International education is a field of globalised policy discourses, with multiple power differentials. The national policy changes presented in the previous chapter have taken place not within a vacuum, but in a global context, impacted by ideas, logics and shared assumptions. This discussion is premised on Marginson and Sawir’s (2006) distinction between internationalisation and globalisation, where the former is understood as relations between nations and the latter as diffuse networks of interactions on multiple levels, including but not limited to nations. Participation in international higher education , particularly the capacity to attract and host international students, has come to be seen as desirable for governments. This commitment to international higher education is part of a globalised discourse, which presumes benefits to host nations, students and the world as a whole. Policy offers multiple rationales for participation in international higher education and in particular for the recruitment , attraction and hosting of international students. They become a “privileged policy instrument” (Vincent-Lancrin 2004, p. 221) which nations deploy in rhetoric to further their self-interest.

Discourse theory suggests that all social practices are constructed through and embedded in discourses. For example, understanding education as a social practice highlights how educational practices shape behaviours and values, creating the future citizen. In doing so, both teachers and students use, acquire and create particular discourses, such as the discourse of employability . Talking about employability both shapes how people perceive and value it, and creates it as a real thing. Policy can be understood as social practice and therefore as discourse (Ball 1993; Saarinen 2008a). The creation and dissemination of a policy takes place within social contexts and draws on existing discourses with the intent of governing and shaping action, environments and events. A policy-as-discourse approach considers that policy extends beyond the formal document and includes the actions and justifications made around the text. These are embedded in meaning systems with particular assumptions, values and signs, producing “truth” and “knowledge” from a position of power . Policy creation and communication involves a series of discursive events: meetings to draw up the policy, consultation, writing strategy documents, press conferences, speeches, actions taken and evaluations conducted. These reveal the normative positions taken by the state and its attendant institutions, which also constitute policy (Rizvi and Lingard 2010). Policy therefore extends beyond the document and includes the actions and justifications made around the text. “Policy” as a construct can thus be understood not as a unitary discourse, but rather a constellation of events where discourses emerge from a collage of creative reproduction, selection and adaptation (Bacchi 2009). For example, the Conservative austerity policy in the UK is justified through new combinations of older discourses of fiscal responsibility, social mobility and global competitiveness (among others), which all existed previously in other domains. It is the justifications and rationales for policy which reveal the values underpinning assumptions (Rizvi and Lingard 2010). Therefore, it is important to examine the rationales presented for internationalisation of higher education, in a global discursive context.

As a social practice, policy is understood to be created through discourses, embedded in meaning systems with particular assumptions, values and signs, producing “truth” and “knowledge” from a position of power (Ball 1993). Policies are discursive formations in their own right but also create, reproduce and disseminate ideas and terminology which migrate into other domains. Bacchi (2009) considers that all policy is derived from (though not determined by) particular discourses and creative of particular discursive formations. Instead of seeing text as a transparent description of a real problem (Saarinen 2008a), akin to Ball’s “policy as text” approach (1993), public policy can be seen to include the values, actions and normative positions taken by the state and its attendant institutions (Rizvi and Lingard 2010). Considering the policy’s discursive framework and context of production allows these to be incorporated into the analysis, exploring how values relate to the allocation of resources and the language used to legitimate policy (Codd 1988).

Policy actions proposed by governments and the rationales offered for them can be understood as means of solving implied problems (Bacchi 2009). Governments and other policy actors seek to legitimate their actions and power through discourse, drawing on ideological consensus to generate a shared understanding of the object. The creation and solution of problems fosters such legitimacy. Thus, policy rationales expose underlying representations of problems, made apparent by advocating particular solutions and reasons. In so doing, these rationales incorporate and generate multiple representations of social subjects . When policy encourages the attraction and recruitment of international students, justifications and reasons are given in rationales.

This chapter explores key aspects of globalised international higher education discourses. First, it explores how the globalised education policy field is sustained and the key dominant discourses therein. Second, it reviews the rationales made for engagement in international higher education, demonstrating how the global policy field influences these rationales. Finally, it explores how globalised discourses and policy rationales generate subject of international students.

