The hypothesis being tested in this study is that students who move from place to place and attend a variety of schools exhibit a level of school achievement below that attained by students from a more stable population. The particular area of investigation was the relationship between the physical mobility of children on the move to industrial areas, and their school achievement as measured by their scholastic grades.

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This dissertation project researched sudent mobility-- school changes not due to customary promotion-- and its educational correlates, for students and schools in Vermont. Student mobility research in other states has found that the majority of these students are disadvantaged youth from low-income families, and they lag behind their peers academically. Academic consequences of student mobility affect not only students, but also their schools since NCLBA implementation sanctions influence school enrollments by increasing student transfers. The need for information about rural student mobility during early NCLBA implementation is significant in predominantly rural Vermont. This was the first statewide study of outcomes of mobility for students and schools in a rural state. Three basic research questions were: (a) What is the incidence of mobility among Vermont students and schools? (b) What is the impact of mobility, i.e., how does the incidence of mobility vary according to educational correlates for students and schools? (c) What do multilevel analytical models reveal about variation in mobility from student and school perspectives that may be useful for educational policy and practice? To address these questions, the study analyzed data for Vermont public school students, grades 1 through 12, during school years 1999-2004. Data sources included: (a) the Vermont Department of Education Student Census and Demographic Update; (b) student New Standards Reference Examination English Language Arts and Mathematics tests, grades 4, 8, and 10; (c) Vermont School Report indicators, and (d) NCES-US Census public school location information. In-depth cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of mobility, performance, sociodemographic, and educational correlates revealed significant and disturbing relationships that merit policy and prevention follow-up programming. School-level mobility incidence indicated that while in-migration was 20% on average, over 30% of the schools experienced much higher rates, mirroring urban-based mobility incidence. Academically, mobile students performed 3-10 percentile ranks lower than their stable counterparts did across grade levels and content areas on standardized tests, for longitudinal cohorts as well as cross-sectional grade groups. Risk factor analyses revealed that mobile students, relative to their stable peers, were (a) more likely to participate in free or reduced lunch programs at school, (b) less likely to have a 504 plan in place, (c) more likely to have kept a writing portfolio for 0-1 years (versus 2-5 years), (d) more likely to have kept a mathematics portfolio 0-1 years (versus 2-5 years), and (e) more likely to not meet the standard on mathematics performance tests. Hierarchical generalized nonlinear modeling analyses indicated that between 8% and 32% of the variation in student mobility was attributable to school-level composition and resources. This project aimed to benefit the Vermont educational community in several ways. Analytical methodology will provide the framework for developing a longitudinal monitoring system with mobility incidence, impact, and relevant educational information. Information from analytical results will inform a case study during spring 2005 to address student mobility by raising public awareness of associated issues that affect not only the students and their families, but also classrooms, schools and communities.

This dissertation explores how the Mexican state came to embrace study abroad as a key piece of national education policy. The study begins with the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) and traces the changing politics and institutional pathways of student migration through 1982. During this period, hundreds and then thousands of Mexican students hailing from the country’s middle- and upper classes chose to finish their education in the United States. The dissertation’s central argument is that this student migration shaped the process of Mexican state formation in the wake of the Revolution. Even as scholarship programs responded to the impetus to modernize, achieve development, or foment science by importing foreign knowledge, youth demand for the chance to study abroad was a key yet unrecognized factor that explains why the state supports students’ transnational ambitions. By harnessing narratives of nationalism and modernization, Mexican youth pushed the state to develop institutions that granted international scholarships. Students aspiring to go abroad pioneered the political rationales that undergirded international education policy, which was then designed and implemented by foreign-trained Mexicans. As privileged youth, students shaped the state not by organizing but by leveraging their social and cultural capital as individuals. This dissertation points out that migration was a strategy that appealed not only to Mexico’s working-classes, but also to its “best and brightest” who sought to improve their prospects with a sojourn abroad. The dissertation’s first chapter examines how study abroad, a long-standing practice of the Mexican elite, became politicized after the Revolution. It traces debates in the press to show how a lack of state discourse about student migration gave other voices the opportunity to define the stakes of study abroad. Chapter two analyzes revolutionary-era scholarship granting practices, showing that paternalism persisted from the Porfiriato to the post-Revolution. However, the chapter reveals that Mexican students introduced revolutionary ideas into their petitions for scholarships, reframing their studies as an act of patriotism. The third chapter examines three major scholarship programs in the mid-twentieth century. It looks at both selection practices and the demographic profile of those who were chosen. These programs favored an already-privileged sector of young Mexicans, its university graduates. Chapter four, also set in the mid-twentieth century, explores the lived experiences and understandings of identity of Mexican students in the United States. This chapter argues that they pursued an ideal of middle-class mexicanidad during their sojourn abroad but found that this status was one of fragile prestige. The last chapter, covering 1960 to 1982, considers the genesis and early years of Mexico’s most important, and still extant, international scholarship granting institution, the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. This scholarship program served as a kind of social policy for young, upwardly-mobile Mexicans even as it obeyed the logic of development and science policy. The dissertation includes tables with statistical information on the Mexican students in the United States, with more detailed data for students in scholarship programs run by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Banco de México.

