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Abstract

Setting the scene

In recent decades there has been a dramatic growth in the field of international higher education with an explosion of scholarly work on international educational mobilities and international students’ experiences. However, much of this work is focused on European and English-speaking western contexts. In actuality, in an article published in 2009 on Asian international students studying in Thailand, one of us already noted

little about international students in areas beyond the Western world has been discussed in the published research literature. The assumption that ‘the West is the world’ . . . appears to have marginalised even the need and importance of doing research into the so-called Other – the Other that the Self has already known and constructed (Pennycook, 1998; Said, 1978). (Phan, 2009: 202)

Although international educational mobilities have been taking place in the vast majority of Asia, research on the educational research on this area is only an emerging field of inquiry, particularly in relation to higher education (HE) and mobility studies in the international context. Indeed, scholarship on south–south mobilities is only in the making (Kang and Hwang, forthcoming 2022; Liu and Phan, 2021, Nugroho et al., 2018; Ortiga, 2018; Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2020; Phan, 2018, 2020; Sidhu et al., 2020; Yang, 2018). This Special Issue (SI) is first and foremost conceptualised in response to this significant scholarly inquiry.

Via multiple methodological approaches adopted in the individual articles, the SI also provides insight into varied student flows and their underlying implications for Asia and beyond.

Comprised of two interrelated parts (Part I and Part II), the SI as a whole is dedicated to producing and advancing scholarship on educational mobilities in Asia. The articles included in the SI are scheduled to be published between September 2021 and March 2023, and are exclusively focused on transformation generated and shaped by international educational mobilities and new developments in Asia’s HE.

Initiating and leading this SI, for us, is both intellectually and personally driven, as we play multiple roles in international education as scholars, thinkers, actors, observers, researchers, participants, producers, consumers and critics. The SI is informed by our engagement with a vast range of theoretical and empirical work on international educational mobilities and the internationalisation of HE (see, for example, Brewer and Ogden, 2019; Brooks and Waters, 2011; Collins and Ho, 2018; Collins et al., 2014; De Wit and Jones, 2018; SK Kim, 2016; Kim, 2017; Leung and Waters, 2017; Oleksiyenko, 2018; Xu and Montgomery, 2018; Yang, 2020). It is also informed by our scholarship, research, teaching and service in various countries in Asia for the past decades (for example, Fry, 2018; Fry et al., 2009; Jon et al., 2020; Liu and Phan, 2021; Paige et al., 2010; Phan, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2017; Phan and Doan, 2020; Phan and Mohamad, 2020; Phan et al., 2021; Phùng and Phan, 2021).

Geographic focus

The setting for this SI is Asia and its HE institutions. Asia is now home to roughly 60% of the world’s population, making it both a huge economic and an educational market. Three of the world’s four most populous countries, China, India and Indonesia, are in the region. With the tremendous economic growth of China, India and the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore), the economic gravity of the world has shifted to the East (Gundling and Caldwell, 2015). In 2020, Asia’s gross domestic product (GDP) surpassed that of the rest of the world. These facts and celebrated prospects about Asia can be found everywhere, from popular and scholarly writing to policy narratives to diplomacy and international relations. The Asian century and the rise of Asia discourses have dominated much of public knowledge for several decades; and they have also prompted considerable academic dialogues as Phan (2017) shows.

In addition to Asia’s widely praised economic success over the past three decades, its dynamic, fast-changing and diverse HE systems have also been observed and studied from varied approaches, perspectives and viewpoints (see, for example, Fry, 2018; Hawkins and Mok, 2015; Heslop, 2014; Neubauer and Gomes, 2017; Neubauer et al., 2019; Nonaka, 2018; Oleksiyenko et al., 2018; Phan and Doan, 2020; Phan et al., 2021; Welch, 2011). This body of literature has pointed to a number of key trends and developments in HE in Asia, which include massification, privatisation, commercialisation, internationalisation and cost escalation as neoliberalism and global university rankings are pushing their ways into all levels of policy, conceptualisation and operation. These important phenomena are complexly intertwined.