Global Structures and Spaces

Higher education, as discussed in the introduction, has a long tradition of internationalism. Global student and academic mobility , international curricula and global structures all create a policy space where nations and institutions collaborate and compete, but most importantly where they participate in shared discourses. While international education governance is underdeveloped (Marginson et al. 2010), participating states acquiesce in certain norms, structures and rules. These norms tend to exert pressure towards an increased commodification of education (Robertson et al. 2002). Countries comply with the value judgements implicit in shared norms through funding arrangements, provision of data and so on. In international student mobility, these norms are predicated on mutual acquiescence to a view of higher education as a tradeable service, which consumers cross borders to obtain. This is enforced by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), established by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (Enders 2004; Tilak 2008). The GATS established a requirement that all participating countries permit the trade in education as a service, whether supplied across borders through TNE or consumed abroad through study abroad (Sidhu 2007). While theoretically voluntary, in practice all member countries of the WTO are bound by this agreement by pressures from more powerful member states, regions and business interests (Robertson et al. 2002). States are required to remove barriers to the free movement of those providing or consuming such services. The GATS prevents states from arbitrarily preventing international students from entering the country. The dominance of the neo-liberal discourse leaves, as Robertson et al. (2002) comment, little space for the discussion of contradictions and problems of global capitalism. Capitalist markets, and their ideological foundations, have been the primary vehicle for disseminating global neo-liberal Western norms and values of governance (Tikly 2003). International education is a site of such governance. It is often argued that this power in global organisations in networks indicates a decline in state power, an inevitable consequence of globalisation. However, in many global organisations such as the WTO and the United Nations negotiations and agreements are still made between nations. And even within the structures of globalised discourses, states can still respond and take action on national levels (Brooks and Waters 2011). While the nation state should no longer necessarily be seen as the default “container” for policy (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013), it is still a critical actor.

International higher education is disciplined by multiple intersecting structures and is entrenched in neo-colonial power flows (Sidhu 2006; Rhee 2009; Rizvi and Lingard 2010). The inequalities between nations and universities, for example, lead to flows of students from East–South to West–North (Marginson 2006; Sidhu 2006), although this is starting to shift gradually (Becker and Kolster 2012; Universities UK 2014). English language still dominates as a medium for study and publication (Marginson 2008), retaining the status gained during the nineteenth century at the height of the British Empire and capitalising on the more recent cultural dominance of the USA . Speaking English confers cultural capital , facilitating employment in globalised business environments and evincing participation in cosmopolitan networks (Brooks and Waters 2011). League tables and ranking mechanisms help to structure the field by generating differentiation between nations and institutions, influenced by the practices of Western Anglo-Saxon nations (Marginson and van der Wende 2007). Nations and institutions respond to and shape this complex, multi-level globalised context (Marginson and Rhoades 2002; Saarinen 2008b). Rankings , publications and funding generate power for institutions and states; therefore, they compete for resources, which remain, for now, concentrated in the Global North.

Increasingly, policy discourses are taking place on a global, as well as a local or national scale (Rhee 2009; Rizvi and Lingard 2010), with discursive interventions through globalised mass media and neo-imperialism exerted through power structures (Sidhu 2006; Shahjahan 2013). Policies can travel, through borrowing of particular initiatives (Geddie 2014) and discursive interventions from transnational non-governmental organisations (NGOs) by creating conceptual models or naming phenomena (Saarinen 2008c). Such borrowing can be rational-technical in approach, but can also be the consequence of accepting particular normative frameworks. For example, the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Office (UNESCO) is overtly internationalist in its approach, identifying higher education as a site for possible harmonious exchange (De Wit 1999). It also collects data on international student mobility flows and facilitates quality development in higher education through networking, playing a technical as well as a normative role. Allan Luke (2011) gives the example of how the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS ) has become the standard measurement of English language proficiency through corporate lobbying. An apparently technical question—how best to measure and assure competence in English language—has normative roots, assuming that it is possible to measure such competence numerically, that British English constitutes its standard usage, and that it is appropriate to commodify the test, its results and its education, among others (Templer 2004). The IELTS, and others like it, have become so widespread in usage and acceptance of their legitimacy, conferring or preventing entrance to countries through visas as well as university entrance, that these normative concerns appear practically esoteric and certainly irrelevant. Like language testing, data collection on student mobility is another sign of discursive hegemony in globalised policy spaces.

