International Mobility

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about international mobility, focusing in particular on: (i) understanding international mobility to refer to the experience of gaining an overseas opportunity to study or work; (ii) the apparent upward mobility by post-war migrants by moving to Britain, but which were found to have mobilised downwards in terms of their occupations in many cases; (iii) the example of students who may not be able to acquire valid paperwork to allow them to travel to another country to study, despite being meritocratically apparently mobile on an international level; (iv) global labour market integration as a potential challenge, which presents differences in labour market participation between national and non-national individuals in a country; (v) the fact that the UK is an attractive educational prospect for international students and that their increased tuition fees are rarely spent on improving their own experiences; (vi) the value given by international students to anglophone qualifications which ‘unlock’ the international job market; (vii) the role of religious institutions in supporting international students’ integration into their country of study.

About the lecturer

Dr Lin Ma is a lecturer in sociology in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol. Dr Ma’s research interests are in diversity and sustainable development. Some of Dr Ma’s recent publications include ‘Doing diversity inclusively: ‘East Asians’ in western universities’ (2022) and ‘Religious encounter and identity formation among international students’ (2022).