International education is a global market. Many nation-states regulate the welfare experience of incoming international students through formal regulation, students self-regulate and they are regulated by informal means through trans-national social and family networks. The central objective of this book is to conduct a comparative analysis of the Australian and New Zealand regimes of international student welfare regulation and to explore the international and global implications of the two regimes. Regulation theory provides the analytical framework and empirical evidence was gathered using ... More

International education is a global market. Many nation-states regulate the welfare experience of incoming international students through formal regulation, students self-regulate and they are regulated by informal means through trans-national social and family networks. The central objective of this book is to conduct a comparative analysis of the Australian and New Zealand regimes of international student welfare regulation and to explore the international and global implications of the two regimes. Regulation theory provides the analytical framework and empirical evidence was gathered using in-depth interviews with 200 students in Australia, 70 students in New Zealand and 24 service providers and policy makers across the two countries.The book argues that the Australian and New Zealand regimes use different language in formal regulatory instruments but that the student welfare experience in the two countries is strikingly similar. This raises questions for the potency and relevance of formal regulation, elevating the significance of informal regulation and self-regulation. Just as importantly, the analysis calls for greater attention to the trans-national regulatory sphere and the streamlining of that with the national level in order to construct a new, trans-national form of student citizenship. The book draws upon lessons from the national public policy and global governance and regulation literatures.