Do Health Problems Have an Effect on Students’ Plans for International Mobility?

Little is known about the international mobility of students with a disability or chronic disease. According to Dessof (2006), students with a disability are underrepresented concerning studies abroad. Matthews et al. (1998) and Kutsche (2012) report that a (supposed) lack of adjustments to the situation of students with a disability (e. g., disability access or special medical care) are obstacles for them concerning a study abroad. Our analyses are based on Rational Choice Theory and psychological approaches. Concerning the former theory, we assume that the preference for a study abroad on average does not vary between students with and without a disability. We suppose that differences concerning the restrictions are responsible for the fact that disabled students are less inclined to study abroad. According to Breen and Goldthorpe (1997), differences concerning resources induce different educational decisions. As disabled students are faced with restrictions concerning the resource “health”, they are supposed to be less inclined to study abroad. In addition, we investigate whether or not students with and without a disability differ concerning personality traits. For disabled people, to begin a study is a much higher hurdle than for other people. Therefore, probably students with a disability have special personality traits due to selection processes (selective enrolment) which enables them to partly compensate for disadvantages, e. g. a higher degree of openness or a higher degree of extraversion. We use data of the 21st social survey (Middendorff et al. 2017). In 2016, 55,219 students in Germany have completed the social survey online survey. The proportion of students with disabilities/chronic diseases aggravating their studies is eleven per cent. Preliminary analyses show that disabled students are less inclined to plan a study abroad. The next analyses will concentrate on the analysis of the question which factors are responsible for these differences.