International Student Mobility: The Role of Social Networks

By Suzanne Beech (@suzanneebeech)

I have a new paper online early with Social and Cultural Geography, it is the second to come out of my PhD thesis on international higher education and the factors which influence students in their decision to study abroad. This paper focuses on one of the biggest factors effecting student mobility (and many other forms of mobility as well) - the role of social networks of friendship and kinship. It looks at the experience of 38 international students studying at three UK universities who were either interviewed or took part in a small focus group between March 2011 and February 2012. Each of the students that took part was enrolled on a diploma seeking programme of study (i.e. their period of time overseas was for the duration of their degree, rather than related to a temporary exchange or sojourn abroad). They came from 23 different countries and were studying both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. While I did not explicitly ask them about their socio-economic background it is likely that, given higher education mobility is often a very expensive pursuit, they came from relatively well-off backgrounds.  What was common to every one of the students that took part was the centrality of their friends and family in making their decision, their social networks were key to their mobility.

1.        What is a social network?

Social networks in this context are not limited to online social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The social networks in which my research is interested are much broader than this. At the most basic level they represent the multiple people (or actors) that a person communicates and interacts with in their day-to-day lives sharing resources and information in the process. Your social network is therefore anyone who you know well enough to engage in conversation, even if that conversation takes place along very limited lines. Any one person can, therefore, have hundreds of people in their social networks and can be part of numerous (sometimes overlapping) social networks e.g. your family could be one social network, your work colleagues another, the people in your tutorial group another and so on. International students, like everyone else, are part of complex networks of individuals all sharing information with one another. John Urry (2007; 2003) has written about how these networks shape mobility by creating connections between people through which they are able to share their experiences of being mobile. Members of a network are therefore able to tell others of the benefits of engaging in mobility and how to become more mobile themselves. It is therefore through networks that mobility often takes place.

2.       How do social networks influence mobility amongst international students?

My research shows that social networks operate in two ways in relation to international students. First, they can offer explicit advice and encouragement. This is perhaps less common than you may think, certainly most students did not admit to seeking out advice and encouragement – perhaps because international student mobility is often considered (at least socially) an individual activity where you go out and forge your own lifecourse – but there was evidence of some students actively turning to others for advice. Aimee from Canada for example spoke to people in her field about the value of an overseas degree, Subash and Sachin (from India) both turned to Facebook to find people who had also studied their course in the UK and Lily (from Malaysia) talked about the importance of being able to discuss her course with current students when on an open day.

    

More common, however, was the concept that social networks were about sharing the lived experiences of overseas mobility. In this context their social networks did not so much offer them advice and encouragement instead they began to normalise the process of going overseas. Asan (from Nepal) discussed how in his school it was normal for almost everyone to study abroad, suggesting a huge “95 per cent” went overseas (this is possibly an exaggeration, but whether literal or not it is clear that lots of people chose to do so). Marianna (from Greece) wanted to have the same experiences that a friend had when she studied in the UK. Hazel (from the USA) watched friends go backpacking in Europe and wanted to have a similar experience. As Urry (2007) suggests, they had built a greater awareness of travel which had normalised engaging in long term mobility, leading to point 3…

3.     Social networks establish cultures of mobility.

What is interesting is that these networks become self-perpetuating to an extent. More people study overseas and share their experience (either explicitly or implicitly) with their social networks. This then introduces more people to the idea of studying abroad, some of whom will explore the option and choose to study outside of their home country, who will then share their experience with their social networks and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. It effectively establishes a culture of mobility amongst international students which normalises the process of studying overseas.

There was evidence of the importance of social networks amongst every student who took part in the interviews and focus groups for my research. This suggests that these relationships are critical to mobility. It did not seem to matter where the students came from, or their level of study, social networks were somehow active in all of their decisions’ to study overseas. They had created cultures of mobility for these students which had normalised the process of studying overseas.

My paper on International Student Mobility: The Role of Social Networks is currently online early with Social and Cultural Geography and is available for download here.

References

Urry, J. (2003). Social networks, travel and talk. British Journal of Sociology, 54, 155–175.

Urry, J. (2007). Mobilities. Polity Press: Cambridge.

My Journey to Social and Cultural Geography

By Dr Suzanne Beech (@suzanneebeech)

Hi everyone! I am Suzanne and I joined GEES in October last year. Being a geographer is very much in my

Walking the South Downs Way in the Snow (April 2013)

blood. My mum has been a geography teacher since the 1970s and I not only followed in her footsteps in terms of choosing to study geography but by going to the same university as she did, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), and even being taught by some of the same academic staff as well. I loved reminding my PhD supervisor, Prof Steve Royle, that he had also taught my mum when he first arrived in Belfast. That is (sadly?) where the similarities end. My mum would definitely consider herself a physical geographer, whereas I would very much describe myself as a social and cultural geographer – people are my business, in particular international student mobility has been the focus of my career to date. So, how exactly did I end up in Hull, and when did I realise that being involved in research and teaching was the job for me?