The National Space and Governmentality

These global interactions reflect the importance of shared rationalities and logics of governance , or governmentality (Rose and Miller 2008). The concept of governmentality identifies technologies and ways of thinking involved in governing people. Foucault (1977, p. 102) includes in this.

the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power , which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses in security .

In particular, Foucault (1977) highlights the role of knowledges (savoirs) accumulated for the purposes of controlling the population through statistics. A relevant example here would be the number of students entering the UK in a given year. The act of collecting such statistics, and constituting them as knowledge, expresses and enables state power . On the strength of such statistics, quotas could be imposed, for instance, and students located and deported. Such statistics and knowledges shape conduct and the relations between the state and its subjects (Sidhu 2007). The main construct of governmentality is the grounds on which the state legitimately acquires its authority, which in modern forms derives from its rationality, seeking perfection in the processes and instruments of government (Foucault 1977). It is thus essential for policy to demonstrate its rationality and the efficiency of its processes in order to be considered legitimate. Policy needs to be seen to work if it and its creators are to have authority.

Rose and Miller (2008) argue that the contemporary trend of disassembling state activities, “governing at a distance”, makes governmentality more relevant than the state’s coercive or sovereign role. Power is exerted through persuasion of thought, rather than force (van Dijk 1996), because the aim is not to defeat the populace but to make it productive and govern through the processes of production (Sidhu 2006). In the absence of a pervasive centralised state, essential services are delivered by third parties or quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (QUANGOs). In the UK, higher education is governed at a distance through agencies such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE ), the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA ), the Higher Education Academy (HEA ), and the British Council (Dodds 2009). This governing at a distance through organisations which demand oversight and accountability is actually argued to reduce the autonomy of institutions and the sector (Kogan and Hanney 2000; Shattock 2008; Trow 2006; Brown and Carasso 2013). As Marginson et al. (2010, p. 261) put it, “Responsibilisation…does not subtract from authority or control”. Instead, control is exerted discursively, through shared logics.

These agencies engage in globalised education fields, respectively, through distribution of funding shaped by global rankings , assuring quality in TNE as well as domestically, encouraging aspects of internationalisation in teaching and learning in the UK , and branding and marketing of the UK as an international higher education destination. They co-construct governmentality “through a range of technologies that install and support the civilising project by shaping and governing the capacities, competencies and wills of subjects yet are outside the formal control of the ‘public powers’” (Rose and Miller 2008, loc4599). These technologies include quality frameworks, global and domestic rankings, as well as the requirement of data dissemination such as the Key Information Sets which inform potential students and parents how much contact time particular courses offer, for example. The National Student Survey could also be seen as a technology for governance , given that it is run in part by HEFCE and plays a significant role in determining institutions’ place in rankings. The design and implementation of the questionnaire reflect the normative beliefs and assumptions at work , and the results are treated as knowledge about “student satisfaction ” as an object. It therefore exerts a disciplinary effect on institutions which change their practices to enhance their scores (Sabri 2013).

Taking “educational policy as a discourse of the state” (Tikly 2003, p. 166) therefore provides a window on governmentality. Through this window, national responses to global discourses of international higher education can be identified. Governments as policy actors interpret, translate, reproduce and at times resist these globalised policy discourses (Saarinen 2008c; Rizvi and Lingard 2010); they are not universal, but certain discourses could be said to be hegemonic, particularly marketisation .