[pt] Este trabalho tem como foco analisar a experiência migratória de jovens peruanos que se dirigem ao Brasil como estudantes universitários. Entendendo a experiência migratória como um conjunto de vivências proporcionadas pelo deslocamento por diferentes espaços geográficos e simbólicos concomitantemente, a tese examina os significados que preenchem de sentido a mobilidade estudantil internacional. Baseando-se no método etnográfico, que tem na intersubjetividade uma condição para produção de conhecimento, a presente pesquisa analisa como os estudantes se apropriam das condições oferecidas pela sociedade peruana e brasileira para a realização deste tipo particular de mobilidade. Quando ainda estão no Peru, os jovens descobrem através de suas redes as oportunidades de estudar no Brasil, um país próximo geograficamente, mas distante culturalmente. No país de destino, as redes apoiam a adaptação dos jovens à vida cotidiana no Rio de Janeiro. Se tornar um estudante no exterior é a estratégia que os jovens peruanos elaboram para se integrar ao fluxo internacional de pessoas de forma mais socialmente prestigiada, lidando com as hierarquias de poder da sociedade peruana, que atribuem um maior valor àqueles que já viveram no exterior. Negociando com as condições estruturais dentro e fora do seu país, estes jovens encontram na mobilidade estudantil uma oportunidade para almejar novos horizontes. Neste processo, os jovens peruanos encontram um terreno fértil para (re)pensar a si mesmos, seu país de origem, o destino e o mundo. / [en] This work aims to analyze the migratory experience of Peruvian young people who go to Brazil as university students. Understanding the migratory experience as a set of experiences provided by displacement towards different geographical, and symbolic space concomitantly, this thesis examines the meanings that give a sense to international student mobility. Through ethnographic method, which consider intersubjectivity as inherent to knowledge production, the present study examines how peruvian students appropriate the conditions that Brazilian and Peruvian society offers to make this specific kind of mobility possible. Still in Peru, their network inform them about oportunities to study in Brazil, a country that is geographic close, but cultural distant from them. Once peruvian students arrive there, network in Brazil uphold their adaption to everyday life in Rio de Janeiro. To become an international student is a strategy that Peruvian young people ellaborate to be integrated into international people flow in a more prestigious way. In this process, they deal with power hierarchy of Peruvian society, that attribute greater valeu to those who have lived abroad. Negotiating against structural conditions in and outside their homecountry, these young people find in student mobility an opportunity to crave new horizons. In such process, they find a fruitful terrain to (re)think themselves, their homeland, the destination and the world.

The aim of this research was to undertake cross-county comparisons within the UK in relation to cross-border HE study mobility in order to inform understanding of, and raise issues in relation to, social inequalities between students, and the role and effect in this of policy and sectoral conditions associated with where they live. The research examined whether cross-border mobility for study within the UK reinforces inequalities in higher education (HE) participation, in relation to students’ social origin, educational background and ethnicity. It contributes new knowledge on this form of HE participation, to wider research on social inequalities in HE, and on issues of social citizenship in post-devolution UK. Sectoral and policy differences within the UK provided context for the study, which also drew on research evidence on student choice and participation, and theoretically on the concept of situated rationality in both rational action theory, specifically relative risk aversion, and cultural reproduction theory as applied to HE participation. Student and country/region differences in mobility to geographical and institution destinations were analysed using Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data, principally of young full-time undergraduate entrants in 2012 (N=290510; N movers=22155). Key variables were social characteristics, attainment, field of study and tariff level of the institution entered; and additionally field of study supply, average earnings and professional employment rates. Descriptive, logistic regression, marginal effects and average marginal effects analyses provided findings on student differences and inequalities in outward mobility. The findings suggest that cross-border mobility serves different purposes by country of domicile. Established paths in relation to social and geographical origin appeared important in the high outward mobility from Northern Ireland and Wales, as did HE supply within Northern Ireland, and to a lesser extent within Wales. From Scotland, there was less concentration of destinations in relation to place, with patterns of mobility explained better by institution type entered; and from England mobility was defined more strongly by place of domicile for movement to Wales and by institution type entered for movement to Scotland. Mobility was associated with entering an institution with a higher average entry tariff compared to staying in the home country. An overall relationship was found between socio-economic advantage and mobility, but there were important findings that could not be interpreted as simply reproducing wider inequalities in HE participation which sectoral and policy contextual factors helped to explain. Although social class effect on mobility from England was limited, and being ‘first generation’ was positively associated with mobility from Northern Ireland. Despite the extent of mobility from Northern Ireland and Wales of students from a range of backgrounds, social class effects were strong for students from both. Shorter compared to longer distance cross-border mobility appeared less strongly associated with socio-economic advantage and more strongly with movement to lower tariff institutions. Relative field of study under-supply within the home country was associated more with mobility to lower than higher tariff institutions. Some Black and Minority Ethnic students may be mobile to enter an HEI or location with greater ethnic mix than their home area. Inflows from the rest of the UK had the strongest impact on Welsh and Scottish institutions. Cross-border mobility can be conceptualised as reasoned action based on a cost-benefit evaluation influenced both by the students’ cultural and financial resources, and external constraints and opportunities. It reinforces social inequalities in HE participation, but there is under-recognised social diversity in this mobility, as enabling policy conditions also benefit those from less socio-economically advantaged backgrounds. Such students are least likely to have the resources to mitigate any policy changes that increase the cost of or create barriers to cross-border mobility; and would be least likely to have the resources to be mobile to overcome any reduction in the availability and accessibility of HE in the home country. These groups of students that should be the main focus of concern and attention both in further policy development and in future research.

