Sociology Colloquium, 9/30/2020
Diversifying the UAE and Russia: How National Higher Education Policies Attract International Students
Dr. Karin Johnson, Texas Research Data Center (TXRDC)
Dr. Johnson’s core interest is in how policy can attract skilled migrants, particularly to developing areas with a low or declining population. In her recent research, Johnson compared higher education internationalization policies in the UAE and Russia that aim to recruit international students. The UAE and Russia are both oil and resource rich (and looking to diversify their national economies), but people poor (they depend on migrants to maintain the population). From expert interviews with forty-three university administrators and public officials, Johnson concluded that while Russia’s recruitment goals are to enroll students, UAE policy targets foreign institutes to come to build branch campuses. Differing outcomes are the results of the composition of international students and state motivations. In contrast to traditional destination countries, such as the US or UK, interviews revealed that an underlying agenda of global political cooperation trumps purely economic intentions to recruit foreign students. Moving forward, Johnson continues to employ mixed-method techniques to examine the relationship among international higher education, skilled migration, migrants’ transition into the labor force, policy, and demographic deficits.
September 30, 2020
Wednesday, 12–1:30pm
Zoom session
Meeting ID: 931 6886 7156
Passcode: 889202
If you cannot join with video, you can connect to the Zoom session via phone: 1–346–248–7799