Institutionalized mobility inside and outside Erasmus

Abstract

Having looked at various aspects of free movement in tertiary education in the previous section of this book, we now direct our attention towards young people’s participation in student mobility programmes, the most prominent example being the European Commission supported Erasmus programme. The popularity of Erasmus as a research topic is equally evident, to the point where the study of student mobility is largely equated with Erasmus, although many other less well documented institutionally hosted platforms can be found throughout the globalized world of tertiary education. Given that Erasmus is so familiar, this section of the book will move beyond describing the programme and consider what other exchange mechanisms contribute to our understanding of youth migration.