International Education for Enlightenment, for Opportunity and for Survival: Where Students, Migrants and Refugees Diverge

This article argues that participants in international education fall into three broad but distinctly different categories: Mobility for Enlightenment, Mobility for Opportunity, and Mobility for Survival. By examining participants who study in a country other than their own through this lense, this article will be useful to educators who seek not only to better understand who is participating in international education globally, but also to account better for their situations and needs. This categorization of participant types has not yet been sufficiently analyzed in the extant literature in Comparative and International Education but must be given current geopolitical realities. Recognizing important differences between all those who are involved in global educational mobility is meant to encourage a more vigorous dialogue among scholar-practitioners who are woriing n the field of International Education, so they can bring in additional evidence and examples to help further build upon these three initial proposed categories.