means for a mobile person to be competent. Firstly, we argue that the data presented in the paper highlight the competences of mobile persons as fundamentally mobile themselves. By this we mean that these competences move regularly across different kinds of physical and social space, whether between home and school or between school and work. Those multiple spaces exhibit their respective norms, expectations and affordances, encapsulated by very different types of literacy. One such literacy is that required for a fairground person to operate a Ferris wheel (ensuring that the equipment is operating safely, encouraging customers to take a ride, helping to make the experience enjoyable and likely to be repeated). A very different literacy is that needed to write an academic essay in senior secondary school (identifying the required genre, adhering to that genre and/or breaking elements of it if appropriate, deploying vocabulary to demonstrate awareness of specialised concepts). It is only by understanding the extent and complexity of those norms, expectations and affordances that mobile persons can be assisted in acquiring competences across these multiple spaces. Secondly, mobility conceptualised as the capacity to apply those competences confidently and effectively across diverse contexts is both socially situated and politicised, and is often constrained when individuals seek to move between the academic and occupational domains. This is partly because those two domains are generally valued differently by the state, and partly because of mutual distrust and suspicion extending over generations between mobile and settled communities. This suggests that, however competent individual members of mobile communities might be, they are likely to need formal and informal assistance to travel freely between these domains. Thirdly, an implicit subtheme in the data analysis was the mobility of the two worlds that members of occupational Traveller communities are often positioned as being ‘between’. On the one hand, the majority or settled world is clearly highly fluid, whether through changing demographics and social patterns, government policy initiatives or technological

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advances. On the other hand, mobile communities are equally changeable both internally and in their external relations. This point reinforces the need to avoid homogenising and essentialising them and thereby reducing the conceptual and empirical range of their capacity to develop and adapt similarly variable competences.

Conclusion In this paper we have explored and contested the notion of the competences of mobile persons. We have done this in recognition of the importance of this concept in its own right and also because it articulates with broader issues related to the educational experiences and opportunities of mobile communities. In doing so, we have investigated selected aspects of the interface—which in some cases is the connectedness or resonance and in other cases the contradiction or opposition—between the academic and occupational dimensions of mobility for European occupational Travellers. The competences of mobile persons emerge from this analysis, not as decontextualised, idealised or reified phenomena, but rather as situated constructions that are deeply embedded in the complex networks, relationships and practices attending the communities to which those persons belong. Individuals in those communities vary widely in their capacity to develop and deploy specific competences. Moreover, particular competences vary equally widely in their capacity to travel across contexts and to be enacted in mobile communities and/or in formal educational settings. Building solid and sustainable bridges between academic and occupational mobility requires an understanding of these crucial characteristics of mobile competences. In these ways educators, policymakers and researchers seeking to engage such competences have much to learn from European Travellers and their multiple itineraries.

Acknowledgments Mrs Phyllida Coombes and Dr Geoff Danaher transcribed the interviews cited in the paper. The authors are grateful to Dr Máirín Kenny and Dr Judith Remy Leder, fellow editors of Traveller, Nomadic and Migrant Education, and to the authors of chapters in that book that have been drawn on here, for their significant contributions to scholarship in this field. Drs Fred Dervin, Aleksandra Ljalikova and Kateryn Mänd have been encouraging and facilitative conference convenors and proceedings editors. Financial assistance from the University of Southern Queensland’s

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Faculty of Education in attending the conference is acknowledged thankfully. Dr Gina Curro and other members of the University of Southern Queensland Community of Practice for Early Career Researchers—Writing and Publishing provided useful feedback about an earlier version of the paper.

