Experiences of Foreign Students in Portugal: A Narrative Approach to Student Migration Outcomes
Author(s):
Cosmin Ionut Nada (presenting / submitting) Helena C Araújo
Conference:
ECER 2014
Network:
07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

07 SES 02 A, Learning Spaces and Negotiating Difference

Paper Session

Time:
2014-09-02
15:15-16:45
Room:
B004 Anfiteatro
Chair:
Yvonne Leeman

Contribution

The phenomenon of student mobility has increased significantly in the last decades due to various sets of factors, e.g. globalization and internationalization. Back in 1998, referring to a 25-year period, Bruch & Barty noticed a 300% growth in student mobility. Grillo et al. (2011) stated that between 1998 and 2008 the number of international students simply doubled. Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration 2010 report showed that the “enrolment of overseas students remained robust, even during the global economic crisis, and the global competition for students is expected to intensify in the future” (p.17). In this global panorama, aside with heavy internationalized universities such as the North American or the English, Portuguese universities also attract significant numbers of foreign students, judging by the country’s small dimension. According to the General Department of Statistics in Science and Education (DGEEC), in the academic year 2011/2012, 20635 foreign students attended Portuguese universities. This number refers only to regular students (excluding Erasmus and other forms of international mobility) and is comparable with the total of students registered at the third biggest Portuguese university, University of Lisbon. In other words, student (im)migration currently constitutes a significant phenomenon in our country. However, in spite of its recent growth, student (im)migration has been rather understudied in Portugal.

Ready to fulfill what we consider a local research gap, our study focuses on the migration experience of foreign students in Portugal. We strongly believe that the knowledge based on the actual experience of this (until recently) ignored population could lead to improved integration strategies.

In our aim to understand the migration experience, we focus on two different concepts: identity and learning. Regarding ‘identity’, the analyses is supported on the views of two important authors in this field: Anthony Giddens and Claude Dubar. For Giddens, the identity of a person lies in the ability to maintain the continuity of a narrative (1994). According to Ethier and Deaux, during a change in physical location “the ways in which the person had previously maintained the identity are no longer valid and useful in the new context, and the person must change the way in which he or she maintains the identity” (1994, p. 244). In this context, migration is an experience that could compromise the continuity of one’s identity, causing what Dubar considers an identity crisis (2006).

Regarding the learning, the second concept of our focus, we aim to determine if the experience of migration provides potentialities for reflection that could lead to personal growth and interculturality. Actually, in this research area, positive outcomes of migration are frequently cited. For Brown, the migration experience “is often imbued with the power to transform individuals into intercultural mediators who learn to grow beyond the psychological parameters of the origin culture” (2009, p. 184). Can the experience of migration enhance the reconstruction of identity and, consequently, of learning? For Murphy-Lejeune (2003, p. 101) life abroad is “an extensive natural learning situation”, while for Kim “identity formation is the process whereby international students are in contact with unfamiliar surroundings […] where they can explore and (re)define their identity as a relevant aspect of their self” (2012, p. 107). In this context, redefining one’s identity appears to be a learning outcome of the migration experience. As Osborne refers, international students “come equipped with a social identity provided by their former life, which, however, most of them have never examined or questioned before” (2012, p. 1037). Taking as starting point the lived experience of foreign students, we will try to understand the complex relation between identity construction and (experiential) learning.  

Method

As already shown, the complexity of the main research problem emerges from the intersection of different and embracing concepts. In the course of our study, we do not plan to reduce its complexity by smashing it in small pieces but we plan to maintain its mains characteristic and therefore treat it complexly. In this sense, we consider that the “social world can only be understood from the standpoint of the individuals who are part of the ongoing action being investigated” (Cohen and Manion, 1994, p. 26). The kind of person that we look at is “an autonomous one, not the plastic version favored by positivist researchers” (ibid.). In our view, this study “is not a form of inquiry on human action as much as it is inquiry with human actors (Schwandt, 1996, p. 63, emphasis in the original). In order to be able to understand and know our subjects, we consider necessary to adopt a qualitative approach. As we do not plan to reduce the subjects to “mere vessels of answers” (Holstein and Gubrium, cit in Elliott, 2005 p. 23), we choose to jointly construct the data instead of simply gathering it. In our opinion, the methodology that better serves these purposes is the biographic narrative. According to Riessman,”the narrative excerpt could be analyzed as an interactional accomplishment, that is, as the joint production of interviewer and respondent” (2000, p. 11). The narrative approach also gives participants the opportunity to be in command of their story, being able to choose the topics they want to address. During the data construction, we adopt a “researcher-as-supplicant” position believing that “the knowledge of the person being researched (at least regarding the particular questions being asked) is greater than that of the researcher” (England, 1994, p. 82). Narrative inquiry requires a large temporary extension during the construction process and, due to the significant quantity of empirical material, data analysis appears as highly slow. For these reasons, the number of students included in this study will be limited to 12. For participant selection, we have the intent to cover their huge diversity so we use a purposeful sampling strategy (Patton, 2002; Braun & Clarke, 2013) based on a maximum variation criteria (Patton, 2002; Koerber & McMichael, 2008, Moore-Cox, 2013). The different criteria refers both to academic levels and personal ones, for instance students enrolled in different universities and members of diverse ethnicities.