At the same time, as countries in Asia have been actively promoting the internationalisation of HE, different forms and developments of international educational mobilities are constantly evolving and growing, as all the articles included in this SI demonstrate. Examples include comparative analyses of the World Class University model that is driving and (re)shaping international educational mobilities across the four Asian Tigers’ HE systems (Oleksiyenko et al., 2021, this issue). Other organic educational mobilities have also been generated by Asian HE institutions such as the East Asian Leaders Program (EALP), a trilateral/trilingual exchange programme jointly coordinated and overseen by Japanese, Korean and Chinese universities (Hanada and Horie, 2021, this issue). The EALP, which has created unique opportunities for teaching, learning and intercultural interactions, is driven and informed by a collective effort to address specific regional historical, sociopolitical and sociocultural complications that have concerned all those involved.

The emerging attention given to student mobilities within the Asian region or south–south mobilities (for example, Chen, 2021; Collins and Ho, 2018; Gunter and Raghuram, 2017; Lipura and Collins, 2020; Nguyen et al., 2020; Ortiga, 2018; Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2020; Phan, 2009, 2017, 2018; Wong and Wen, 2013; Xu and Montgomery, 2018; Yang, 2018, 2020) points to a serious need to diversify and transform thinking about HE and international education in the Asia region, a scholarly call to which this SI rigorously responds. Actually within Asia, studies of HE in countries in East Asia – particularly China, Japan and South Korea – have dominated the existing literature. The same thing can be said about contexts such as Singapore and Malaysia in Southeast Asia. The rest of Asia’s HE is much less known. In the same vein, studies of international educational mobilities in areas such as Brunei, India and Vietnam are exceedingly rare. This SI is the first that brings all these contexts together in an attempt to understand marginal or overlooked HE spaces that, in diverse ways and to varied extent, are rising as increasingly important players in the realm of international educational mobilities.

All in all, the articles in Part I of this SI focus on various forms of international educational mobilities and new developments in HE in Asia and how this dynamic region is providing diverse, attractive destinations and enriching academic and learning spaces for Asian students as well as students from all parts of the world.

International, inter-Asian, intraAsian educational mobilities

We would like to clarify a number of key concepts and terms used in this SI. To start with, we refer to both mobility and mobilities interchangeably in this SI. They both encompass the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ and the ‘mobility’ turn discussed in the influential scholarship of John Urry and others (Jensen et al., 2018; Sheller and Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007). Indeed, there is a journal titled Mobilities initiated by John Urry, Mimi Sheller and Kevin Hannam in 2006. With regards to educational/academic mobility, ‘mobilities’ in plural form is being used more and more these days by scholars of diverse fields including sociology, geography and education such as Collins and Ho (2018), Jöns et al. (2017), Lipura and Collins (2020), Xu and Montgomery (2018). From our reading of the existing literature, ‘mobilities’ as a term signifies the diverse range, forms, shapes, contents and specialised fields embedded in the concept itself. Likewise, ‘mobilities’ – when presented in plural form – also points to the multiple theoretical, ideological, conceptual and methodological approaches and disciplinary foundations employed and developed by researchers. Our SI, in varied ways and manners, joins hands with the surveyed literature to continue to enrich, critique and push research and scholarship along the lines of the ever-complex ‘(im)mobility’ turn.’

Part I of this SI with five substantial articles focuses on the range and extent of transformation that international educational mobilities and the internationalisation of HE have enabled and promised to bring about in terms of personal and professional growth, pedagogy, teaching, learning, intercultural interactions, social engagement and capacity building for institutions, communities and societies in Asia. This focus contributes to advancing further our knowledge of educational mobilities by discovering scholarly gaps and examining new phenomena. Specifically, we do so by connecting international educational mobilities to new developments and transformation in Asia’s HE spaces, in response to Asia’s significant and growing role in the global landscape of HE and the many forms and intensities of mobilities within the region as well as being brought in, appropriated and transformed. At the same time, we examine different and intersecting purposes of educational mobilities within Asia such as mobilities for circulating aspirations to rise to the top (Oleksiyenko et al., 2021, this issue), mobilities for academic goals, mobilities for society, mobilities for self-transformation and identity building, and mobilities as individually initiated and as top-down mandated (Hanada and Horie, 2021, this issue; Kheir, 2021, this issue; Kumpoh et al., 2021, this issue; Lipura, 2021, this issue). We also investigate the ways in which HE developments such as university–community partnerships (Kumpoh et al, 2021, this issue), and bilateral and multilateral collaborations among institutions and programmes (Hanada and Horie, 2021, this issue) may shape mobility experiences and aspirations for individuals and educational organisations.