Bibliography Broome, R. with A. Jackomos. 1998. Sideshow alley. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Coombes, P.N., Danaher, G.R., Anteliz, E.A. & P.A. Danaher. 2000. “Educating university bridging students and occupational Travellers: Interrogating the generic skills approach to lifelong learning”. In K. Appleton, C. Macpherson & D. Orr (eds.). Lifelong learning conference: Selected papers from the inaugural international lifelong learning conference Yeppoon, Queensland, Australia 17-19 July 2000: Hosted by Central Queensland University. Rockhampton, Qld: Lifelong Learning Conference Committee, Central Queensland University, pp. 152-157. Currie, H. & P.A. Danaher, P. A. 2001 (Spring). “Government funding for English Traveller Education Support Services”. Multicultural Teaching. 19(2), pp. 33-36. Danaher, P.A. (ed.). 1998. Beyond the ferris wheel: Educating Queensland show children. Rockhampton, Qld: Central Queensland University Press. Danaher, P.A. 2001. Learning on the run: Traveller education for itinerant show children in coastal and western Queensland. Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, Faculty of Education and Creative Arts, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Qld. Danaher, P.A., Coombes, P.N. & C. Kiddle, C. 2007. Teaching Traveller children: Maximising learning outcomes. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books. Danaher, P.A., Kenny, M.D. & J. Remy Leder. (eds). 2009. Traveller, nomadic and migrant education. New York: Routledge. Danaher, P.A., Moriarty, B.J. & G.R. Danaher. 2009. Mobile learning communities: Creating new educational futures. New York: Routledge. Derrington, C. & S. Kendall. 2004. Gypsy Traveller students in secondary schools: Culture, identity and achievement. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books.

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Dyer, C. (ed.) (2006). The education of nomadic peoples: Current issues, future prospects. New York: Berghahn Books. Ezewu, E.E. & G. Tahir (ed.) 1997. Ecology and education in Nigeria: Studies on the education of migrant fishermen. Onitsha, Nigeria: Tabansi Publishers. Gobbo, F. 2009. “Moving lives: A reflective account of a three generation travelling attractionist family in Italy”. In P.A. Danaher, M.D. Kenny & J. Remy Leder (eds.). Traveller, nomadic and migrant education. New York: Routledge, pp. 13-28. Kenny, M.D. & A. Binchy. 2009. “Irish Travellers, identity and the education system”. In P.A. Danaher, M.D. Kenny & J. Remy Leder (eds.). Traveller, nomadic and migrant education. New York: Routledge, pp. 117-131. Kenny, M.D. & P.A. Danaher. 2009. “Editorial introduction: Three dimensions of changing schools”. In P.A. Danaher, M.D. Kenny & J. Remy Leder (eds.). Traveller, nomadic and migrant education. New York: Routledge, pp. 1-12. Kiddle, C. 1999. Traveller children: A voice for themselves. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. LeBlanc Flores, J. 1996. Children of la frontera: Binational efforts to serve Mexican migrant and immigrant students. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools/ Appalachia Educational Laboratory. O’Hanlon, C. & C. Holmes. 2004. The education of Gypsy and Traveller children: Towards inclusion and educational achievement. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books. Özerk, K. 2009. “The revitalisation of a threatened Indigenous language: The case of the Sami people in Norway”. In P.A. Danaher, M.D. Kenny & J. Remy Leder (eds.). Traveller, nomadic and migrant education. New York: Routledge, pp. 132-144. Rowan, L.O. 2001. Write me in: Inclusive texts in the primary classroom. Newtown, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association. Salinas, C. & M.E. Fránquiz. 2004. Scholars in the field: The challenges of migrant education. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools/Appalachia Educational Laboratory. Salzman, P.C. 2004. Pastoralists: Equality, hierarchy, and the state. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Somekh, B. & C. Lewin (eds.) 2005. Research methods in the social sciences. London: Sage Publications. Tyler, C. (ed.) 2005. Traveller education: Accounts of good practice. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books.

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Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. & S.J. Yates (eds.) 2001. Discourse theory and practice: A reader. London: Sage Publications.

CHAPTER NINE THE CONSEQUENCES OF MOBILITY: CAREERS AND WORK PRACTICES OF PORTUGUESE RESEARCHERS WITH A FOREIGN PHD DEGREE ANA DELICADO

Introduction International mobility is a growing phenomenon in contemporary science, which has received heightened attention both in terms of policy and research. However, it is a complex research object, since there are multiple definitions of academic mobility, either focusing on its length (short, medium and long term, which can encompass anything from attending a conference to permanently moving to another country), aims (for educational or professional purposes) or actors (higher education students or faculty). There are also multiple angles from which it can be studied: outbound and inbound flows, motivations, barriers, impacts on family and personal life. This paper concentrates on a narrow component of mobility, namely the achievement of a PhD in a foreign institution (in this particular case, an institution outside of Portugal), and on the particular aspect of the consequences of scientific mobility in two specific areas: careers and work practices. Policy discourse usually focuses on the beneficial aspects of scientific mobility, both in terms of the careers of researchers and on the production of knowledge. However, research has shown that mobility has become not so much a choice but a career obligation (Ackers 2001), and that mobile scientists can be left “locked in” a host country or “locked out” of their home country (Casey et al. 2001). On the one hand, non-native researchers can face discrimination and career stall (Diaz-Briquets & Cheney 2002),

