The MAXOUT Study Abroad project (Motivations, Aspiration, Expectations, Experiences and Outcomes of Study Abroad among UK undergraduates studying Japanese and Korean) is envisaged as a longitudinal cross-institutional mixed-methods research project investigating the socio-cultural mechanisms linking study motivations, career aspirations, expectations and experiences of international mobility, and the differential social mobility potentials of UK university students enrolled on a Japanese or Korean programme containing a compulsory Study Abroad (SA) year.

The project’s focus derives from several observations made in connection to recent trends affecting UK higher education. Research on outward student mobility has highlighted the relevance of social class and parental income to university students’ ability and interest to participate in international exchange programmes, which in turn affects international career opportunities and connections (Findlay and King, 2010; King et al., 2011; Lörz et al., 2016). Particularly, student mobility to continental Europe has been declining for over two decades, with interest shifting to more distant and more expensive English-speaking countries such as the USA or Australia (Findlay et al., 2006). This trend has paralleled a decreasing interest in foreign language study and declining recruitment to undergraduate degrees in languages.

However, two languages in particular – Japanese and Korean – have challenged this trend, with the number of undergraduate degree programmes and student numbers in Japanese and Korean seeing major increases in recent years (HESA, 2023b). One reason may be the attraction of the competing pop-cultural influences of these countries, one of the most successful developments in soft-power public diplomacy since the demise of the “Britpop” cultural movement of the 1990s (Hashimoto, 2018; Jang and Paik, 2012; Koma, 2012; Lee, 2009; Sanz and Carbó-Catalan, 2022). Most undergraduate programmes in Japanese and Korean include a compulsory year abroad component, which may represent a further motivating factor for students with fewer resources to travel to these countries outside the formalised framework of a university degree. This compulsory year abroad plays an essential role in shaping social and cultural identities, facilitating intercultural contact and challenging imagined idealisations of the countries visited (Kinginger, 2013; Mitchell et al., 2015).

However, the interactive social mechanisms linking macro-political factors such as soft power competition, language-learning motivations, career and international mobility aspirations, and social mobility, have not yet been comprehensively studied. This project attempts to gain insights into these mechanisms.