Kunskapssamhällets gästarbetare

Internationella studenter i interferenser mellan kön, sexualitet, nationalitet och klass i globaliserade utbildningslandskap

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate interferences between gender, class, sexuality, and ethnicity among international students by looking at migration patterns and living conditions of international master and PhD-students at three Swedish universities (Luleå University of Technology (LTU), Linköping University (LiU), The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)). The experiences of these students with regard to transnationalism, higher education and research is a point of departure for discussing global stratification and transformation in the contemporary neoliberal knowledge economy. The article interprets the transnational flows of higher education in relation to a critical understanding of knowledge society and higher education by introducing the notion of eduscapes. This concept refers to the contemporary transnational flow of ideas and people with regard to higher education, and where nodes of knowledge centres and peripheries shift over time but are connected through modern communication technologies and different epistemic, ethnic, and student communities. In the transnational practices of higher education where students travel the globe in search and dreams of knowledge, a better life and future career possibilities, routes and imaginaries to a large extent reproduce and follow geopolitical power patterns. In this respect education by going global is shrinking the world but also stratifies, creating new patterns of inequality and competition.