Postsecondary English language education is a growing industry in the United States. While there has been considerable research on international student mobility in higher education, there is limited research on the population’s participation in U.S. English language programs (ELPs). The purpose of the study was to apply existing theories and data analysis to understand postsecondary English language program participation and create a foundation for future studies. This exploratory study examined the characteristics of international students enrolled in U.S. postsecondary ELPs. The researcher investigated the relationship between ELP enrollment with U.S. higher education enrollment as well as the relationship between ELP enrollment by destination location, ELP provider type, gender and country of origin. Finally, the researcher analyzed the completion rate of international students in U.S. postsecondary ELPs by gender and country of origin. Data from 2004-2014 were collected from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors Report. Data analysis was conducted through quantitative methods. Findings of this study may help educators reflect on the form and function of current English language programs to improve the quality of future ELPs.

With the advent of neoliberal globalization in the 1980s, international student mobility (ISM) has become a significant social and educational phenomenon. Given the increasing magnitude of international student flows from developing countries to the developed or major member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this research explores major OECD policy positions on international students, related priorities in higher education, and the influence of the GATT, the WTO and the GATS on higher education in these countries. Chinese graduate student perspectives are also drawn upon to understand Chinese student migrations to Canada in pursuit of higher education. The research considers ISM as a social and educational phenomenon of student migration across borders for higher education. Given the focus on exploration, meanings and understandings, an interpretive approach and qualitative case study strategy have been utilized to examine relative policy positions and to understand the experiences of Chinese graduate students who study at the University of Alberta (U of A) with the view to contribute towards qualitative studies of ISM. / Theoretical, Cultural and International Studies in Education

The increase in foreign students in countries such as the US, the UK and Francesuggests that the international ‘education industry’ is growing in importance. Thepurpose of this paper is to investigate the empirical determinants of internationalstudent mobility. A secondary purpose is to give tentative policy suggestions to hostcountry, source country and also to provide some recommendations to students whowant to study abroad. Using pooled cross-sectional time series data for the US overthe time period 1993-2006, we estimate an econometric model of enrolment rates offoreign students in the US. Our results suggest that tuition fees, US federal support ofeducation, and the size of the ‘young’ generation of source countries have asignificant influence on international student mobility. We also consider other factorsthat may be relevant in this context.

This study investigates student school transitions during adolescence, and how the maintenance and disruption of social ties during this school change affects students' academic trajectory through high school. School transitions are a compulsory part of the American system of education and are characterized as the movement of students between schools. Students follow these institutional pathways when they change schools, and which pathway followed plays a role in how they adjust to the new school. Some transitions are normative and are a part of the organization of schools, such as the transition from middle to high school. Some involve deviation from the traditional path, such as transferring during high school. In either case, transitions interrupt students' academic trajectory through school and involve a transformation of school-based social relationships that affect academic success. Effects of transitions have been underconceptualized in current empirical research, particularly with regard to the nonacademic realm of schools. This dissertation extends research on school transitions by broadening our understanding of how student movement between institutions affects their academic trajectory and how this is linked to three crucial aspects of student transitions: institutional pathway, social relationships made in schools and the opportunity for new social ties at the receiving school. Results reinforce that both affective attachment and extracurricular involvement are related to students overall academic trajectory. This is the case even after those ties are disrupted and reconfigured by changing schools. Results also suggest that social opportunity at the receiving institution is protective against low academic outcomes in the transition to high school, particularly among students who are socially and academically disengaged in middle school. Finally, results point to similarities among students who follow divergent institutional pathways, either in the transition to high school or for those who transfer during high school. Specifically, these students fare better after a school change by the end of high school, net of where they started academically, if they are disengaged from the sending school.