The impact of COVID-19 on the social and cultural integration of international students: a literature review

ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access © The Author(s) 2025, corrected publication 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/. Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-025-00425-3 *Correspondence: Cristina Sin [email protected] Full list of author information is available at the end of the article The impact of COVID-19 on the social and cultural integration of international students: a literature review CristinaSin1* , OrlandaTavares2, ElinaApsite-Berina3, JudithBorràs4, BetülBulut-Sahin5, MartinaChrančoková6, KarolinaCzerska-Shaw7, Anne MarieDevlin8, SybilleHeinzmann9, SuviJokila10, AnitaKéri11, IvanaLešević12, AnnaritaMagliacane13, AnnaNicolaou14, NeslihanOnder-Ozdemir15, AdrianaPerez-Encinas16, NatassaRaikou17, Maria VictoriaSoule18, DeimantasValančiūnas19, Ana IolandaVoda20 and MerveZayim-Kurtay5 Comparative Migration Studies Abstract This systematic literature review summarises the state-of-the-art evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on the integration of international students in their host countries and institutions. Conducted between January and May 2022, it analyses the responses to COVID-19 of the key actors involved in international student mobility: national/regional authorities, higher education institutions, and students. Findings reveal that governmental action and institutional measures were decisive in shaping international students’ integration experiences. Regarding governmental action, criticism of the policies adopted by Australia and the USA in relation to immigration and/or support stand out, in contrast to policies adopted by the Canadian authorities. Higher education institutions played an important role in mitigating the negative effects of COVID-19 on international students’ integration. These targeted different needs– material, well-being, and social– through different types of support: logistical and financial support, psychological support, and the provision of platforms for ongoing social interaction and exchange. Most studies, however, focus on the students themselves, the challenges they faced during the pandemic and their coping strategies. Common to international students’ lived experience was (dis) connectedness, with the following themes emerging as obstacles to their social and cultural integration: distress during lockdown periods, disruption of their social life and support networks, mental health issues, discrimination and racialised prejudice, and language barriers. The review concludes by proposing recommendations and by identifying avenues for future research. Keywords International students, Integration, COVID-19, National policies, Institutional support Page 2 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 Introduction and rationale Integration of international students represents a major challenge for host countries and institutions. Integration occurs at several levels: social, cultural and academic. This systematic literature review aims to gather comprehensive state-of-the-art evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on the social and cultural integration of international students in their host countries and institutions. By social integration we understand the formal contact between colleagues on learning matters and informal interaction with peers and participation in student activities (Severiens & Wolff, 2008). This implies a sense of belonging (Rivas et al., 2019), which can be expressed by the size of social networks and the quality and quantity of interactions (Merola et al., 2019). In turn, cultural integration is associated with the sphere of cultural habits, values, beliefs or language (Algan et al., 2012) of the host country. Academic integration (adjustment to the learning and teaching environment) lies outside the scope of this review. The social and cultural integration of international students may pose multiple challenges (Smith & Khavaja, 2011). Students are likely to experience several major life changes because studying abroad entails being in a new culture and social environment. They must adjust to a different lifestyle (e.g., food, climate), a different culture (e.g., dressing, communicating and ways of doing things) (Li & Gasser, 2005) and, in many cases, to a new language (Brown & Holloway, 2008; Zhou et al., 2008; Van Mol & Michielsen, 2015). International students may additionally struggle with the absence of their families and the lack of support, with a loss of sense of belonging and homesickness (Li & Gasser, 2005; Poyrazli & Lopez, 2007; Thompson & Esses, 2016; Nada & Araújo, 2019). These life changes can easily become linguistic, sociocultural and discriminatory sources of stress (Smith & Khawaja, 2011). Therefore, many factors related to culture (e.g., culture shock), emotional state (e.g., depression and anxiety), negative attitudes of the locals (e.g., discrimination), and academic involvement (e.g., collaborative learning) may affect international students (Rivas et al., 2019). A successful integration is paramount to ensuring students’ satisfaction, academic success and retention. For international students, hosting institutions play a crucial role in integration, which can be facilitated through tailored support services, information provision, initiatives that bring national and international students together, counselling and so on (Ward, 2015; Gu et al., 2010; Perez-Encinas & Ammigan, 2016; Nicolescu & Galalae, 2013; Thompson & Esses, 2016). The COVID-19 pandemic has rendered even more challenging the conditions of international students’ social and cultural integration. The negative impacts on higher education students have been abundantly documented at various levels, for instance, on mental health (Aristovnik et al., 2020), learning and academic performance (Doolan et al., 2021; Fuchs, 2022), social life (Aristovnik et al., 2020; Doolan et al., 2021; Elmer et al., 2020) and financial conditions (Aristovnik