Globalised Discourses

There are multiple intersecting and contradictory global discourses around international higher education but only a few dominate. Kehm and Teichler (2007, p. 262) characterise internationalisation in higher education as “a highly normative topic with strong political undercurrents”; in other words, some stakeholders are committed to international higher education because of their principles and ideals. There is an important thread of “internationalism” (Altbach and Knight 2007), a commitment to a perceived international community as intrinsically good (Amit 2010). Policy, while subscribing in part to these ideologies, also offers more instrumental accounts of why nation states should engage in international education, framing international engagement in pragmatic terms.

The understanding of international higher education as a global marketplace is a dominant discourse (Molesworth et al. 2009; Robertson 2011; Brown and Carasso 2013). Marketisation is premised on the neo-liberal economic model, in which individuals are seen as economically self-interested, and free markets are seen as the most efficient method to distribute resources (Olssen and Peters 2005). This effectively depoliticises international higher education (Sidhu 2006). In human capital theory, individual workers are considered to possess degrees of economic and educational capital (Olssen and Peters 2005), which can be exchanged for value in the labour market (Marginson 1997). Higher levels of skills and knowledge confer higher value, on both an individual and a national level. In the knowledge economy model, nations benefit from a more highly educated and skilled populace, as well as from an economic structure which generates high-value knowledge through research and innovation, and generating income through the provision of high-level services like education. Education becomes more important to individuals, as they must be more skilled to be effective as knowledge workers (Robertson 2005). But higher education adds to individual human capital and is therefore seen as a private good (Marginson 1997), where the qualification codifies and guarantees knowledge and skills which can be exchanged for labour market value. Marketisation is therefore associated with a shift away from the representation of higher education as a public good . This means that it is the responsibility of the individual to engage in their personal development by “up-skilling” and “up-educating” themselves, to compete.

It is this logic which permits the introduction of “user-pay” systems of higher education. The successful (in economic terms) implementation of such a system for international students, Walker (2014) suggests, made possible the introduction of tuition fees for home students in 1997 in the UK . Marketisation is also apparent in the liberalisation of certain aspects of the international higher education market, such as the use of agencies on behalf of national sectors such as the British Council Education Counselling Service and EduFrance (Dodds 2009). These agencies have undertaken the marketing and advertising of higher education overseas (Sidhu 2002; Askehave 2007), in much the same way as traditional products are advertised and marketed. In this model, students are understood to seek internationally recognised qualifications, choosing higher education destinations “only after making value for money judgements about comparable ‘products’” in other countries (Elliott 1998, p. 37).

Organisations like the WTO (Sidhu 2007), World Bank (Robertson 2009) and the OECD (Shahjahan 2013) reproduce the normative frameworks of marketisation, shaping higher education as an economic instrument. They share, as Matross Helms et al. (2015) put it, “the policymaking space” with national governments. International higher education becomes implicated in national policy responses to these intersecting discourses as both a site for augmenting national human and knowledge capital, and an internationalised service industry on the GATS model as discussed above.

Nations respond to these globalised policy discourses by seeking competitive national advantage . In the marketised model of international relations, countries behave like corporations, seeking to maximise profits at the expense of other countries (Brown and Tannock 2009). Through marketisation, the competition state attempts to make national economic activities internationally competitive (Cerny 1997). Rather than conceiving of higher education as playing a national role in the provision of skills and training needed domestically or of playing an emancipatory, transformational role in the education of its citizens, it becomes another arena in which to compete internationally (Yang 2002). Yet even in a free-market model that seeks to limit state intervention, the role of the nation in investing and resourcing higher education institutions remains critical (Marginson and Sawir 2006). Such investment is often needed in order to bolster the competitive capacity of institutions and sectors. Higher education adds to national competitiveness by generating income through “exporting education” and generating knowledge and innovation through research and development . This trend is apparent in the discreet pressures for UK universities to create spin-off for-profit companies as a result of local innovation, part of a transparently neo-liberal agenda which aligns with the ideological emphasis on reduced state control and funding . Higher education also creates competitive national advantage by adding to reputation and influence , which are seen to enhance the nation’s status (Anholt 2006). The profits are therefore not exclusively financial. A world-leading higher education sector adds to the nation’s reputation and potentially to its global influence.

