Publikationen

In this article, we take a global perspective and analyse how state institutions constitute a countries’ place in the global network of transnational student mobility. We use longitudinal social network analysis to investigate transnational student mobility patterns and find that fragile institutions act as a push factor by increasing outbound student mobility. In addition, reputation of a higher education system impacts on the countries’ role as a favoured study destination. And, particularly for countries in the Global South, cultural similarity is important for the intensity and direction of exchange within the global network of transnational student mobility.

Following the refugee influx of 2015 and 2016, many German higher education organisations (HEOs) responded with support programmes for refugee students. In this context, refugees became formally and discursively differentiated from other international students. During later stages of the programmes, this differentiation became blurred, and discourse surrounding refugee students partly shifted back to framing them as international students, which is also represented in further support programme development. Based on a systems theoretical framework, this paper investigates the shifting organisational discourse on refugee students within the context of functional needs and structural changes at German HEOs.