et al., 2020; Le, 2021). These impacts have been even more profound for international students (Gallagher et al., 2020; Sahu, 2020). During COVID-19, institutions were shut down, countries around the world imposed general lockdowns and travel restrictions and social distancing made travel and an active social life impossible (Elmer et al., 2020). In a context where these students were away from their homes, families and support networks, such circumstances aggravated their situation. Isolated and incapable of returning home, host institutions became, for many, the key actors they could rely on for advice, support and information (Sahu, 2020). Hence, the role played by higher education institutions for international students’ Page 3 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 integration, already significant, became vital during COVID-19 (see Le, 2021 or Sahu, 2020). International students’ integration during the pandemic was also heavily affected by the national policies and the public health measures imposed by governments worldwide (Qi & Ma, 2021; Sustarsic & Zhang, 2022). Revised immigration regulations for residence and student status, restrictions on entering the host country, and the provision (or lack of) emergency support are measures that shaped international students’ ability to integrate and feel welcome or neglected in their host country. To our knowledge, there is currently no systematic literature review on the impact of COVID-19 on the social and cultural integration of international students. As integration is shaped by policies and initiatives taken at several levels, the review’s objective is to analyse the responses to COVID-19 of the actors involved in international student mobility (ISM). We aim to unveil if and how these responses have impacted international students’ integration. We also aim to investigate the integration experiences of students themselves. The overarching research question that guides this literature review is: How has COVID-19 impacted the social and cultural integration of international students in their host countries and institutions? To capture the different levels that shape international students’ experience of social and cultural integration, we broke down the research question into the following three sub-questions: How have national governments responded to COVID-19, and how has this affected international students’ integration? How have institutions responded to COVID-19, and how has this affected international students’ integration? How have international students experienced their integration during COVID-19? Methodology This work was conducted according to the PRISMA statement on systematic reviews (Moher et al., 2009). A team of 21 researchers working on ISM from various disciplinary perspectives (linguistics, sociology, education, etc.) undertook the different steps of identification, selection and analysis of documents. Regular group discussions ensured consistency of approach. Aware that, when conducting social research, interpretations are very likely to be subject to human bias (Baker, 2012, p. 255), we followed robust steps in the different stages of the review, both during the selection of documents and their subsequent analysis. To minimize bias, the following steps were taken: First, inclusion criteria were agreed upon and clearly defined in a team meeting, after which they were written down and shared with everyone for easy reference during the document search and selection process, which is described in detail below. Second, authors worked in pairs and doubled-checked each other’s choices. Whenever in doubt, they discussed their decisions to reach consensus. When doubts persisted, the coordinators made the final decision based on their overview of the entire corpus. Third, interpretations and regular discussions involving the whole team were frequent to ensure consistency and resolve any questions. These endeavours to reduce bias are mentioned, when applicable, in the detailed description of the PRISMA stages below. The literature corpus was built as a multiple-stage process. First, based on the research questions, we identified search terms (and synonyms/variations) for the analysed group (international students), the process (integration) and the pandemic (COVID-19) (see Table1). Second, we performed the search in six databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Page 4 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 ERIC, Proquest, Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts and PsychInfo) to ensure broad coverage and retrieve as many publications as possible. Given the novelty of COVID-19, limiting the search to the most selective databases posed the risk of leaving out studies containing relevant evidence. We applied the following inclusion criteria: (1) Only peer-reviewed publications were selected to ensure a minimum quality standard. (2) Publications were directly related to the review research question. (3) Only publications with retrievable full texts were selected. (4) Publications had to be research-based, thus excluding opinion articles, commentaries, or letters to editors. (5) Publications were in English. Although language represented a limitation in the breadth of covered literature, this decision was important as the group was international and rather large. Double-checking (as referred to above) would, therefore, not have been possible in other languages. Each team member was attributed a different combination of search terms and a different database. Initially, the search was performed in the title, abstract and keywords only, but in some databases (e.g., Scopus), this strategy returned very few results. In such cases, the search was extended to full texts to identify additional potentially relevant literature. The cut-off date for the search of documents was May 2022. The findings of more recent studies are therefore not reflected in this review, which may be seen as a limitation. The automatic search in the six databases returned 7708 documents (see