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on the other hand, reintegration in the native scientific communities can be hindered by institutional and cultural conditions (Ackers 2005, Gill 2005). Though universality is one of the cornerstones of science, social studies of Science and Technology (S&T) have shown that scientific training and practice is subject to local conditions (see Knor-Cetina 1981, Campbell 2003), such as curricular specificities, the prevalence of certain theoretical paradigms over others, availability of equipment, local interpretations of methodological rules, informal socialization and tacit knowledge acquired in laboratories. Therefore, what happens once PhD degrees are obtained? Do mobile researchers face more difficulties than the ones that trained at home? Are they willing or able to return to the home country? How is their integration in the public or in the private sector, in research or in other occupations? And what effect does their training abroad have on scientific work practices? Do work values, ethics, hierarchies, formal and informal relations, modes of organisation vary significantly in different national contexts, and therefore have an impact on the science that is produced? This paper is based on research on the international mobility of Portuguese scientists1. The empirical data that sustains it has been collected through a two-tiered methodology: an online survey of Portuguese researchers abroad (PhD students and PhD holders, who were staying abroad for a period of at least six months) and interviews with researchers who obtained their PhD degrees abroad and have returned to Portugal. The survey was carried out in June-July 2007 and obtained 521 replies (roughly 65 per cent of the original sample2), analysed through statistical procedures3. The interviews were performed between May and November 2008 with a sample of 32 individuals, derived from a database

1

Funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under a postdoctoral grant. I am grateful for the suggestions of the reviewer that greatly improved this article. 2 A tentative census of the Portuguese expatriate researchers was conducted by using several sources: an online database, newspaper articles, membership lists of associations, university WebPages, Google searches. 803 persons were identified. However, there is no official data with which to compare in order to assess how close this is to the actual population. 3 52 per cent of the respondents were women; 45 per cent were under 30 years of age, 31 per cent between 30 and 34 years old, 13 per cent between 35 and 39 years old and 11 per cent over 40 years of age; 64 per cent are located in European Union countries, mainly in the UK (29 per cent), 5 per cent are in other non EU European countries; 27 per cent in the US.

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containing over 3000 names4 and selected according to several criteria: scientific area, country where the PhD was obtained, current host institution, career situation. The interviews were then fully transcribed and subjected to content analysis. The following data is based on what researchers say about their own careers and practice, coloured by their perceptions, values and interests of self-presentation. Thus it has mainly an exploratory value. These results ought to be corroborated with data collected through other methodologies, such as ethnographic observation, surveys of both mobile and non-mobile researchers, network analysis or bibliometrics.

Context Matters: A Brief Overview of Mobility Trends in the Portuguese S&T System Much of the observations and results presented here are not country specific and can occur in other scientific systems. However, the specific conditions of the Portuguese scientific system (in all probability quite similar to other semi-peripheral countries in the world system of science, such as Spain and Greece) do have a bearing on the phenomenon under study. Although there are no official figures for these trends, available evidence shows that exit flows surpass entry of foreign researchers but return flows are also considerable. As other southern European countries (see, for instance, van de Sande et al. 2005, Morano-Foadi 2006, IPTS 2007), Portugal has been mostly a sending country for scientific mobility. According to figures collected by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS 2007), in 2006 there were only 188 foreign (from EU countries) doctoral students in Portugal, while there were 2,240 Portuguese studying for a PhD in a EU country. An evaluation of the Marie Curie Fellowship scheme (van de Sande et al. 2005) ascertained that between 1994 and 2002 there were 173 Portuguese fellows, but only 69 European researchers chose Portugal as their host country. Although there is no accurate figure data on the numbers of Portuguese scientists who have left the country (temporarily or permanently) in the 4

This database was created by combining a list of PhDs awarded by foreign institutions to Portuguese researchers (and recognized by Portuguese universities) with a list of higher education personnel, in order to identify the current host institution of formerly mobile researchers. Web searches were conducted in order to fill in missing information (researchers in State laboratories, business companies, other research centres, and non-research occupations).