Expected Outcomes

Besides constructing singular narratives on the migration experience of 12 foreign students in Portugal, valuable per se, we expect to encounter some common issues in students’ migration stories. Analyzing both singularities and common points, an extensive frame for analyzing student migration outcomes will be created. At an institutional level, the plan is to determine the position that the different Portuguese universities assume before their culturally diversified students’ body. What kind of support mechanism are available to foreign students? Regarding migration, we expect to identify the main reasons that lead people to study abroad and, in particular, to choose a less internationalized higher education system like the Portuguese. What could push students to purse higher education in a different country than their own? About the concept of identity, the goal is to understand its relation to migration experience, its changes, redefinitions and struggles. How do foreign students maintain/modify their identity in a completely new frame of cultural and symbolic references? Finally, based on the analysis of their detailed day-to-day experiences we will try to determine, jointly with the students, when and how learning experiences arise.

References

Braun, Virginia & Clarke, Victoria (2013). Successful qualitative research: a practical guide for beginners. Los Angeles: Sage. Brown, Lorraine (2009). An ethnographic study of the friendship patterns of international students in England: An attempt to recreate home through conational interaction. International Journal of Educational Research, 48(3), 184-193. Bruch, Tom & Barty, Alison (1998) “Internationalizing British Higher Education: Students and Institutions” in Peter Scott (ed), The globalization of higher education. Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Cohen, Louis & Manion, Lawrence (1994). Research methods in education. New York: Routledge Dubar, Claude (2006). A crise das identidades: a interpretação de uma mutação. Porto: Edições Afrontamento Elliott, Jane (2005). Using Narrative in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. SAGE Publications Limited. England, Kim V. L. (1994). Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research∗. The Professional Geographer, 46(1), 80-89. Ethier, Kathleen A. & Deaux, Kay (1994). Negotiating social identity when contexts change: Maintaining identification and responding to threat. Journal of personality and social psychology, 67, 243-243. Giddens, Anthony (1994). Modernidade e Identidade Pessoal. Oeiras: Celta Editora. Grillo, Franceso, Stan, Flavius, Parvez, Asif, Pasquali, Oscar, Emma, Gianfilippo & Cima, Francesa (2011) The Universities of the Future within the Global Market of Ideas: The Internationalization Imperative. International Conference on the Future of the Universities in the Global Market of Ideas, Internationalization, and new competitors. Università degli Stranieri, Perugia International Organization for Migration, & ONU. (2000). World migration report, 2000. Kim, Eunyoung (2012). An Alternative Theoretical Model: Examining Psychosocial Identity Development of International Students in The United States. College Student Journal, 46(1), 99-113. Koerber, Amy & McMichael, Lonie (2008). Qualitative Sampling Methods A Primer for Technical Communicators. Journal of business and technical communication, 22(4), 454-473. Moore-Cox, Anne (2013). Decision makers’experiences of collaborating with research teams on federally funded health research initiatives: an interpretive descriptive qualitative study. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, McMaster University. Murphy-Lejeune, Elizabeth (2003). An Experience of Interculturality: Student Travellers Abroad. In Geof Alred, Mike Byram & Mike Fleming, Intercultural Experience and Education (pp. 101-112). Multilingual Matters LTD. Osborne, Deborah (2012). Factors in International Student Identity Formation: Processes and Challenges. Sino-US English Teaching, 9(4), 1035-1044 Patton, Michael Q. (2002). Qualitative evaluation and research methods . SAGE Publications, inc. Riessman, Cathrine Kohler (1993). Narrative analysis. SAGE Publications, Incorporated. Schwandt, Thomas A. (1996). Farewell to criteriology. Qualitative Inquiry, 2(1), 58-72

Author Information

Cosmin Ionut Nada (presenting / submitting)
Faculty of Psichology and Education Sciences, University of Porto
Porto
Helena C Araújo
Faculty of Psichology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal

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