Student Mobility and the Internationalization of Higher Education: National Policies and Strategies from Six World Regions (A Project Atlas Report)

Rajika Bhandari, Raisa Belyavina, and Robert Gutierrez (Eds) (2011). New York, NY: Institute of International Education. ISBN: 978087206341 $39.95The Institute of International Education's Project Atlas Report (2011) shows that the overall context of international students' movement has been changed in the past few years. Policies and strategies adopted by new host countries and their academic institutions and organizations are changing the patterns of international students' mobility. New players are redefining the field by influencing which international students want to go where and why.Argument: As the title of the book-Student Mobility and the Internationalization of Higher Education: National Policies and Strategies from Six World Regions-promises, the editors bring together reports on student mobility from six world regions (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and Middle East/North Africa) including seventeen significant host countries. The book is rich in data about the changing mobility of these students; but its primary objective is to discuss the dynamics of key host and sending countries, focusing on national plans and strategies for attracting international students to their universities as well as encouraging their own students to study abroad. The global view of internationalization of higher education that the report sets out to provide is the result of the realization-and argument-that a productive conversation on new trends of international education (particularly student mobility) can only happen if data are collected on a global scale and also compiled and analyzed by using a common framework. In addition, the editors are also interested in presenting the shared global framework toward analyzing strategies adopted by nations, institutions, and organizations interested in the internationalization of higher education. These strategies are briefly discussed in each chapter.Approach taken: Each of the six regions introduces the major trends in the mobility data of countries within the region, as well as key highlights of the policies and strategies adopted by those countries (and/or by institutions and organizations). The introductory highlights of data and strategies allow the editors to discuss any shared/framing issues that the nations within the region may have. For example, countries in the European region share similar prospects and challenges as do those in Oceania. The editors have tried to avoid generalizing geographical regions by, for instance, splitting up the African continent into the Middle East and North Africa on the one hand and the Sub-Saharan region on the other. One small weakness iof this approach is that it is not easy to see why the editors group together countries-as when they place Mexico along with the US and Canada-even when their situations as well as their global statuses are vastly different. There is also another weaknesses in the way the editors repeat the introductory highlights in the chapters on individual nations; while this redundancy could be seen as serving as a means of emphasis, the book would be a more interesting read if the editors had added discussion and analysis instead.Similarly, in order to organize the report the editors use a number of visual representations of data in pie charts and bullet point summaries. Another, less visible, means for presenting a common frame for discussing the data is to answer a common set of questions about the numbers and the policies and strategies in each chapter. For example, in most chapters, the editors mention the increase or decrease of inbound and outbound students in recent years, challenges of providing higher education to citizens, ratio of inbound students to outbound students and if and how the country is trying to change it, reasons for attempting to increase international students and to encourage study abroad among local students, and whether a country has and directly implements national policies for enhancing international education (or if non-governmental organizations and universities implement the policies). …