Exploring international student mobility: Neoliberal globalization, higher education policies and Chinese graduate student perspectives on pursuing higher education in Canada

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.