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past few decades, the late development of Portuguese science has dictated that many scientists were compelled to go abroad to obtain postgraduate education. Furthermore, national S&T policies have actively promoted outbound mobility, by funding large numbers of PhD and post-doctoral fellowships for studying or working abroad. Between 1994 and 2007, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology funded 3,571 PhD and 647 postdoctoral fellowships for studying abroad and 2,592 PhD and 842 post-doctoral mixed fellowships (that comprise a period abroad and another at a Portuguese institution)5. As to return flows, there is no solid administrative data but between 1970 and 2007, Portuguese universities have recognised 4,004 PhDs obtained in foreign institutions (until recently a necessary step for applying for a position in academia in Portugal). However, not all of these PhD holders are Portuguese nationals nor are they necessarily still working in Portugal. Positions in research institutions do not require the recognition of the diploma. Additionally, a survey carried out in 2006 by the statistical office of the Science Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education registered that 29 per cent of Portuguese doctorate holders (3200) had obtained their PhDs abroad6. There have been no specific return policies but the growth of scientific system (in the seventies and eighties with the creation of peripheral universities and polytechnics, in the nineties the rise in funding for scientific activities) and some recent government initiatives (post-doctoral fellowships, a programme of fiveyear contracts as assistant researchers) have clearly benefited expatriate researchers aiming to come back.

Career Opportunities and Constraints of Expatriate Researchers International mobility is regarded as a bonus in a scientific career. According to Ackers (2001), researchers feel that it is expected of them to spend some time abroad in order to pursue an academic career. Most mobile researchers strive to access high-profile institutions (Millard 2005, Mahroum 2000, Gill 2005, Van de Sande et al. 2005), whose prestige is transferred to its alumni or personnel: the choice of a PhD host institution is often determinant for the development of a career in research (Casey et 5

Source: official statistics (see http://alfa.fct.mctes.pt/estatisticas/bolsas/, last accessed in August 2009). 6 Source: official statistics (see http://gpri-08-193.link.pt/main, last accessed in August 2009).

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al. 2001, Mahroum 2000). However, going abroad can also prove to be a disadvantage, in the sense that, for instance in the US, foreign researchers are not always awarded the same benefits as native researchers in terms of wages and rights and can be discriminated against in job opportunities (Diaz-Briquets & Cheney 2002). This is less likely to happen in Europe, since EU citizens are legally entitled to equal treatment and non-discrimination. According to the survey of Portuguese researchers abroad, the majority (62 per cent) was in the early stages of the career (PhD students) but one third of the respondents were already senior researchers (PhD holders) and most of them are in permanent positions (see table 1). Tenured researchers tend to be older (45 per cent over 40 years of age) than researchers in temporary positions, although a fraction of older researchers are still in temporary contracts or even post-doctoral fellowships. The majority work in universities and concentrate full-time on research. Table 1: Senior Portuguese researchers abroad (%) Career situation

Tenure Fixed-term contract Post-doctoral fellows Visiting professors/researchers

38.5 37.5 14.5 8.5

Sector of employment

Universities Public research centres Private non-profit research centres Business companies Hospitals Mainly research Research and teaching Research, teaching and administration Research and other activities Mainly teaching

77.8 13.6 8.6 3.0 2.0 63.3 18.6 14.6 2.0 1.5

Activities

Most of these senior expatriate researchers obtained their PhD abroad, especially those on tenure (84%) or on fixed-term contract (79%). However, half of the post-doctoral fellows had obtained their PhDs in Portugal, so this could be their opportunity for enriching their CVs with a work experience abroad. It can also be hypothesized that it is easier for those who already studied abroad to build a career in a foreign country. Numerous studies have shown that studying abroad is often the first step

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in a more permanent migration (Alarcon 1999, Baruch et al. 2007, Jalowiecki & Gorzelak 2004, Millard 2005, Avveduto 2001, Rizvi 2005, Diaz-Briquet & Cheney 2002, Mahroum 2000): “Study abroad offers possible social and cultural integration, and provides the educational credits (recognized abroad) that make integration less difficult” (Ferro 2004: 383). Overall, and although changes in the academic professions have made scientific employment less stable and secure throughout the world (Henkel 2000, Casey et al. 2001, Diaz-Briquets & Cheney 2002), the career prospects of Portuguese researchers abroad seem quite favourable. But what does happen to those researchers that return home? Do they manage to successfully reintegrate in the Portuguese scientific system? Are their careers helped or hindered by their mobility experience?

