Although prior research establishes the forces that "push" and "pull" students to participate in foreign study, the transferability of findings from earlier studies is limited by the absence of theoretical grounding. In addition, relatively little is known about how a government-sponsored student mobility program promotes foreign study in a nation with a transitioning economy. Using case study methods, this study explores the characteristics of students who participate in such a program and identifies the programmatic characteristics and contextual forces that promote and limit participation. The findings shed light on the appropriate theoretical perspectives for understanding student participation in a government-sponsored mobility program and illustrate the need to consider how aspects of the national cultural, economic, and political context influence participation. The findings also raise several questions about how an international student mobility program should be structured to encourage participation and maximize benefits to individuals and society within a particular national context.

This paper sheds light on the approaches, forms, goals and influencing factors of internationalization of higher education in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan's education system is regulated centrally by the Ministry of Education and Science, and most internationalization initiatives are set by the Ministry. The Ministry sees the role of internationalization of higher education in advancing Kazakhstan's education system, increasing the attractiveness of higher education, and developing a multicultural society. The government promotes higher education internationalization by: sponsoring degree and non-degree student and faculty mobility programs; signing intergovernmental agreements on educational exchange; incentivizing the internationalization of curriculum by setting accreditation regulations; creating an international university; and signing the Bologna Process which requires universities to make deeper structural reforms. These governmental initiatives were the main drivers for Kazakhstani universities to internationalize. Although most universities adopted strategies on internationalization, their approaches could be characterized as an activity approach rather than a comprehensive approach to internationalization.

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This article sheds light on the availability and characteristics of international scholarship programs that are sponsored by national and federal governments worldwide and that are intended to promote student mobility. Utilizing descriptive and cluster analyses, the article produces a framework for organizing the population of these programs. The analyses take into account both the central characteristics of programs and economic and political characteristics of the nations sponsoring the program. The typology produced in this analysis may be used by policy makers and researchers to facilitate cross-national comparisons of program design, implementation, and outcomes. © 2014 AERA.

This article describes the nature and impact of a major recent education policy aimed to transform higher education in Kazakhstan, the State Program of Industrial Innovative Development 2015 to 2019 (SPIID-2). This inquiry sought to understand and describe the role of internationalization of higher education in SPIID-2, and more specifically its role for developing university research. Kazakhstan’s industrial innovative development program promotes university–industry collaboration and universities’ international partnerships to enhance the role of the university in the economic development of the country, consistent with the imperatives and opportunities of the knowledge-based economy. The role of internationalization, particularly, involving international partner institutions, in this policy, contributes to quality assurance and informed decision making. Findings are based on content analysis of policy texts and interviews with university representatives.