Globalization from Below in Thai Higher Education: Social Capital, Digital Mediation, and International Students' Cultural Adaptation
Research in Globalization, (2026), Vol. 13, pp. 100391
Konrawan Rattanaburi
a
,
Suchita Manajit
a
,
Alexander A. Hernandez
b
a School of Accountancy and Finance, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand
b College of Computer Studies and Multimedia Arts, FEU Institute of Technology, Manila, Philippines
Abstract: International student mobility is among the most visible human dimensions of contemporary globalization, yet globalization scholarship has read it largely through its macro-structures (flows, hubs, and policy competition) leaving undertheorized the social processes through which mobile students actually live it, above all in the non-Western host systems where educational globalization is now concentrated. This article advances a globalization-from-below argument: educational globalization is socially accomplished, or foreclosed, in the everyday micro-interactions through which mobile students build social capital, and the conditions of that accomplishment are structural and institutionally producible rather than matters of individual disposition. The argument is developed through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 23 international students from ten national backgrounds at a non-metropolitan public university in southern Thailand, analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis within a tripartite social capital framework complemented by Goffman's interactional and Bourdieu's dispositional micro-sociology. The analysis reveals a structural asymmetry at the heart of the sojourn: bonding capital is abundant yet can enclose; bridging capital with Thai peers is scarce yet qualitatively irreplaceable for cultural integration; and institutional linking capital is thin and largely informal. Digital technology, including AI-assisted translation, emerges as a distinctly contemporary globalization technology that lowers the threshold of cross-linguistic contact while imposing a ceiling on its depth. Because the conditions that enable bridging (dormitory co-residence, shared-goal activity, authentic English-medium delivery, and proactive institutional outreach) are institutionally producible, equitable participation in globalizing higher education is an institutional accomplishment rather than a by-product of mobility; the article closes with evidence-based design implications for the growing peripheries of regional education hubs.