Career Opportunities and Constraints of Returnee Researchers As stated above, there is a quite considerable rate of return of Portuguese researchers who have obtained a PhD abroad. And most of them seem to reintegrate fairly easily into the Portuguese S&T system. According to the work performed on official databases (see footnote 4, above), out of the 3,789 Portuguese researchers (with PhDs obtained abroad between 1970 and 2006) identified, close to 80% are currently active in the Portuguese scientific system. Among the remaining 20%, 4% returned or remained abroad, 9% are retired or deceased, 2% work in areas other than research and there are 6% whose situation is unknown. Many of these returnee researchers had previous contracts with Portuguese institutions (mainly as university lecturers, but also polytechnic lecturers and State Laboratories researchers) before leaving the country and their absence was supported by government grants for studying abroad. Thus their return was practically assured. I had a job here. It never crossed my mind [staying]. Since the Portuguese government paid for my training I had the moral duty of returning. It never crossed my mind, staying. I hadn’t had an offer, but even if I have had, it never crossed my mind, staying. (Full professor in a public university, natural sciences)

Higher Education absorbs the largest portion of returnee researchers: 73 per cent of scientists trained abroad between 1970 and 2006 work in public universities. However, breaking down this value by time segments

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shows changes over time, evidencing a decrease in the universities’ capacity to absorb mobile researchers (Table 2). Although the most prestigious public universities (larger, older, located in the main three cities of the country) still absorb the majority of returnees, the weight of peripheral universities has been increasing. Symmetrically, a growing number of researchers trained abroad have been integrated in less prestigious (and less research intensive) institutions, such as private universities and polytechnics. State laboratories have also received an increased influx of PhDs, especially in the nineties. Table 2: Host institutions of returnee researchers by year of PhD (%) 70s

80s

1990-94

1995-99

2000-06

Total

Public university

86.5

86.0

78.0

67.4

61.2

73.0

Private university

10.5

6.4

11.6

18.3

22.8

15.3

Polytechnic State laboratory

1.3 1.3

2.0 3.1

5.3 4.6

7.6 5.1

13.2 1.5

7.1 3.2

Other

0.4

2.5

0.5

1.6

1.3

1.4

Nevertheless, this trend does not necessary apply only to returnee researchers. Home-grown PhDs, which have been increasing at a much faster pace (in the seventies, they represented 38 per cent of all PhD obtained; between 2000 and 2006 this value reached 84 per cent), may also face difficulties in finding a position in the more prestigious institutions of the scientific system. In order to measure the consequences of mobility on careers, it is also relevant to assess the kinds of positions returnee researchers are able to access. In public universities, 41 per cent of full professors have been trained abroad but this value decreases as we go down the stages of the faculty career: 28 per cent of associate professors, 18 per cent of assistant professors (non-tenure) and 15 per cent of instructors (a position usually reserved for non-doctorate holders). And although this distribution is certainly affected by the recent growth in PhDs obtained in Portugal, it also seems to indicate that returnee academics tend to be more successful in reaching the top echelons of the career. However, this is not always the case amongst the academics interviewed:

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Chapter Nine Here everything is very rigid, there is no opportunity, neither big nor small, no career progression. After my PhD I’ve been always an assistant professor, I applied once for associate professor, there were 15 other candidates, I wasn’t chosen, of course, I was approved in terms of merit on all categories, but the vacancy was filled by someone from outside the school. (Assistant professor in a public university, exact sciences)

On the other hand, in recent years, a growing number of young researchers have left the country without a “safety net”, supported only by government fellowships. Some do manage, on return, to obtain a position fairly easily, but others face many difficulties, including spells of unemployment. Post-doctoral fellowships are a recent solution, albeit temporary, for the integration in the scientific system of young highly trained researchers. Introduced by the Portuguese government in the nineties, the number of fellowships has grown significantly in the past few years: between 1994 and 2000 940 of these fellowships were awarded. Between 2001 and 2007 that number has increased to 3233. Although some are granted to researchers in foreign institutions, the majority (64 per cent) fund researchers in Portuguese institutions. These fellowships are not aimed exclusively at expatriate researchers wishing to return home7, but the distribution by country of PhD is not publicly available. Though providing a reasonable salary and the opportunity to carry out full-time research (whereas university positions usually entail a fairly heavy teaching load), post-doctoral fellowships also have downsides: a limited duration (three to six years), scarce social welfare entitlements (since grant holders are not considered employees) and ill-defined links with the host institution. For all the fellows interviewed, these positions were a “necessary evil”, while waiting for better career opportunities: Employment opportunities really don’t exist (…) the situation abroad has nothing to do with it [situation in Portugal], the wages can be bad, the benefits can be bad, but we are employees, we have a contract, we pay taxes. Here we are like students, we have no workers rights, we are not entitled to unemployment benefits (post-doctoral fellow in a university research centre, natural sciences)