Fig.1). Each team member conducted an initial screening of the results retrieved by their specific search string and database to refine the selection, based on the reading of the abstract and the observance of the inclusion criteria. One hundred fifty-nine publications, which appeared to meet the inclusion criteria, were retained, of which 22 documents were duplicates (present in several databases). This resulted in a provisional corpus of 137 documents. Two articles, at the time still in press, were added by the review authors. Two researchers subsequently screened each of these 139 documents in more detail to decide independently if the documents were indeed eligible to be considered in the review. The screening in pairs was aimed to minimise researcher subjectivity, as a reliability check to ensure that the inclusion criteria were met. This resulted in the further exclusion of 59 documents, mainly for not being research-based or having no or little relevance to the review topic. After this step, 80 documents were, therefore, assessed as eligible. Additionally, ten records of grey literature were identified as potentially relevant for the review. In total, the provisional review corpus contained 90 documents. The next stage was the full reading of the documents. Also at this stage, two researchers read each document individually, again to reduce subjectivity bias and as a quality assurance measure. The aim of the quality assessment was to check the robustness of the employed method and the logic and coherence in the data analysis, results, and conclusions. The two readers discussed any disagreement between them and, if doubts Table 1 Search terms for the identification of literature Group Process Phenomenon International student* Integration Covid-19 Mobile student* Inclusion Pandemic Foreign student* Adaptation Exchange/Erasmus student* Student support/support Study abroad Government/policy Page 5 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 persisted, the review coordinators made the final decision. This process ensured reliance on high-quality studies to construct the major arguments. Following this stage, 37 studies were excluded: 30 articles and seven grey literature documents. The reasons were mainly related to the marginal relevance for the review topic. Several studies that were excluded at this stage dealt, for example, with the remote learning and teaching experience, not discussing any relationship to the social and cultural integration of international students. In this phase, two more studies were identified through references (backward search) and one study through citations (forward search). The 56 studies of the final corpus were analysed following a protocol for standardised data extraction to minimise researcher subjectivity (Tranfield et al., 2003). For this purpose, data extraction categories were defined in a group meeting (see Fig.2) and these represented our coding framework. To enable collective work, this coding framework was transposed into a Google Excel sheet, which contained the list of selected studies. All relevant data and information that we needed to perform the analysis and synthesis of the reviewed literature was recorded on this shared document. The sheet acted as a record of the decisions made during the process and represented the data repository Fig. 1 The PRISMA multi-stage process resulting in the constitution of the literature review corpus Page 6 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 supporting the analysis (Tranfield et al., 2003). Again, two researchers, independent of one another, analysed each study, extracted the relevant information independently, and the findings were compared and reconciled, if needed. For the three research questions, we retrieved relevant fragments from the literature which answered specifically these questions. The analysis of these fragments across the selected studies was performed by three pairs (one for each research question). The pairs conducted inductive analysis, allowing the main themes for each question to emerge from the data (see themes in the section Findings). We stress again the caveat that the review results rely on texts exclusively in English and retrieved before the cut-off date of May 2022, which restricts their linguistic and temporal scope. The next section provides an overview of the selected literature, analysing its key descriptive characteristics by discipline, authors’ affiliations, mobility types, home and destination countries, theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. Then, the next section will discuss the main themes resulting from the inductive analysis to identify patterns regarding the impact of COVID-19 on international students’ integration. Mapping the field: descriptive overview of the reviewed studies The 56-document corpus comprised 53 pieces of peer-reviewed literature (52 articles and one chapter) and three reports (grey literature), searched and identified between January and May 2022. Most studies reported on the first phase/semester of COVID-19 (n = 26), which was expectable considering the time articles take to be peer-reviewed and the search cut-off date. Journal subject area. As shown in Fig.3, the articles were published mainly in education journals (25, of which six in higher education, seven in international education, one Fig. 2 Coding framework Page 7 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 in language education and eleven in generic ones), followed by multidisciplinary journals (14 journals, in fields such as mobilities or intercultural relations), psychology (6), health (5), law (1) and anthropology (1). The Journal of International Students was the most frequent publication outlet (5 of the 52 articles). The grey literature reports were published by two European organisations, the European Commission and the Erasmus Student Network (European Commission, European Education and Culture Executive Agency, 2020; Gabriels & Benke-Åberg, 2020) and an Australian research organisation (Uzhegova et al., 2021). Affiliations. Most