International students with dependent children: the reproduction of gender norms

Abstract

Extant research on family migration for education has focused almost exclusively on the education of children. We thus know very little about family migration when it is driven by the educational projects of parents. To begin to redress this gap, this paper explores the experiences of families who have moved to the United Kingdom primarily to enable the mother or father to pursue a degree. It argues that, in common with what we know of UK student-parents, both choices about and experiences of higher education are strongly differentiated by gender.

Experiences of Chinese International Doctoral Students in Canada Who Withdrew: A Narrative Inquiry

“…Among all the social relations, marriage and partnership are major ones that influence the decisionmaking of doctoral students (Brooks, 2015;Kim, 2015;Martinez et al, 2013). The topic of gender played a significant role in my participants' narratives.…”

Counting Family: Making the Family of International Students Visible in Higher Education Policy and Practice

“…Access to childcare may make a significant difference to the student parent, and may support a non-student partner in either paid work or other activities (Brooks, 2015). Of the five countries considered, New Zealand provides the most extensive access to childcare (http://www.minedu.govt.nz/).…”

“…The absence of information on accompanying family members from data collection systems is echoed in the literature with few studies on either the impact on students of having accompanying family members, or of the experiences of those family members (Sakamoto, 2006;Brooks, 2015). As student mobility and competition for international students increase, so too will interest in understanding distinct groups of students.…”

Social and spatial disparities in emotional responses to education: feelings of ‘guilt’ among student‐parents

“…First, the sample of UK Older students included considerably more men than the sample at UK Newer (see Table ) and, as discussed above, there are notable differences between discourses of ‘good mothering’ and ‘good fathering’. Second, the larger number of international students at UK Older (see Table ) may be significant—as perhaps those who had lived most of their life outside the UK were less susceptible to ‘intensive parenting’ discourses and/or had taken the significant decision to move abroad for higher education only after feeling completely sure of their choice (Brooks, ). Third, the greater independent financial support accessed by the UK Older students (see Table ) may have reduced the need to juggle childcare and study in the same way as the UK Newer students, who were often self‐funding.…”