In universities, not only the openings have been scarce in recent years 7 In fact, 34 per cent of post-doctoral fellowships have been granted to foreign researchers in Portuguese institutions (source: official statistics, see http://alfa.fct.mctes.pt /estatisticas/bolsas/, last accessed on August 2009).

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(due to a fairly closed system, in which most academic jobs are “for life” and there is little transition between sectors and between institutions, as well as a decrease in the number of students and the Bologna reform) but also some returnee researchers complain of not have been treated fairly in job competitions: In the beginning I tried two universities. I won’t go into details, because you can guess… (…) I was applying to a position in artificial intelligence, my supervisor was the most famous researcher in the world in artificial intelligence (…) I have over 50 scientific papers published, which is more than many full professors here, after my PhD, I have an award for the best paper and I was nominated for another award. I know that in this specific case there were three positions, I know I was entitled to one of them. I didn’t get it because anyone who has been abroad and returns to Portugal has to face the inbreeding. I’m convinced that who wants to go abroad for a PhD has less probabilities of getting a position here than someone who stays and does his PhD here with someone with whom he has been working for a long time and makes promises… It shouldn’t be like this, staying or going shouldn’t give an advantage, it should be based on skill. (Senior manager in a company, engineering sciences)

On the whole, it can be said that international mobility is just one of the factors influencing scientific careers. Going abroad only after securing a position in a Portuguese institution is the safest course of action, because it not only guarantees reintegration on return but also leaves open the possibility of staying abroad, if a better offer comes along. However, it does not warrant a swifter career progression, although the experience gained abroad does seem to improve the chances of reaching tenure. Maintaining contacts with researchers in the home country does help reintegration even in non-permanent positions. However, new schemes that are managed by the central government rather than institutions themselves (post-doctoral fellowships, five-year contracts) seem to open the scientific labour market to returnee researchers without patronage links and even to foreign researchers. Career prospects of mobile researchers can also be influenced by the ways in which scientific practice is affected by the exposure to different national work environments. And that is the subject of the next section.

The Impact of Mobility on Scientific Work Universalism lies at the core of science. Merton (1974) places it as the first institutional imperative of science. Shapin and Schaffer (1985) describe how in modern science the technologies for producing it became

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eminently global: the instruments and equipments used in the production of experimental, observational or theoretical objects, the conventions and credibility devices applied on the results, the literary, inscription and representation technologies that allow the circulation of objects of knowledge. Crawford, Shinn & Sorlin (1992) trace trends in the denationalisation of science over the twentieth century, emphasising the standardisation of scientific work, in terms of cognitive homogeneity, communication practices and technical standards. However, the place where the production of science occurs does matter. Laboratory studies (Latour & Woolgar 1986, Knorr-Cetina 1981) have shown that local practices, from the calibration of instruments to the interpretation of results, vary, that implicit knowledge is transmitted among researchers within laboratory walls, by observation and replication, that choices made during scientific work (theories, methods, techniques) are the product of institutional traditions and educational canons. Both the survey of Portuguese scientists abroad and the interviews with returnee scientists give some information on the changes the researchers had felt in their scientific practice as a result of their mobility experience. Although these questions yielded a wealth of information, this section will focus on those issues that have a direct impact on careers. In theory, mobility provides researchers with some resources, namely scientific skills, publication proficiency and access to international networks, that give them an edge in competing for scientific employment and career progression. [My scientific practice changed in terms of] the use of new techniques, more up-to-date and innovative; improvement in linguistic skills (English); more openness and scientific preparedness; acquisition of self-critical and more analytical spirit and meticulousness (PhD student, natural sciences, Germany)

The decision to go abroad often stems from the notion that it provides the opportunity to learn or do something new: when asked to assess a list of reasons for going abroad, 84 per cent of researchers surveyed rated learning new theories or methodologies as quite or very important and 68 per cent the opportunity to work in an under-developed area in Portugal. The acquisition of specific technical skills is strongly related to the availability of resources, both physical resources (funding, equipment, machinery, supplies) and human resources (senior scientists and supervisors, colleagues, lab technicians). 65 per cent of researchers surveyed stated that accessing means or equipment not available in the home country was a quite or very important reason for going abroad.