Next, we have noted that scholars have used academic mobility/ies and educational mobility/ies in existing literature. Are they the same or how are they different? Academic mobility/ies refers primarily to student and staff mobility/ies, whereas educational mobility/ies encompasses the movement of faculty, scholars, staff and community members as well as the mobility/ies of ideas, practice, programmes, curricula, courses and partnerships (Xu and Montgomery, 2018). The title of this SI adopts ‘international educational mobilities’ in recognition of the term’s more inclusive meaning, whereas different papers included in the SI refer to academic mobility/ies, student mobility/ies and/or educational mobility/mobilities as they engage with each or all of these terms and processes.

Then, related to the two points raised above, in this SI we are using both inter-Asian and intraAsian mobility/ies to indicate educational mobilities within the Asian region. Inter-Asian and intraAsian mean the movement across Asian countries, but not within the same country, such as students from Kunming, China, going to study in Shanghai. For more information about the implications associated with these terms, please refer to the SI put together by Collins and Ho (2018) entitled ‘Discrepant knowledge and InterAsian mobilities: Unlikely movements and uncertain futures’ published in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, and the upcoming SI on international mobilities in and out of South Korea, guest-edited by Younghan Cho, Jiyeon Kang and Phan Le Ha (forthcoming 2022) for Globalisation, Societies and Education.

Transformation

When we initiated this SI, we felt that in order to take a new path, we needed to be able to convince ourselves and others of the intellectual and practical importance of placing transformation at the centre of inquiries when it comes to international educational mobilities and new development in HE in Asia. Why transformation?

Transformation is the key word here. Its on-going intellectual influence is indebted to Mezirow’s and associates (1978) seminal work on transformative learning in adult education that evolved over the years (Mezirow, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2000) and continues to inform the scholarship, research, pedagogy and practice of many educators and scholars across the disciplines (for example, Boyd and Myers, 1988; Bullen and Roberts, 2019; Johnson and Howell, 2017; JJ Kim and Kim, 2019; Phillips, 2019; Taylor, 2001, 2007). Along this line of inquiry, one of us (Gerald Fry) co-wrote a book on transformation with regard to study abroad (Paige et al., 2009) and has also run about 20 programmes in Southeast Asia and East Asia which emphasised transformation and cooperative learning (see Tomita et al., 2000 for details). Inspired by this body of work, we see transformation as taking place and being generated and accumulated at multiple points and on numerous occasions where and when the personal, the sociohistorical, the social and one’s reflections, experiences and relationships with others and with the world come together to inform learning.

The late Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal (1969) from Sweden forcefully argues that scholars and researchers should make explicit the normative value premises that guide their work. Ruth Behar (1996), a highly regarded cultural anthropologist at the University of Michigan, also urges researchers to make their values known. The editors of and contributors to this SI have taken this wise advice to heart as we have developed the SI and all the accompanying articles.

Our first and fundamental value premise is the belief that, in general, educational mobilities bring about great value and opportunities for learning, reflection and transformation for all concerned: the individual, the institutions and communities with which they are associated, and society at large. Extensive research supports this view (see, for example, Nugroho et al., 2018; Diao and Trentman, 2021; Fry et al., 2009; Jon and Fry, 2021; Ortiga, 2018; Paige et al., 2009, 2010; Phan, 2017, 2018; Tran and Gomes, 2017; Yang, 2018). As shown in all the articles in this SI and its accompanying articles, we also see mobilities as a pivotal condition and lens through which transformation is enabled and shows its diverse colours in ways that are often unexpected and easy to be overlooked. Second, through studies conducted in different educational mobility contexts we would like to see how mobility experiences could be as transformative as possible, and how transformation can be observed, perceived, communicated, reflected upon and lead to changes and actions for the betterment of humanity and society.

