They maintain ties with their countrymen and recreate cultural activities from back home in the US. Therefore, the thesis argues that the transnational involvement of Kazakh students in the US is motivated by their patriotic feelings, while the transnational involvement of returning students is driven by their pragmatic considerations. Special thanks go to my friend Zhanna Abdrakhmanova, who encouraged me to study international students in the USA.
Almaty: the largest city and former capital of Kazakhstan, located in the southern part of the country. Shymkent: the third most populous city in Kazakhstan (after Almaty and Astana), located in the southern part of the province.
Introduction
In the context of this study, it is highly relevant to look at the inverse relationships of former international students who have returned to Kazakhstan. Often, international students are not the only actors maintaining transnational relations in the context of international education. In the longer term, international students often contribute to knowledge and innovation production by joining the workforce of the host country (OECD).
For sending countries, student migration often raises concerns related to the brain drain phenomenon, which is believed to take place when international students reside in the country of study. Furthermore, the study finds that Kazakh students in the United States have some patriotic aspirations to contribute to. Therefore, the study population consists of three subgroups: (a) Kazakhs who, at the time of the fieldwork, were in the process of obtaining academic degrees from American institutions of higher education, (b) those who remained in the United States after the completion of their academic education. programs, (c) and those who returned to Kazakhstan after their studies in the United States.
The study does not suggest that the experiences of international students are homogeneous in either the country of study or the country of origin.
International students, highly skilled migration, and transnationalism: The role of
Policies in the 1990s that favored high-skilled immigration allowed more international Ph.D.s to remain in the US after graduating. This suggests that among those international students who remain in the US after their studies, a significant number hold higher academic degrees. Currently, the most concrete opportunity for international students to stay in the US after graduation is the Optional Practical Training Program (OPT).
Through these mechanisms, international students educated in the US are given certain opportunities to remain legally in the country after their studies. During the years of program implementation, it has undergone several changes to better match the socio-cultural changes in Kazakh society (Dairova, Jumakulov, & Ashirbekov, 2013). It is interesting that despite the 'Bolashak' program conditionality; there are certain ways that allow recipients of Kazakhstani scholarships to stay in the host country.
In fact, survey participants report that some “Bolashakers” do indeed apply for a job and remain in the US under the OPT framework. Bolashak's program expansion, which states that the practical experience that can be gained in the U.S. is crucial for their specific majors. Therefore, raising money to reimburse program costs is an important task for those who want to stay in the US.
This factor is quite important because there is a relatively small number of Kazakhstanis in the American tertiary education institutions. Thus, the 'Bolashak' program, on the one hand, prevents Kazakhstani students from staying in the host countries; on the other hand, it contributes to the international student flow from Kazakhstan and facilitates the future migration of former scholarship holders. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the 'Bolashak' scholarship conditionality poses serious financial risks for those returning to Kazakhstan to avoid, it recognizes the importance of post-study practical training in the US for scholarship holders who are expected to contribute positively to Kazakhstan s development.
Transnational involvement in the US: patriotic transnationalism
This chapter is devoted to the transnational practices that Kazakh students and student migrants engage in while in the United States. For example, Bernar, a 23-year-old software engineer, decided to stay in the United States when he found a job under OPT conditions. These soft factors4 play a central role in their definitions of sense of belonging, as Kazakhs in the United States see themselves as belonging to a separate from.
Liza received a full scholarship from a prestigious music school in the USA and has no formal obligations to return to Kazakhstan. In such a case, I will try to help those Kazakhstanis who want to study in the USA to be admitted to the universities I work at. In general, international students who have some patriotic feelings towards Kazakhstan and its people consider staying in the US as not the ultimate goal.
For patriots, being in the US is a sojourn, a temporary journey for experience and development that may ultimately end with a return to the homeland. In Soviet times, patriotism was associated with unwavering service to the country (Tromly, 2009), which to some extent meant not leaving the country, where international travel was very limited (Wojnowski, 2015). Patriotic sentiments represented by an attachment to "roots" and Kazakh culture and a sense of belonging to the Kazakh people support the transnational engagement of current international students and graduates living in the US.
The gifts Kazakh students buy in the US for their family members are considered a bargain as they are unavailable or more expensive in Kazakhstan. What we call here patriotic considerations to some extent influence the transnational involvement of Kazakh students and student-migrants in the United States. However, they did not attach as much importance to these contacts as the contacts with other Kazakhs in the United States.
Furthermore, these practices are important for individuals as they can affirm their sense of belonging and national identity in the host society. Thus, the transnational involvement of Kazakh students and immigrants in the US is supported by patriotic feelings and represents patriotic transnationalism.
Transnational involvement in Kazakhstan: pragmatic transnationalism
This explains why international students returning to Kazakhstan articulate simultaneous affiliation with both the US and Kazakhstan more explicitly than those living in the US. In contrast to those who are in the USA, the participants who returned to Kazakhstan suggest that the USA is always there and that they cannot leave it completely. You always stay in touch and catch up with friends you met in the US via Facebook.
The analysis suggests that, while in the country of study - the USA, individuals discover and develop their identification with the home country. Kazakhstan, while upon their return to Kazakhstan they see how much they have changed during the years they spent in the US. This is also reflected in the words of Abylay, a 'Bolashak' beneficiary who holds a Ph.D.
Overall, I want to keep an eye on opportunities in Kazakhstan as much as possible while working with the 'Bolashak' scholarship in the country. Thus, the presence of networks in the US supports the cross-border communication of returning students. Therefore, this study suggests that maintaining interpersonal connections with people in the country of study aligns with Kazakh graduates' intentions to return to the US.
In this thesis, those who returned to Kazakhstan after their studies in the USA are mostly 'Bolashak' scholars who needed to fulfill their work obligations in Kazakhstan. Therefore, instead of staying in the US or returning there as soon as they feel the need, they should postpone their migration. Bolashak graduates believe that their transnational connections would help them stay up-to-date with the US and increase their chances of employment in the country of study while in Kazakhstan.
Conclusion
The patriotic feelings that made up the national identity of the participants were linked to cultural factors such as ancestral home, language, food, holidays and desires to contribute to the socio-cultural. The tendencies to contribute to nation-states reported by participants in the study suggest that they may perceive themselves or intend to become agents of development (Faist, 2008) of their society of origin. However, it was not within the scope of this dissertation to trace the socio-cultural, economic or political developments to which international students as transnational agents might contribute.
Placing the case of international student flows from Kazakhstan to the USA in the context of the internationalization of higher education, the receiving country's immigration policy, and the sending country's 'Bolashak' state education scholarship, the study proposed general mechanisms influencing international student migration. . There are always two voices..”: International students' intentions to stay in the United States or return to their home countries. Exploring mobility and accommodation: examining transience and transnationality in the lives of international students. http://ezproxy.nu.edu.kz:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct.
Qualitative analysis of transnational identity construction. http://ezproxy.nu.edu.kz:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct. Migrants as Transnational Development Agents: A Survey of the Latest Round of the Migration-Development Nexus. Towards Transnational Studies: World Theories, Transnationalization and Changing Institutions. http://ezproxy.nu.edu.kz:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct.
Retrieved from http://ezproxy.nu.edu.kz:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct. Student changers and the regulation of residency: The intersection of the individual and the Australian immigration regime. Internationally mobile students and their migration behavior after graduation: an analysis of determinants of student mobility and retention rates in the EU.
