ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by contextualising the push to internationalise higher education and how student mobility sits within it. It advances a typology of contemporary taxonomies for student mobility in European higher education, while discussing the multifarious terms used and misnomers like ‘international’, ‘foreign’ and ‘culturally and linguistically diverse’ students. The chapter offers a chronological synopsis of student mobility and the internationalisation of European higher education, with an emphasis on the role of European Union student mobility schemes. It points to the flaws of using student metrics as the primary marker of success of studying abroad instead of its educational value. To illustrate this misconception at supranational level, an analysis of the objectives in the decisions establishing the different iterations of the Erasmus programme is provided. The chapter focuses on the contextual conditions behind the widening policy interest in Europe’s language and cultural diversity since the 1990s and how it influences the rationales for developing intercultural abilities through student mobility.