of the authors of the reviewed studies (Fig.4) were, at the time of publication, affiliated with institutions located in China (13), the USA (10), Australia (7) and Canada (6). Authors affiliated with European institutions were spread across different countries (13). It is worth noting that the UK, as a traditional major destination of international students, was only represented in two articles (unlike the USA, Canada or Australia). Mobility types. A wide nomenclature to refer to ISM emerged at the initial stage of coding. To ensure consistency in the coding across the team, two researchers standardised all initial codes and developed a classification with four overarching categories: degree mobility, credit mobility, virtual mobility and miscellaneous. As shown in Fig.5, most studies (45 out of 56) dealt with degree mobility. These were followed by papers classified as miscellaneous (5). Only three studies analysed credit mobility (part of a degree programme). Due to the specific conditions of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the interest in virtual course delivery started gaining traction, but the number of studies on virtual mobility was small (3). Fig. 4 Authors’ country/region of affiliation (total number of affiliations is higher than 56 because of co-authorships) Fig. 3 The distribution of articles by journal subject area Page 8 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 Destination countries. Of the 56 studies, 46 focused on a single destination country (Fig.6). The most frequently investigated host countries were the USA (9), China (8), Canada (6) and Australia (6). European destination countries were studied in 14 articles. In the non-European context, Ecuador, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were explored as destination countries (3). The remaining studies included either articles targeting multiple destinations (6) or reports published by European organisations (2). Two studies had no information regarding the destination country. Home countries. The analysed studies generally refer to students from various home countries (31)– Fig.7. Only five studies focused on students from one specific country Fig. 7 Home countries Fig. 6 Destination countries/regions Fig. 5 Types of mobility covered by selected literature Page 9 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 of origin, four from China and one from the US. On the other hand, many studies did not report any information about home countries (20). A reason could be that studies focused on international students in general and that the interest lay in their experiences in the host country, irrespective of country of origin. It is worth noting, however, that ten studies focused on international students from Asia (including the four from China), signalling the region’s importance as a sender of international students. Theoretical approaches. The reviewed studies drew on theories and concepts from psychology (such as the stress process model or transactional model of stress and coping), sociology (such as neo-racism and institutional theory) and mobility theories (such as mobility justice, mobility capital, and elastic borders). Most papers (34, almost twothirds) had no theoretical framework, indicating that ISM during the pandemic was predominantly approached empirically. Perhaps, the hastiness to publish work did not provide room for theoretical development. Research methodology. Over half of the studies (35) adopted a qualitative design, with interviewing being the most common data collection method (Fig.8). While other systematic reviews of ISM before COVID-19 mainly summarised quantitative studies (Lomer & Mittelmeier, 2023; Nicolescu & Galalae, 2013), this review only identified 13 studies using quantitative methods. Five studies had no empirical data and three studies used mixed methods through the triangulation of various data sources. The participants in the reviewed studies were mostly international students (undergraduate and postgraduate), but also faculty members (Chen & Wen, 2021), student services professionals (Veerasamy & Ammigan, 2022), institutional leaders and middle managers (Sin et al., 2023), coordinators of Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters and Doctoral programmes (European Commission, European Education and Culture Executive Agency, 2020), parents and migration agents (Qi & Ma, 2021). Findings For analytical purposes, the findings have been organised to answer the three research questions of the review. Indeed, most studies focused on one level of analysis only: how national authorities responded to COVID-19, what emergency measures institutions adopted or international students’ lived experiences, which is reflected in the presentation of the findings. However, the three levels are interconnected, as testified by various examples in the three sections below. First, we present national authorities’ responses to COVID-19 and their reported effects on the integration of international students. Fig. 8 Methodological design of selected literature Page 16 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 inform students about COVID-19 prevention measures. The study found that volunteering led to well-being and satisfaction (Kifle Mekonen & Adarkwah, 2022). The urban public/shared gardens represented an escape for international students, “a safe arena (…) to maintain social contact with friends outdoors”, providing “social well-being and a sense of community as well as individual well-being” (Collins et al., 2022, p. 6). Geréb Valachiné and colleagues (2022) highlighted art-making as a strategy to handle the difficult isolation and Yang et al. (2020) referred to positive thinking and resilience. Sustarsic and Zhang (2022) found that international students sought emotional support transnationally, from friends and family back home, as a common way of coping. Discussion and conclusions This study systematically reviewed 56 studies focusing on international students’ integration into their host countries and institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, published between the outbreak of the pandemic and May 2022. Because international students’ integration depends not only on themselves but also on governments and higher education institutions, the review aimed to understand both how international students experienced their integration and how governments and institutions responded to COVID-19 and how these responses affected international students’ integration. We found that governmental action and institutional measures were decisive in shaping students’ integration experiences. Criticism prevailed of the immigration and support policies adopted by Australia and the USA, frequently considered unfriendly towards international students and detrimental to integration, contributing to feelings of exclusion. This reinforced the perception of students as cash-cows, especially in Australia. Canada, in contrast, treated international students as valuable guests, i.e., granting study permits and associated entitlements without students’ physical presence in the country or allowing them to work extended hours. Higher education institutions played an important role in mitigating the negative effects of COVID-19 on international students’ integration, by catering to different needs– material, well-being, and social. They offered material conditions allowing international students to continue in the institution; psychological support in the form of, for example, counselling, home visits and virtual peer support; and provision of platforms for ongoing social interaction to ensure a continued sense of belonging to the institution’s community. Most studies, however, focused on students themselves and on the integration challenges which they encountered during the pandemic: distressing lockdowns, disruption of social life and support networks, mental health issues, discrimination and racialised prejudice and language barriers. Disconnectedness was a common theme in the reviewed studies. Students resorted to various coping mechanisms to improve their well-being. Policy and practice recommendations. The review findings warrant some recommendations. Given the anxiety caused by national policies, universities may benefit from enhanced cooperation with the government in managing migration more generally. Crock and Nutter (2021) even recommended a convention regulating the rights of international students. COVID-19 can also represent an opportunity for governments to rethink international education and develop disruptive models that can offer sustainable solutions, during emergency and normal circumstances, grounded in more humane and compassionate values (Tran, 2020). Page 17 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 Within HEIs, mental health and counselling services capable of addressing international students’ circumstances need developing (Ge, 2021; Raaper et al., 2022), e.g., sensitive to cultural differences and helping students deal with discrimination and building a sense of positive self-regard (Anandavalli et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2020). It is also important to deconstruct the stigmas associated with mental health in different cultures and make international students comfortable with seeking psychological advice (Ge, 2021). In practice, it is only possible for universities not to ignore the mental health problems of international students if their psychological support units and international offices cooperate. The review also highlighted the importance of support networks (Raaper et al., 2022), institutional support and belonging. Indeed, institutions have implemented interventions (e.g., virtual socialising activities), but it is important that more institutionalised forums be created, not only for social networking but also as spaces where international students can share experiences. In practice, it is very important for sociocultural integration that these socialization initiatives start during mobility and in the pre-departure phase, before the students arrive. Further, international student offices may provide a safe place for international students to report racism (Koo et al., 2023; Koo, 2021). Regular support groups or regular check-in sessions to see how students are doing, which institutions developed during the pandemic, can be the basis for a more general system of continuous support. It is also important to anchor international students in their local environments, as this allows them to create networks also outside the university, contributing to social engagement in local communities (Amoah & Mok, 2022), for example through volunteering. Implementing all these processes in universities can be possible by adopting the comprehensive internationalization model developed by Hudzik (2011) in institutional management; in other words, it implies involving all academic and administrative units in the processes rather than associating international students only with the international office. Additionally, intercultural sensitivity could be promoted throughout the institutions, for example through a diversity policy guiding the work of all units and schools, and through training sessions and workshops which raise local students and staff’s awareness of the socio-cultural needs and challenges faced by international students. In sum, it is critical to ensure that any measures are mindful of inclusivity and diversity to ensure solutions for all students. Moreover, instead of merely adopting a “crisis management” approach, HEIs could benefit from medium-long-term planning and sustainable transformation, embedding some of the practices adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such transformation could support not only the recovery of ISM more generally but also create an educational climate that celebrates international students on campus, alleviating their potential social isolation and ensuring well-being (Amoah & Mok, 2022; Anandavalli et al., 2020). Limitations and further research. This systematic review has some limitations. First, the