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Not surprisingly (given the host countries of many of the expatriate researchers, see above footnote 3), 93 per cent of researchers surveyed considered that they found more favourable conditions in the host country in terms of research resources. It gave me the opportunity to come into contact and to work directly with great researchers in my area; it made my research easier because there is better access to scientific information and to reagents/equipment (PhD student, natural sciences, UK) The resources I found in my lab/host institution (funding, seminars almost every day with Nobel prize winners and heads of top laboratories, computer support, almost no bureaucracy, fabulous libraries) aren’t available anywhere in Portugal. (PhD student, natural sciences, US)

However, some scientists recognise that differences in the availability of resources many not be so determinant In the first place, it made me realise that the research done in Portugal (at least the one I know of) is of good quality with fewer resources. We are in the right track. We (Portuguese) just need to be more ambitious and less modest. Personally, I learned a lot from the scientific and technical point of view, but that would also have happened in Portugal and probably with less effort. (PhD student, health sciences, US)

Other acknowledged that Portugal had changed considerably in the past few years, investing heavily in science, so the differences may not be so noticeable now: in terms of practice, that is to say, everyday life at the laboratory, we in the exact sciences have pretty similar procedures everywhere. We use scientific equipment that is sold by multinational companies that produce scientific equipment and the rules of use are the same everywhere or the rule for producing samples or whatever (…) In material terms, in terms of facilities and equipment, this is the best place where I have ever worked in. Comparing with the place I was working in, in Oxford, it’s much better (assistant researcher in a university research centre, exact sciences)

Though less easy to define than the availability of resources, work cultures also have a bearing on scientific practice. While only 11 per cent of respondents to the survey stated that adaptation to the work practices of the host team or institutions posed any kind of difficulty, several pointed out the differences felt in terms of organisation and precision regarding the host/home country.

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Chapter Nine My “practice” became more practical… Research projects are more closely aimed at objectives. The organisation of these projects is more structured in terms of deadlines, task allocation, etc. This demands more and more efficient work ability. And a more pragmatic approach, which at the same time allows projects to have a more practical application. It also demands team work, through which people, regardless of their academic title, collaborate on an equal footing and with mutual respect. Competition is higher but it’s healthy competition, involving mutual help. More emphasis is placed on creativity and scientific innovation (senior researcher, social sciences, UK) Work methods and means are incomparably better that the ones we have here in terms of organisation and planning (…) there’s a severe lack of leadership and planning here. (senior researcher in a State Laboratory, engineering sciences)

Since publication is both the most important step for validating scientific results and one of the key elements for assessing a scientist’s CV (and allowing him/her to progress in his/her career), the impact of mobility on publication proficiency cannot go unnoticed. 70 per cent of researchers surveyed considered that they found more favourable conditions in the host country for publishing articles in scientific journals: The easiness in going to conferences and publishing articles in areas connected to biomedical engineering has a close relation to funding, which can only be obtained in this country. (PhD student, engineering sciences, US) [I] learned a lot about writing for scientific publications. (PhD student, natural sciences, Germany) [if I hadn’t gone abroad] I wouldn’t have published as easily as I did in the best publications, the best journals of the world, for sure. (CEO of a biotech company, natural sciences)

Success in publication is partially connected to the acquisition of English language skills, a byproduct of mobility experiences. It has the advantage of speaking in English, of learning a little more, which is important if you want to study, to write papers and to publish (…) knowing English makes it easier to read and to write, especially for publishing in international journals. (assistant researcher in a State Laboratory, engineering sciences)

Finally, mobility has been promoted as a mean for generating and

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sustaining international networks. Expatriate researchers that maintain contact with the home country and returnees that keep in touch with colleagues abroad become nodes in networks thought which joint research is carried out and knowledge is transferred (Ackers 2005, Connel et al. 2005, Gill 2005, Mahroum 2000, Thorn & Holm-Nielsen 2006, Van de Sande et al. 2005, Teferra 2005). According to the survey of Portuguese expatriate researchers, 76 per cent stated that the possibility of establishing scientific networks with researchers and teams from other countries was a quite or very important reason for going abroad. It made possible to forge friendships with scientists of different nationalities that now lead research groups in top international institutions. (PhD student, health sciences, Switzerland)