Third, directly related to the second value, is the need as international education educators and scholars to provide for the most challenging, in-depth educational experiences which promote intercultural understanding and competency, as well as humanistic international education (Mcallister, 2018). Fourth, we are of the view that transformation via international educational mobilities in Asia can take place from the margin and unexpected or even unappreciated, undesirable, unlikely spaces and places (Lipura, 2021, this issue; Phan, 2017, 2018; Yang, 2018), alongside the predominant discourse of well-established elite mobilities (Collins et al., 2014; Oleksiyenko et al., 2021, this issue). One of us (Phan, 2017) coins ‘transformative mediocrity’ to conceptualise and theorise the transformation that is generated out of seemingly mediocre encounters, spaces and places as perceived and experienced and reflected upon by students, administrators and institutions in the context of transnational HE in Asia and the Gulf region.

What’s more, while we acknowledge the importance of critically engaging with ethics and equity and social justice issues in scholarly work on international educational mobilities (see, for example, Chen, 2021; Collins and Ho, 2018; Phan and Barnawi, 2015; Tanarath, 2019; Waters, 2012), we would like to echo what we have argued elsewhere: that critical scholarship must address transformation in its diverse forms (Chowdhury and Phan, 2014; Phan, 2018). Likewise, we recognise the important role of language in international educational mobilities and in the transformative experiences of those involved. Although the popular role of English continues to dominate (De Costa et al., 2020, 2021), other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Vietnamese are emerging as important media of instruction, research and intercultural/social engagement (Hanada and Horie, 2021, this issue; Kheir, 2021, this issue; Kumpoh et al., 2021, this issue; Lipura, 2021, this issue).

In conceptualising transformation, reference to place and locality – recognised as important concepts related to student mobilities, international education, identity and experience – is an important theme throughout the contributing articles. Through in-depth and wide-ranging studies of inter-Asian or intraAsian student mobilities brought together in this collection, many new insights have emerged in terms of epistemologies, pedagogy, teaching, learning, intercultural communication and competency, professional growth and institutional capacity in the Asia region.

Alongside a few existing others (Cho et al., forthcoming 2022; Collins and Ho, 2018; Phan et al., 2020; Sidhu et al., 2020), this SI is another much-needed collective effort to put Asia at the centre of global HE. In the same vein, this SI is perhaps the very first collection that is centred on transformative experiences – those that occur at all possible levels including individual, institutional, sociocultural, linguistic, intercultural, social, national, regional and global as well as aspirational and emotional. These transformative experiences, as all the contributing articles demonstrate, happen in all shapes, forms and spaces. The many conceptualisations of transformation discussed and demonstrated in all the articles have prompted Leve (2021, this issue) to write a highly inspiring, captivating and engaging commentary to conclude Part I of this SI. In her commentary, Leve has referred to transformation as ‘transformative possibilities’. She creatively interweaves her thoughts on international education and international mobilities with moments of ‘interruptions’ whereby her reflections are constantly influenced and complicated by her contemplations of possibilities for transformation. Leve’s commentary serves as a powerful testimony to our scholarly effort to put transformation at the centre of inquiry and as an extended call for readers to appreciate and critically engage with this important scholarly endeavour addressed in this SI.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Author biographies

Phan Le Ha is a Senior Professor in the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education and Head of the International and Comparative Education Research Group, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She is also affiliated with the Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa, US. Please visit her homepage for more information: .

Gerald W Fry is a distinguished international Professor and a Professor of international/intercultural education, Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. A major part of his professional life has been involvement with international, intercultural and interdisciplinary activities. He served for a number of years as both a Director of international studies and as a Director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. He also was twice team leader for major Asian Development Bank educational reform projects in Laos and Thailand respectively. In 2009, he received the University of Minnesota Award for Global Engagement.

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Editorial: International educational mobilities and new developments in Asia’s higher education: Putting transformations at the centre of inquiries

Abstract

Setting the scene

Geographic focus

International, inter-Asian, intraAsian educational mobilities

Transformation

Footnotes

Funding

Author biographies

References