Impact of intra-ASEAN student mobility on the development of ASEAN identity: A case study of Vietnamese students in Indonesia

• In Event: Reimagining Education for a Better Globalized World

Proposal

International student mobility has always been a cornerstone of international education, with articulated benefits to students and societies (de Witl et al., 2008; Kuroda et al., 2018; Phan et al., 2021). Being considered as a common good, the contribution of higher education is expected more than its human resource development function for the global knowledge-based economy. Therefore, one of the articulated benefits of international student mobility is fostering regional integration, which is essential in addressing regional and global issues to ensure peace, prosperity, and equitable development. Furthermore, the emergence of contemporary mobility trends such as global south mobility or intra-periphery (Lipura & Collins, 2020) is a response to criticism of the elitism of international student mobility. This study deals with intra-periphery student mobility’s impact on regional integration by questioning how intra-regional student mobility contributes to fostering regional identity in the Southeast Asia context (ASEAN). The importance of regional identity is unquestionable, as it is a critical element of the regional community-building process. In a broader sense, it could be a steppingstone toward global citizenship identity.
Therefore, the study seeks empirical evidence on the contribution of intra-ASEAN student mobility in fostering ASEAN identity. It addresses the following research questions: What does ASEAN identity mean to mobility students? What elements of the mobility experience contribute to fostering ASEAN identity, and to what extent? What are other factors that contribute to the development process?
The study draws on classic integration theories (Allport’s contact hypothesis, Deutsch’s transactionalist thesis, and Inglehart’s cognitive mobilization), which theorize that increasing cross-border interactions, transactions, and knowledge (about each other) would create “we-feeling” and facilitate regional integration. It also draws on social identity theories to understand the salient elements of mobility experience in fostering regional identity and explain its formation and development process.
Previous studies in the European context have identified social interactions and knowledge accumulation (through cross-cultural experience) enabled by study abroad experience as salient factors in fostering social and cultural integration as well as regional identity (Sigalas, 2010; Mol, 2018; Stoeckel, 2016; Maiworm, 2014; Mitchell, 2015; Llurda et al., 2016, Fenndez, 2005). The study abroad experience and its outcomes and impact are also influenced by various factors such as motivation (Pike & Sillem, 2018; Anderson et al., 2015), language (Taguchi & Collentine, 2018; Llurda et al., 2016), duration, and depth of the experience (DeLoach et al., 2021).
The study conceptualized ASEAN identity from a socio-political perspective. In that sense, regional identity inherits features of a collective, political, and supranational identity composed of a cultural component and civic component (Bruter, 2005). From a social identity perspective, regional identity is viewed from the grassroots level, characterized by affective and status dimensions.
A mixed method case study was conducted to answer research questions. The case study covered Vietnamese students who have had study abroad experience in Indonesia. The primary rationale for case selection was to address the diverse nature of the Southeast Asia region. Data was collected through an online survey (n=62) and semi-structured interviews (n=5) to explore retrospective views of Vietnamese students on their study abroad experience and how the experience contributed to fostering ASEAN identity. Both quantitative and qualitative data analyses were performed to triangulate and integrate the findings.
This study’s findings suggest that ASEAN identity was perceived to be more substantial in the cultural component than the civic component, which is quite different from the European context (Bruter, 2005). From a social identity perspective, ASEAN identity is characterized more as a “status” with a weaker “affective” dimension. Intra-regional student mobility positively contributed to fostering ASEAN identity. The study has found that quality of contact and depth of cross-cultural exposure, enabled by extensive “local interaction circle”, were salient elements of the mobility experience that contributed to the formation and development of ASEAN identity. Local language was also an important factor shaping the outcomes and impact of the mobility experience. Other factors that contributed were the type of motivation and the relevance of the ASEAN concept, even though findings suggest that the relationship between motivation, experience, and outcomes is complicated in the intra-periphery mobility context. The impact was not limited to the regional level but also local, bilateral, and global. Overall, the study argues that for an ASEAN identity to evolve from a vague and undeterminable idea to a self-evident reality, it needs to be materialized through sufficient interactions among people and societies, implicating a need for more efforts to promote intra-ASEAN student mobility with appropriate program design to maximize the outcomes and impact.
The study has contributed to research on outcomes of international student mobility, which has not gained high agenda in international education literature (Teichler, 2017). This study responds to criticism of existing literature to have been over concentrated on outcomes at the individual level (Jon & Fry, 2021) to explore the notions of how higher education contributes to the public (or common) good (Marginson, 2010) or internationalization for society (Leask & de Gayardon, 2021). The study also responds to current criticism on international student mobility literature, which has been fragmented across disciplines and Western-centric (Lipura & Collins, 2020) by providing an intra-periphery perspective. Furthermore, scholars have argued that literature on regional integration has been top-down dominant and has not paid much attention to interactions on the grassroots level (Acharya, 2017; Jones, 2004). This study has provided a bottom-up perspective in unveiling the perception of regional identity through a case study of intra-regional student mobility.

Author

• Du Viet Nguyen, Waseda University