  

The Lanyon Building at QUB - a typical 'QUB Postcard' Image

I went to QUB straight after school – admittedly I was not sure about this at first. Queen’s had been my second choice, I did not think I would actually end up going there, but my Biology A-Level did not go quite as well as perhaps it should have done. Consequently I went determined not to enjoy myself. This is something I really laugh about now given that I ended up spending over eight really happy years there. Back then doing a PhD was not really something that was on my radar (I was convinced that I was supposed to be a primary school teacher for quite a long time). Research did seem, though, like something that would be a really rewarding thing to do, and I really looked up to all of the PhD students who often helped with teaching in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP), but they all seemed so intelligent and clever and all a little bit out of my league. You could perhaps say that research is something that has always been at the back of my mind, but was definitely not something that was set in stone.

My attitude changed completely during the third year of my undergraduate study. I was enrolled on a four year degree programme that included a year spent overseas in Spain on the Erasmus scheme and in September 2007 I moved to Madrid where I studied at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). This was a bit of a shock to the system in a number of ways: first, I had never actually lived away from home before; second, at the time the population of Madrid was about twice that of Northern Ireland and I felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people; third, my Spanish was nowhere near as good as I thought it was when I left home and therefore studying Geography in Spain in Spanish was a bit of a challenge for the first three months or so. I recall going on a fieldtrip to Extremadura in the West of Spain on the Portuguese border shortly after I had arrived where I spent a weekend in blissful ignorance, with no idea where exactly we were, what we were doing, or what the point of the whole expedition was. I came to realise that fieldtrips were a common feature of the Spanish higher education system, in Geography at least, and every few weeks it seemed we were off doing something in the field whether for a day or a weekend.

Selected Fieldtrips in Spain
Clockwise from top left: The Extremadura landscape, a lighthouse in Galicia, the Old Town in Toledo, the castle at Segovia

My year in Madrid was one that changed me in so many ways. By the time I left at the end of June I had matured massively, spoke Spanish pretty fluently (sadly while my Spanish is still good, I am definitely no longer fluent) but more importantly gained a huge understanding into what it means to be an international student. This included the cultural and social implications of being in a totally different country, the financial costs (Erasmus is funded, but it can still be quite an expensive venture) and also the emotional costs of being away from home. I had, therefore, gained all of this first-hand experience, but I also decided to do my dissertation research into student exchange programmes when I was there. When I was writing it up I became absolutely certain that this was something that was very much for me. The student mobilities literature was exciting, dynamic and really stimulating, and I felt like what I was doing was actually making a difference. My supervisor must have seen something in me as well, because he suggested turning it into a larger PhD project. I could not believe it when I actually managed to secure myself a studentship at Queen’s – at that point I really felt like I had made it (I did not realise just how much more there was left to do!).

Prof Steve Royle - a good likeness

I began my PhD in September 2009, just after I had finished my BSc and spent the next three and a bit years researching and writing up my findings into the motivations and influences for international student mobility to the UK, under the supervision of Prof Steve Royle. It was the most fantastic experience and I loved spending my time with lots of international students, from all manner of backgrounds and nationalities and hearing their stories of how they found themselves to be studying in the UK. Learning about their decision making and how geography and place were critical to this process was an exciting time – albeit one that was filled with blood, sweat and tears. People are always putting pictures of their babies on social media – I posted a picture of my thesis, it is my baby.

Students waving field notebooks at me in Amberley Working
Museum, West Sussex

Doing a PhD is a really unusual time. I loved it, but it drove me a little mad sometimes as well. I also knew that deciding to stay in academia would not necessarily be an easy option. However, I had really enjoyed the research and all the things that go with it (like conferences and meeting proper famous geographers), and I had loved all of the teaching opportunities as well, particularly teaching in the field. I applied for several jobs and worked in Queen’s for a few months on the School of GAP’s Athena Swan bid (an initiative which recognises moves towards greater gender equality in academia). I was also offered a post in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which I turned down because I had a feeling that something better was just around the corner – some people thought I was a little crazy given that I had been trying hard to get a job. This included my friend and office-mate Catherine who tried to convince me otherwise but to no avail. I was certain that something else was coming, and literally a few weeks later I was offered my job in GEES. The last eight months have been amazing and I have no regrets whatsoever (although I do get homesick sometimes). Things have been a real whirlwind, I have taught my own research-led module on transnationalism and have had my first paper published in Area. I cannot wait to see what the next year at Hull has to offer me, and I am really excited to see what happens thereafter!