Rationales

Rationales for internationalisation and in particular, the attraction and recruitment of international students, are frequently grouped into four categories: political; sociocultural; educational or academic ; and economic (Elliott 1998).

The political rationale argues that hosting international students creates influence over other countries. This is seen to constitute a source of “Soft power ” (Ma 2010; Trilokekar 2010), cultural or political influence exerted through attraction and reputation . Soft power is conceptualised as the opposite of “hard power” as military might (Nye 2004). Thus a country can force another country into action or submission through the use of their military, or they can exert more subtle means of influence. The latter would be considered soft power . This is also seen to support national security (Matross Helms et al. 2015). International education is seen as a source of soft power through educational exchange, where students are believed to become sympathetic to the culture and values of their host country (Belcher 1987; Knight and de Wit 1995; Vincent-Lancrin 2004). Similar beliefs underpin explicitly political regional mobility schemes such as the European Erasmus scheme which seeks to promote a sense of European citizenship. Papatsiba (2006a) terms this a “civic rationale”, highlighting the idea that students will change their political identification as a result. The political rationale also includes arguments relating to diplomacy , international aid and development , and mutual peace.

The diplomatic rationale argues that international students are good for foreign policy and relationships between countries. International students may create informal diplomatic channels (Ma 2010) and maintain “international cultural relations” (Trilokekar 2010). They act as “young ambassadors ” for their region when they study elsewhere (Papatsiba 2005) and generate influence on behalf of the country in which they studied on their return home (Qiang 2003). Where countries have strained official political relationships, international students or alumni are thought to be able to foster backchannels of informal communication. On global levels, Knight (2004) suggests that student mobility may contribute to bilateral “strategic alliances” between countries, creating positive diplomatic relationships (Belcher 1987). Where alumni have existing connections to the country in which they studied, this is seen to strengthen bilateral bonds in terms of trade and cultural connection. Alumni are thought to use the networks they develop during their studies to build business links, to prefer to consume commodities from their host country, as well as sustaining friendships and relationships. Cumulatively, this is considered to enhance diplomatic relationships through familiarity and positive perceptions of the country.

The international aid and development rationale positions international education, and the welcoming of international students as vehicles for aid and development to developing countries (Belcher 1987; Rizvi 2011; Matross Helms et al. 2015). The aid rationale was particularly characteristic of national policies in the post-colonial period when countries like the UK and Australia engaged in schemes such as the Colombo plan to encourage development in ex-colonial countries (Harman 2004; Sidhu 2006). In this logic, sending students overseas for their tertiary education allows developing countries to import higher education at low cost (Altbach and Knight 2007; Ma 2010), and it is the responsibility of more developed nations to help subsidise this (Trilokekar 2010). This labour force can then contribute to nation building (Knight 2004). Traces of this rationale are still apparent in programmes such as the Commonwealth Scholars, which offers education in the UK to rising political leaders in Commonwealth countries. While superficially altruistic, the aid and development rationale implies long-term political advantage as a result of such engagement (Matross Helms et al. 2015). Its importance has decreased in recent years, except with reference to scholarship schemes, and has largely given way to the economic rationale (Harman 2004; Knight 2004).

Mutual understanding and peace is also argued to be a consequence of internationalisation generally and to foster national security agendas (Yang 2002; Qiang 2003; Knight 2004; Rivza and Teichler 2007; Ma 2010). When they study abroad, international students gain an understanding of the host country and culture, bridging ideological divides upon their return home. In the long term, this is argued to generate a cosmopolitan , global sensibility, contributing to sustained peace and political stability (Papatsiba 2005). Studying abroad is considered to foster a sense of global citizenship (Amit 2010), changing the perceptions of students away from a primary identification with their country of origin and encouraging them to take a broader more global view. Vincent-Lancrin (2004) describes this as the traditional foundation for internationalisation of higher education . The normative elements of internationalism are particularly evident in this rationale, as benefits are seen to be distributed globally rather than nationally; in other words, it is not a competitive rationale. Neither is it entirely altruistic, however, as nations are still seen to benefit individually from enhancing their national security (De Wit 1999). Increasingly, however, there is a conflation between the global citizenship discourse and employability, suggesting that “global competence” among graduates increases employment and productivity (Matross Helms et al. 2015). This frames global citizenship as an economic question.