88 per cent of researchers maintain some sort of connection with the Portuguese scientific system. However, informal contacts with colleagues are by far more common than actual joint scientific work: only 30 per cent write papers in co-authorship, 32 per cent take part in research projects, 29 per cent teach in a Portuguese institution and 30 per cent promote student exchanges. Not all of them have positive experiences: Any activities I scheduled were carried out only once or twice. The difficulty in making or keeping contacts with Portuguese colleagues is huge, I’ve been trying for many years and I fell there is very little interest. (senior researcher, social sciences, The Netherlands)

As for returnee researchers, most keep in touch with former colleagues and host institutions and use these connections in their scientific activity: Contact networks (…) in these institutions, since there is a group work environment, situations, contacts with the surrounding community are much easier, there are elements in the group that already know someone, who can act as a reference, someone in another country or another group, so it’s much easier to build networks than here (assistant professor in a public university, engineering sciences) One of the good things I brought from Florence were the good friends I made there and that I still keep in my emailing list because they are scattered throughout the country but I still keep in touch quite often (…) in the humble papers I keep publishing there is always the name of one of my former colleagues at the department, because I have this habit of, before sending an article for a journal, asking three or four of them to read it and criticize it. (assistant professor at a public university, social sciences)

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However, some recognize that connections are lost over time and that the volatility of the scientific career and heightened mobility signify that former host institutions change their personnel quite frequently. Also, informal contacts do not always lead to collaborations and exchanges.

Conclusion Overall, international mobility does seem to have an impact on career outcomes and work practices of researchers. Based on the available data, there is some evidence that mobile researchers have better career opportunities, both abroad and upon the return home. Especially those with a foreign diploma seem to have little difficulty in pursuing a career outside the home country, finding employment and progressing towards tenure. Those that return seem to face few problems in reintegrating the S&T system, although that is especially true for an older generation that left the country temporarily, with strong ties to Portuguese institutions and an assured return. Many of them manage to reach the top echelons of the academic career, possibly in more favourable conditions than those who have never been abroad. Younger researchers do have more difficulties in finding stable positions, but that can be true regardless of the country in which they obtained their degree. Young doctorates with a Portuguese diploma may have a slight advantage due to inbreeding practices, but that can also be offset by some institutions favouring candidates from abroad due to the expertise they bring. Indeed, all mobile researchers interviewed acknowledged the effects that an experience abroad has had on their work practices. Either by acquiring new theoretical of methodological skills or by profiting from the best out of different work cultures or by developing publishing and networking abilities, these researchers believe that mobility has brought an added-value to their activity. And that certainly has effects on the science that is currently produced in Portugal. But the impact of mobility is not always linear and beneficial. Mobile scientists can also face insurmountable obstacles and constraints in their careers and activities. Expatriate researchers can be “locked out” of the home country, prevented from returning by lack of employment but also by inbreeding and mistrust in Portuguese institutions. Returnee researchers may find little use for their expertise in institutions that have not kept up with scientific innovations. Skills become outdated, contacts fade over time, networks get broken. Therefore, though mobility should continue to be encouraged by policy measures and funding, some attention ought also to be paid to improving

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the conditions for harvesting the benefits of mobility. Ensuring greater transparency and fairness in recruitment procedures, supporting the reintegration of returnee researchers, promoting the upkeep of international ties (financing regular short stays abroad and network building activities) are some of the actions that can be undertaken in this field. Nevertheless, the findings described in this paper should be complemented with further studies using other methodologies and especially a more thorough and systematic comparison between mobile and non-mobile researchers, in order to more accurately assess the consequences of mobility.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Name Emilio A. Anteliz Sören Carlson Tony Chafer Jim Coleman Geoff R. Danaher Patrick A. Danaher Ana Delicado Fred Dervin Robert O’Dowd Karen Risager Dina Strong Christof Van Mol

Affiliation Central University of Venezuela, Venezuela Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany University of Portsmouth, England, UK The Open University, England, UK Central Queensland University, Australia University of Southern Queensland, Australia University of Lisbon, Portugal Universities of Helsinki, Turku and Joensuu, Finland University of León, Spain Roskilde University, Denmark University of Latvia, Latvia University of Antwerp, Belgium