This book examines learning-mobility tensions and ties caused by convergences and divergences of social, organizational and cognitive forces in global higher education. As some of these forces generate status anxiety, and others enhanced self-worth, this volume asks the questions: How can students navigate treacherous education markets to reduce the former and increase the latter? Which specific forces and confluences enhance the quality of self-discovery? Does the search for identity and meaning produce better results when conducted internationally? Which transformative drivers of global mobility enhance social mobility? What allows some students to gain the capacity for impactful higher learning at a time when others lose it? Why are strategically minded students increasingly concerned about equality and the quality of contribution to the common good of education, rather than about their own status? What makes some places of learning stand out when students recount their journeys of self-discovery and roads to self-worth? This book includes a broad range of stories and firsthand perspectives that are often overlooked in the process of internationalization of higher education. The narratives offer important insights to consider, given the ever-increasing disquiets of competitiveness-oriented global higher education.

*Winner of the Best Book Award from Researchers and Students and Study Abroad Programmes at the CIES2019 conference 2019 This book examines learning-mobility tensions and ties caused by convergences and divergences of social, organizational and cognitive forces in global higher education. As some of these forces generate status anxiety, and others enhanced self-worth, this volume asks the questions: How can students navigate treacherous education markets to reduce the former and increase the latter? Which specific forces and confluences enhance the quality of self-discovery? Does the search for identity and meaning produce better results when conducted internationally? Which transformative drivers of global mobility enhance social mobility? What allows some students to gain the capacity for impactful higher learning at a time when others lose it? Why are strategically minded students increasingly concerned about equality and the quality of contribution to the common good of education, rather than about their own status? What makes some places of learning stand out when students recount their journeys of self-discovery and roads to self-worth? This book includes a broad range of stories and firsthand perspectives that are often overlooked in the process of internationalization of higher education. The narratives offer important insights to consider, given the ever-increasing disquiets of competitiveness-oriented global higher education.