The sociocultural rationale argues that international academic contact, and in particular the presence of international students, enriches the culture and society of the host country (Burke 2013; Harman 2004). In this narrative, international students are positioned in an educational role within communities and societies. Their presence is seen to diversify local communities, teaching residents about their country of origin through cultural contact. It also includes a dimension of soft power , as influence can be gained through international students’ understanding of the host country’s culture and language (Qiang 2003; Ma 2010). This evokes the inverse role of the student-as-ambassador, where they represent their country of origin while in the host country. This rationale has lost a degree of influence relative to the economic and political rationales (Knight 2004).

The educational or academic rationale is a significant motivator for international student recruitment . This suggests that an international classroom and student body stimulates critical thinking and a global outlook (Knight and de Wit 1995; Ma 2010). Internationalisation thereby enhances domestic academic standards and quality (Belcher 1987; Qiang 2003; Rivza and Teichler 2007; Becker and Kolster 2012; Matross Helms et al. 2015). Thus an internationalised education is a sign of a good education. This rationale assigns an “instructional role” to international students with regard to domestic students (Burke 2013), offering them knowledge and a global perspective, subsidising the internationalisation of the curriculum (Doherty 2008). For Yang (2002), an international approach is fundamental for many disciplines for research as well as for teaching, and he suggests that these are the “genuine values of internationalisation ” (p. 87), as opposed to economic agendas. In the case of the Erasmus European exchange programme, Papatsiba (2006a) found that student mobility through this programme was implicitly intended to develop a “European standard” for higher education . In this model, it is international collaboration or cooperation that generates improvements in academic quality; conversely, it is sometimes argued that international competition enhances quality, by incentivising institutions to keep up with global pedagogical leaders (Luijten-Lub et al. 2005). Internationalisation discourses argue that universities must respond to globalised fields of work and consumption by internationalising classrooms and curricula to prepare students for life in a globalised world (de Vita and Case 2003; Healey 2008). Humfrey (2011) observes that a high-quality student experience has become synonymous with an international experience , creating an expectation that institutions will provide these global opportunities for interaction to satisfy students. Improving educational quality also enables institutions to build their reputations (Knight 2004, 2015), which may be extended to a national-level rationale with the development of national brands and agencies for higher education (Sidhu 2002; Dodds 2009). Quality discourses place higher education systems in global competition and comparison with other countries, in the interests of making nations more attractive (Saarinen 2005). Approaches to quality therefore converge (Marginson 2008), while competing. International rankings structure and reinforce this rationale, enhancing the “visibility and stature of the national higher education system on the world stage” (Matross Helms et al. 2015, p. 7).

Finally, the economic rationale is probably the most prevalent and widely observed (De Wit 1999; Qiang 2003; Harman 2004; Rivza and Teichler 2007; Geddie 2014; Knight, 2015). It is seen by some to be an instrumentalist or utilitarian approach (Papatsiba 2005; Amit 2010), with its roots in the marketisation discourse described above. Hosting international students is seen to generate revenue directly, creating an “education export ” stream of income both institutionally (Bolsmann and Miller 2008) and nationally. International higher education therefore leads to economic growth (Knight and de Wit 1995; Knight 2004; Vincent-Lancrin 2004; Luijten-Lub et al. 2005; Becker and Kolster 2012). In the highly commercialised environment of modern international higher education, fee payments from international students constitute a significant source of revenue for countries. Set within a broader context of other international and TNE activity, such as institutional partnerships , franchise programmes, e-learning and publishing, the “sector” takes on an even greater economic significance (Altbach and Knight 2007).

