The Academic Mobility Regime: Analysing Perceptions of Students and Academic Staff

Abstract Referring to the concept of the ‘mobility regime’ this study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the interrelations between internationalisation of higher education and individual perceptions of members of the academic system. Academics and students in Germany, both with and without international experience, were interviewed in order to find indications how the mobility regime dimensions of normalisation, rationalisation and time-space compression are structured particularly in the academic system. Using an exploratory research design and qualitative content analysis to interpret data of in-depth interviews helps to understand the specific shape of the regime dimensions. We reconstruct how dimensions of a mobility regime are perceived across all sampling groups. Slight group differences in the perceptions of single dimensions provide additional insights. We propose the specific concept of an ‘academic mobility regime’ in order to capture the specifics of the mobility regime in the academic system.