When identity is conceived as a continuous (re)combination of different identifications (Duchesne and Frognier 2008), as a blend of identifications like age, gender, citizenship, race, religion, sexuality, family, social status or ideology, it is then not a constant but a concept that transcends and changes between “a subject and discursive practices” (Foucault 1970, xiv). If this is true, identities are then created through historically constituted acts of performance, through conditions, and at times that are unique (1970). Identities are then open to change “because their origin is in communal exchanges, and they are being constantly reconstituted through shared understandings, and being kept in good repair through discursive explorations” (Ross 2015, 53).

If internationalisation is “the processof  integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education” (Knight 2004, 9), it is then upon the HEI leadership to foster conditions from which discursive practices, “ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them”(Weedon on Foucault 1987, 108), and non-discursive practices, that is  “institutions, political events, economic practices and processes” (Foucault 1997, 162) would emerge. The Erasmus mobility programme is only an instrument to the goal.

The study has stemmed from the above thoughts. The objective was to provide empirical evidence to show a relationship between the Erasmus Mobility Programme, Erasmus students’ perception of citizenship identity along four levels: global, European, national and local, and their foreign language (L2) proficiency through a survey conducted among 427Erasmus students studying or having studied at the University of Rijeka in Croatia, and the University’s programme partner HEIs from 2009-2015.

The following research questions and hypotheses were thus posed:

Research question one (RQ1):

Is there a relationship between the study abroad programme and students’ perceived level of foreign language (L2) proficiency?

Hypothesis one (H1):

There is a relationship between the study abroad programme and students’ perceived level of foreign language (L2) proficiency.

Research question two (RQ2):

Is there a relationship between the Erasmus Mobility Programme and students’ perceptions of their citizenship identity?

Hypothesis two (H2)

There is a relationship between the Erasmus Mobility Programme and students’ perceptions of their citizenship identity.  

Duchesne, Sophie and André-Paul Frognier. 2008. National and European Identifications: a dual relationship. Comparative Education Politics 6: 143-168. Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things. New York: Random House. Foucault, Michel. 1997. “The ethics of the concern for self as a practice of freedom.” In Michel Foucault: ethics, subjectivity and truth: the essential works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984, edited by Paul Rabinow, vol 1. London: Penguin Press: 281–301. Knight, Jane. 2004. Internationalization Remodeled: Definition, Approaches, and Rationales. Journal of Studies in International Education, Vo. 8, No. 1: 5-31. Ross, Alistair. 2015. Understanding the Constructions of Identities by Young New Europeans. London and New York: Routledge. Weedon, Chris. 1987. Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.