Indirect economic benefits are also seen to accrue from international students’ contributions to research and development , as well as technological progress (Knight and de Wit 1995). For many nations, and for regions such as Europe (Papatsiba 2005), international students are seen to bolster the labour market, thus encouraging economic growth (Qiang 2003; Tremblay 2005; Amit 2010; Knight 2015; Matross Helms et al. 2015). They are seen as skilled workers, acquiring valuable international knowledge and abilities, potentially filling gaps in the knowledge economy (Vincent-Lancrin 2004; Ziguras and Law 2006). In the case of Europe, this constitutes a long-term contribution to a unified labour market (Papatsiba 2006). In other cases, international student mobility is a way for countries to recruit into particular jobs in the short term, and in still others, as a long-term route into citizenship (Geddie 2014).

In addition, benefits to the student are frequently listed alongside benefits to the host country (Knight and de Wit 1995). Such benefits include broadening horizons, developing professional knowledge and skills (Papatsiba 2005), and “self-cultivation and transformation” (Amit 2010, p. 13). When they work , they gain experience, which is supposed to bolster their employability and human capital . However, for this study, the main focus is the rationales for national policies on attracting and recruiting international students.

I have endeavoured here to distinguish clearly between these rationales, but the reality in policy discourses is that they are “fuzzy” (Papatsiba 2005; Ma 2010; Kehm and Teichler 2007) in their conceptualisation and usage. Amit (2010, p. 9) observes a “self-conscious insistence on the synergy between transactional and altruistic notion of internationalisation ”, suggesting that the boundaries between economic , sociocultural and educational rationales are increasingly and deliberately blurred. For example, as Fig. 2.1 illustrates, under the assumptions of the educational rationale, the presence of international students improves education. This then enriches culture and society, thereby enhancing the national reputation and the educational reputation. Reputation increases future student numbers , returning to the economic rationale. With economic power , and cultural attraction create political influence . Therefore, approaches such as the PMI outlined in Chap. 3 represent a holistic policy approach consistent with these intersecting rationales, positioning international higher education as related to economic and foreign policy , as well as education (Becker and Kolster 2012).

Fig. 2.1
figure 1

Interactions of rationales

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Rationales against international student recruitment are less frequently identified in the literature, the prevailing discourses being in favour of internationalisation . When mentioned, the potential negative impact on educational quality as a result of overexpansion constitutes an obstacle (Sidhu 2002; Devos 2003; Rivza and Teichler 2007). This may be related to accepting students without sufficient qualifications (Belcher 1987). Students are occasionally highlighted as being implicated in wider debates about immigration (Harman 2004; Urias and Yeakey 2009; Becker and Kolster 2012; Geddie 2014; Jenkins 2014) or as being restricted by strict immigration policies (Ma 2010). While concerns are raised by institutions and individuals about cultural homogenisation (Marginson and Sawir 2006), these do not appear to pose significant obstacles in national policies.

Thus international students are impacted by globalised education discourses and feature in policy rationales which depict them as advantageous to host countries on political, financial, academic , sociocultural and reputational grounds. More rarely, they are seen as problematic. Both perspectives construct subject representations of international students and problematise their recruitment .

It is certainly not surprising that state policy focuses on the ways that activities benefit the state, and therefore the initial conclusion that international education policy is dominated by such rationales is not radical. It is, however, a useful starting point for understanding the discourses at work and their potential effects on students.

Subject Positions in International Education

Discourses, particularly dominant discourses made from positions of power , such as national or global policies, affect people by establishing subject positions . By representing people in particular ways, depicting aspects of their experience or value, discourses can impact how people are perceived and alter or limit the actions they can take. These rationales construct multiple representations of international students, generating subject positions for them.

