The central focus of this thesis is to understand how international education functions as a key site wherein class is performed and (re)produced. I specifically seek to understand how localised micro-categories of class differently impact imaginaries and experiences of international education among Mumbai’s upper-middle class and elite. A central finding of thesis is that, for SoBo elites, pursuing international education is presupposed – as a rite of passage and as a ‘stamp’ of their socio-economic status. For suburban strivers, on the other hand, international education is typically experienced as aspirational. Their transnational mobility arises from favourable circumstances, such as newly acquired familial capital or the academic ability of the child, as well as a desire to achieve upward socio-economic mobility. This thesis discusses how these different expectations, aspirations and experiences play out in the culture and place-based identities of Mumbai as the ‘sending city’ – as opposed to other studies of international student mobility which tend to focus on the experiences of students whilst they are overseas (for
examples of this, see Sherry et al., 2010; Gargano, 2009; Cairns, 2014; Bista, 2018; Murphy-Lejeune, 2002; Hendrickson, Rosen & Aune, 2011).
In this chapter I have introduced many of the key ideas that underpin this thesis. I have also outlined the key contributions that this thesis seeks to make to existing knowledge around class status and international education. In Chapter Two I review relevant bodies of literature pertaining to class, mobility, international education and youth in order to situate the thesis. In Chapter Three, Methods and Methodology, I detail how the study was conceptualised, designed and conducted. The empirical chapters of this thesis are organised into two parts, each of which contain two or three chapters pertaining to a stage of international student mobility. In Part One (Chapters Four, Five and Six) I focus on prospective students and their experiences, while Part Two (Chapters Seven and Eight) focuses primarily on the experiences of returned international students.
The first chapter of Part One, Chapter Four, builds on many of the ideas presented in this Introduction and Chapter Two, demonstrating that there are two dominant ‘localised micro-categories of class’ that emerge from participants’ discussions of international education. Distinctions between the SoBo elite and suburban striver categories are an element of all subsequent chapters of this thesis. In Chapter Five, I turn to the international education industry in Mumbai as a key site through which transnational student mobility is imagined and made possible. I argue that an individual’s localised micro-category of class impacts how they experience the international education industry. The SoBo elite are typically able to afford the services of education counsellors, who are assumed to be unbiased and ensure that ‘good’ decisions are made about international education. Suburban strivers, on the other hand, are more vulnerable within the international education industry because they lack inherited capital and access to networks that provide supplementary information about international education.
In the final chapter of Part One, Chapter Six, I focus on the notion of ‘exposure’ described by participants, finding that localised micro-categories of class differently shape the value that participants assign to gaining ‘exposure’. I argue that the local concept of ‘exposure’ can be understood as a form of what academics call cosmopolitan cultural capital. For suburban strivers, exposure is about attaining a better, ‘practical’ education and international workplace experience. This is expected to result in upward
socio-economic mobility, which is a central desire of the suburban strivers group. However, this chapter finds that suburban striver women often face barriers that would prevent them from becoming mobile, despite their desire to study overseas. For the SoBo elite, gaining exposure is a project of self-actualisation, which they expect will mark their prestige and privilege upon return to India. SoBo elites also mobilise the discourse of exposure to assert their superior approach to international education, denigrating suburban strivers and their upward aspirations.
In the second empirical section, I turn to the experiences of returned students, where cosmopolitan cultural capital again plays a central role to how localised micro- categories of class impact experiences pertaining to international education. Chapter Seven explores how young people differently experience returning to India according to their localised micro-category of class. Suburban strivers are assumed to remain abroad in the long-term in pursuit of better careers and livelihoods, so returning to India can be seen as a ‘failure’ by this group. This contrasts to the SoBo elite, who are expected to return to India in order to benefit from the cosmopolitan cultural capital that they accumulated whilst overseas. For SoBo elites, returning to India is a marker of their privilege. For SoBo women in particular, as Chapter Eight discusses, returning to India after obtaining a foreign degree often means that they enter the arranged marriage market. For these women, international education is a period of ‘fun and freedom’ prior to returning to their relatively fixed lifecourses. Suburban striver women, on the other hand, sometimes use international education as a way to resist the desires and expectations of their families in relation to marriage. Ultimately, in Chapter Nine, summarise the findings of this thesis and reflect on future directions for this research. I conclude by highlighting the importance of studying class in relation to international student mobility, and international student mobility in relation to class.