selection of literature published in English only may have also overlooked studies on the review topic published in other languages. Future reviews based on literature written in different languages may add novel perspectives. Second, the cut-off date for the search was May 2022, so studies that may be relevant and could add to this panorama were omitted. Since some time has elapsed since then, an updated literature review may enrich our knowledge of COVID-19’s impact on international students’ integration. Third, the elaboration of this review still during the COVID-19 pandemic may explain Page 18 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 the poor theoretical conceptualization of international students’ integration in disruptive times. The observed scarcity of conceptual frameworks highlights the need for more theoretically solid work on the impact of global crises on integration. Despite the flurry of research activity related to ISM during the pandemic, the rushed, intensive nature of the period left several other gaps and scope for future follow-up. First, further research needs to investigate how integration may have been affected differently by different demographic characteristics within the international student population. This requires comparative studies with a broader geographical scope to gain insights from various racial groups and explore whether the findings vary in different cultural and disciplinary contexts (Alsulami, 2021; Dong & Ishige, 2022; Hari et al., 2021; Sarker et al., 2021; Sustarsic & Zhang, 2022; Xu, 2021). For this, larger and more diverse samples, as well as random sampling techniques, are needed to ensure the representativeness, validity and generalisability of findings (Dong & Ishige, 2022; Zahrae Afellat & Alipour, 2021; Khan et al., 2021; Alsulami, 2021; Xu, 2021). Such research could add a quantitative dimension, which was scarce in the reviewed literature. Further research is also needed to evaluate in hindsight the impact that the measures taken by institutions during the pandemic had on international students in the longer run. For example, largescale, more comprehensive surveys could be administered by international research teams to former international students in more than one country to gather comparative evidence. Based on a hindsight perspective, it would allow answering questions such as: What were the main challenges to sociocultural integration during COVID-19 for international students? Were they different for students of different ethnic backgrounds/ genders/qualification levels/disciplines? How did experiences of integration differ in different countries? What measure did host institutions take to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on international students’ integration and how effective were they? Furthermore, future studies could also target national and institutional actors and the circumstances and resources they were operating in to better prepare for other emergency situations. As time has passed since the pandemic outbreak, understanding how national and institutional policies and practices have been developed (or not) would be focal. Acknowledgements This article is based upon the work from COST Action CA20115 ‘European Network on International Student Mobility. Connecting Research and Practice’, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Author contributions All authors contributed to the following tasks: conception of the review; search, identification, selection of studies; document coding; and analysis of the different dimensions of the reviewed literature reported in the manuscript. [Author 1] and [Author 2] led the review team, wrote the sections Introduction and rationale, Methodology and Conclusion and compiled and edited the different authors’ contributions in the sections Mapping the field and Findings. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript. Data availability The literature review corpus and the data extraction form will be available upon reasonable request. Declarations Competing interests None of the authors have any financial or non-financial competing interests in the manuscript. Author details 1Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Education and Development, Lusófona University, Lisboa, Portugal 2Research Centre on Child Studies, Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal 3University of Latvia, Rīga, Latvia 4Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain 5Department of Educational Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Türkiye 6Institute for Forecasting - Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia Page 19 of 21Sin et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2025) 13:7 7Institute of European Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland 8School of Languages, Literature and Culture, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 9School of Education, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern, Muttenz, Switzerland 10Department of Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland 11Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary 12Faculty of Applied Management, Economics and Finance, University Business Academy in Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia 13Department of English, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK 14Language Centre, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus 15School of Foreign Languages, Bursa Uludag University, Bursa, Türkiye 16Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 17University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece 18Department of French and European Studies, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus 19Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania 20Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Iaşi, Romania Received: 26 December 2023 / Accepted: 15 January 2025 References (The studies included in the review corpus are identified with *) *Abramova, M. 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