In the knowledge economy and human capital models, international qualifications act as positional goods, conferring distinction on graduates (Marginson 1997; Xiang and Shen 2008). They are read in labour markets and social networks as signs of particular dispositions, of membership in cosmopolitan elites (Waters 2006). In this sense, international education constitutes cultural capital , as well as educational capital (Bourdieu 1984), facilitating upward social mobility by indicating appropriate knowledge and behaviours appropriate to the aspired class (Marginson 2006). It also entrenches existing inequalities by privileging the already capital-rich (Tannock 2013). This global cultural capital encompasses educational capital as well as taste, attitude and lifestyle, “understood as exclusive resources that designate one’s class and status, globally operate, circulate and exchange” (Kim 2011, p. 113). These resources enable members of the cosmopolitan elite to engage effectively in competitive, high-status fields of work (Weenink 2008). Yet mobility can disrupt agency by distancing students from social and cultural bonds, changing conditions of power interactions (Marginson et al. 2010).

Indeed, international education can be understood as a project of self-formation, where students “cross the border to become different” (Marginson 2014, p. 7). Given that international students choose to travel for their education—they are “volitional educational participants” in Lukes’ (2010) phrasing—the importance of students’ agency in the construction of meaning around their experiences should not be ignored. Agency is an overused and often poorly misunderstood concept, which I am using to refer to the capacity to act in socially mediated contexts (Ahearn 2001). In this sense, students take actions which make sense in their social context to enact their own change, creating different social positions (Kettle 2005). They can use mobility as a space for “becoming”, enabling not only the accumulation of different capitals, but also the shaping of identity through imagination (Tran 2015). In contrast to the cross-cultural adjustment model, this reading understands students as self-determining in shaping the development of their own identities (Marginson 2014).

The discourses prevalent in institutions and national contexts offer resources for this process of self-formation, and pressures which can limit possibilities. In a neo-liberal economic ideology, failure in the labour market is attributed to the individual (Mulderrig 2003), rather than systemic inequalities : “it’s your own fault if you don’t succeed” (Brennan and Naidoo 2008, p. 294). If considered as a disciplinary technology (Tikly 2004; Asgharzadeh 2008), international education incorporates “a discursive logic that distils human relationships, dreams, visions and aspirations into the language of value (which) is indicative of the tenacious hold of a market-based instrumentalism on the intellectual imagination” (Sidhu 2006, loc762). In other words, by teaching international students how to be good workers, by making them employable and desirable for professional recruitment , international higher education constructs them as economic objects. The risk is therefore that students learn how to subjectify themselves. International education can be understood as a site for the development of a neo-liberal globalised subjectification in which students are taught to discipline and brand themselves and to embody the dispositions of a human commodity (Sidhu 2006; Rhee 2009). In essence, this is a variation on the perpetual structure/agency tension (Ahearn 2001): international students must be recognised as agents in the formation of their own identity, but so must the structural forces which impact the social contexts in which they take action as agents and offer the discursive resources to make meaning.

Because national policy discourses are powerful, the representations of international students therein have the potential to substantively impact self-subjectification. Therefore, while a critique of methodological nationalism could be levelled at a study of national policy discourses, international students’ lived experiences are at least in part significantly shaped by them, given that they spend significant time and attention focused on the country in which they study. That is why this study focuses on UK national policy discourses.

Conclusion

National governments interact with globalised policy discourses, rationalising their involvement in international education, and particularly their efforts to attract international students. The necessity of attracting and recruiting international students becomes a discursive object, a shared reality enmeshed in a web of beliefs. This implies that policy makers are seeking legitimacy for their actions (Saarinen 2008b; Bacchi 2009), gaining power through national positional advantage by hosting international students. Unspoken, implicit problems are “solved” by such policy interventions. In these rationales, particular assumptions are made and transformed into fact (Rose and Miller 2008) through their reproduction and widespread acceptance as “common sense” (Fairclough 1989).

In order to understand how international students are represented, this study draws on the concept of Discourse, understood as a system for making meaning in social contexts. Policy is therefore understood as Discourse, and as a set of discourses with particular power , particularly because it can mediate representations of people as social subjects . They are represented in multiple, overlapping images.