From privilege to differentiation. International students' class reworkings
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Date
2023
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Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Abstract
Based on two qualitative studies on international student mobility from China and Chile in the United States, this article reflects on the process of reworking social class within internationalisation. As scholars researching international students/academic mobility and reflecting on our internationalisation process, we analyse how social class moves across borders and back again and how our lived experiences shaped our research themes. Using insights from the sociology of education, Whiteness, and decolonial studies, we argue that social class positioning moves with the space where people are from and is embedded with racialised constructions of people and places, tensioning the naturalised idea that internationalisation allows people to move up. To move towards a complex understanding of the experiences of international students/academics, research with international students needs to rethink linear understandings about where people start, where they move to, and where they end up. Reflections in this article raised questions about the ways class privilege is negotiated and/or used as a differentiation marker in both spaces, the native country Chile and China and the United States.