ABSTRACT
How does one define an international student when both the student and the institution move across borders? In a time when more students are traveling abroad to pursue an education, universities are also establishing campuses all over the world where students can obtain a degree without ever having travelled to the institution’s home country. Countries around the Arab Gulf, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, host dozens of international branch campuses (IBCs) that serve thousands of students from all over the world. These campuses tend to serve citizens of the host country, a large local expatriate population, students who travel from the IBCs home country and students from other countries. This chapter presents a typology to explore how the definition of ‘international students’ is problematised when it is the institutions rather than the students (or sometimes both) that cross borders.
