International student agency in academic self-formation: Mobility as agency situated within knowledge structures

Abstract

With growing attention to student agency in academic and policy discourse, international education has become a prominent context for examining how students navigate new cultural, academic, linguistic and social environments. However, much of this discussion attributes student agency to the ‘international’ aspect, while overlooking the transformative experiences of the ‘education’ inherent in higher education itself. This study explores international mobility as an embodiment of agency for student self-formation through engagement with academic knowledge—what I term academic self-formation. Drawing on multi-sited ethnography with six South Korean students in the United Kingdom and seven in South Korea, this study examines how mobility enables students to reposition themselves in relation to disciplinary knowledge structures. The findings demonstrate that mobility is both shaped by and shapes students' engagement with knowledge. This paper reconceptualises cross-border mobility as student agency situated within knowledge structures, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the academic and epistemic dimensions of international higher education.