Abstract
This chapter analyzes the international mobility of academics applying the sociological life course approach to the CAP survey’s data. A typology of academic mobility is developed, and the possible factors explaining the various types of mobility are investigated. The impact of different types of mobility patterns on academics’ international activities is also analyzed. Results of the data analysis show that international academic mobility is a relevant and highly differentiated phenomenon, shaped by a complex set of factors and differentially affecting the internationalization of academic activities. Few factors influence all types of mobility, and there are meaningful similarities and differences in the factors explaining mobility occurring early or late in academics’ lives as well as in those explaining international circulation or migration. Scholars’ international mobility is positively associated with international teaching, research collaboration, and dissemination. However, different types of mobility and experience abroad have different impacts on international academic activities.
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Notes
- 1.
In using the term “mobility,” we refer to “any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition and causes (…) either across an international border, or within a State” (IOM 2004, p. 41). When people cross a state border, international mobility occurs. In using the term “international migration” we refer to a “Movement of persons who leave their country of origin, or the country of habitual residence, to establish themselves either permanently or temporarily in another country” (IOM 2004, p. 33).
- 2.
The possibility of drawing clear-cut distinctions between concepts referring to people’s movements has been questioned because “New mobilities have emerged which confound the conventional divide between migration … and other forms of human spatial mobility” (King 2002). It has been argued that “migration/mobility” can be conceived as a “time-space continuum” along which people’s movements with different degrees of temporariness and/or different motivations can be accommodated. Next to “conventional” migration, other types of movements such as “seasonal or shuttle migration”; “individuals frequently on the move, circulating between two or more countries”; “travel”; “tourism”; and “commuting” must “fit into the continuum, blurring the distinction between migration and other forms of spatial mobility” (King 2002, p. 93). Thus, there is a more general concept of “human spatial mobility” encompassing several forms which are placed along a continuum where clear-cut distinctions are increasingly difficult to draw. “International migration” conceived as a movement across national borders with the purpose of settling in another country is but one of these forms.
- 3.
It has been argued that comparative analysis of academic mobility has to deal with the problem of defining academics, that is, to decide which people working in which institution and sector are included within the academy (Teichler 2011). Especially important in the frame of a life course approach is the difference which is drawn across countries between considering doctoral candidates (and sometimes also people holding a postdoctoral position) as academics or as students. In this context we shall adopt the definition of academics which has been established for carrying out the CAP survey and we shall leave to the reader whether to interpret postgraduate studies as advanced studies or early career depending on national circumstances.
- 4.
The events and related statuses are the following: (1) birth (year); (2) first degree (year, country); (3) second degree (year, country); (4) doctoral degree (year, country); (5) postdoctoral degree (year, country); (6) first full-time appointment beyond research and teaching assistant in the higher education/research sector (year); (7) first appointment to current institution beyond research and teaching assistant (year); (8) appointment/promotion to current rank at current institution (year); (9) current employment (year, country); (10) current familial status (year); (11) current natural or social parenthood (year); (12), (13), (14) citizenship (at birth, at first degree, current; country); and (15), (16), (17) residence (at birth, at first degree, current; country).
- 5.
On the basis of the original variables included in the CAP international data set, three variables have been created: (1) “residence at birth,” distinguishing academics who were born in the country of current employment from those who were born abroad; (2) “study degree,” distinguishing higher education study degrees (first and second) earned in the country of current employment from study degrees – either first or second degrees or both – earned abroad; (3) “advanced degrees,” distinguishing doctoral and postdoctoral degrees earned in the country of current employment from doctoral and/or postdoctoral degree earned abroad and from no doctoral and/or postdoctoral degrees. As two variables have two categories and one has three categories, the possible combinations are 12.
- 6.
In analyzing international mobility, a distinction is made between short-term mobility and long-term mobility. Usually, periods abroad lasting 1 year or less are considered short-term academic mobility while periods lasting more than 1 year are considered long-term mobility (Hoffman 2009). As the CAP questionnaire does not provide information on how many periods abroad respondents have spent but only on the total length of periods abroad, it has been decided to consider short periods abroad those lasting 2 years or less and to consider long periods abroad those lasting more than 2 years.
- 7.
The classification scheme for comparing the CAP countries based on wealth and on language policy has been presented in Chap. 3. It has to be noted that the countries of origin of migrant academics who have been interviewed do not necessarily coincide with the countries participating in the CAP survey. The later must be considered as countries of destination of migrant fluxes while the former are more than 100 countries around the world, excluding the 19 participating ones. Some of academics’ countries of origin have an income which is lower than “upper middle” and have been considered as “less developed”.
- 8.
It might be that the disciplinary groups we are using in analyzing the determinants of academic mobility are too broad and hence too heterogeneous to detect meaningful differences, yet the number of respondents belonging to each type of mobility is too small to further disaggregate disciplinary groups.
- 9.
It is worth noting that if we exclude disciplines from the model, the effect of research emphasis on late mobility is similar to the one resulting for early job circulation, that is, that being especially involved in basic research has a positive impact on mobility.
- 10.
Except for the Netherlands where the question on the percentage of publications published in a foreign country was not asked and China for which data analysis does not yield results significantly different from the USA.
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Rostan, M., Höhle, E.A. (2014). The International Mobility of Faculty. In: Huang, F., Finkelstein, M., Rostan, M. (eds) The Internationalization of the Academy. The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7278-6_5
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