Jill Ahrens

Reproducing advantage: the perspective of English school leavers on studying abroad

This paper presents results of a questionnaire survey of 1400 Year 13 (final-year) school and sixth-form pupils in two contrasting areas of England, which asked them about their thoughts and plans to study at university abroad. Key questions that the survey sought to answer were the following. How many and what proportion of all higher education (HE) applicants, apply, or consider applying, to university outside the UK? What are their reasons for doing so? What are their distinguishing characteristics as regards type of school (state vs. private), academic record, parental socio-occupational background and prior contacts abroad? The questionnaire data were supported, but occasionally contradicted, by interviews with school staff members responsible for coordinating and advising on the HE application process. Approximately 3% of pupils apply to study abroad (most also apply to UK universities) and another 10% consider applying but do not do so. North America, Australia and Ireland are favoured destinations; not mainland, non-English-speaking Europe. Quality of university and desire for adventure are the most important motivations. Decisions to apply abroad are strongly correlated to the academic results of pupils (the best apply), to prior connections abroad (travel, holidays, residence abroad, etc.) and to a range of overlapping indicators of parental wealth and social class. The theoretical and policy implications of the research are also considered. Study abroad creates an ‘elite within an elite’ and works against government agendas of widening participation. On the other hand, English students’ foreign experience potentially enhances their interculturalism and graduate labour market competitiveness, yet raises spectres of ‘brain drain’ of the ‘brightest and best’.

‘Diverse Mobilities’: Second-Generation Greek-Germans Engage with the Homeland as Children and as Adults

Abstract This paper is about the children of Greek labour migrants in Germany. We focus on two life-stages of ‘return’ for this second generation: as young children brought to Greece on holidays or sent back for longer periods, and as young adults exercising an independent ‘return’ migration. We draw both on literature and on our own field interviews with 50 first- and second-generation Greek-Germans. We find the practise of sending young children back to Greece to have been surprisingly widespread yet little documented. Adult relocation to the parental homeland takes place for five reasons: (i) a ‘search for self’; (ii) attraction of the Greek way of life; (iii) the actualisation of the ‘family narrative of return’ by the second, rather than the first, generation; (iv) life-stage events such as going to university or marrying a Greek; (v) escape from a traumatic event or oppressive family situation. Yet the return often brings difficulties, disillusionment, identity reappraisal, and a re-evaluation of the German context.

British Students in the United States

Twelve years ago, the British educational press, and indeed the mainstream media, were consumed by the story of Laura Spence—a super-bright pupil from a Newcastle comprehensive school who, despite having five straight As at “A” level (the final secondary school exams in Britain), had been refused a place to study medicine at Oxford after an interview there. General outrage at Oxford’s snobbishness ensued, with the criticism that Oxford favored applicants from the United Kingdom’s fee-paying independent schools (which include the elite but perversely named “public schools”), thereby excluding excellent applicants from state schools like Laura, especially if they come from deprived parts of the country with strong local accents. Laura instead went to the United States to Harvard on a funded scholarship, completed her biochemistry degree there, and returned to do postgraduate medical training at Cambridge—the other UK university that constitutes the top duo known collectively as “Oxbridge.”