Even though student mobility is increasingly frequent, the predominant direction is mainly from countries considered peripheral to those that have more economic and political representation (Altbach, 2004; OECD, 2015). This study investigated the reasons why students go to Brazil, the composition of their social networks, and their implications for learning Portuguese as a foreign language. This research had a mixed methods longitudinal design, in which 98 participants completed two questionnaires (i.e. in August and November 2016). A thematic analysis of the reasons that participants presented for going to Brazil resulted in three general “approaches”: Actors, interested in idiosyncrasies of studying in Brazil; Observers, interested in having an experience abroad; and Riders, who had Brazil as a convenient choice. This classification not only predicted Portuguese language levels, but was related to participants’ home countries, supporting an articulation of SA in terms of core-periphery relations (Wallerstein, 2004).

即使学生的流动性越来越频繁，但主要的方向仍然是来自那些被认为与那些具有更大经济和政治代表性的国家相比处于外围的国家（Altbach，2004； OECD，2015）。这项研究调查了学生前往巴西的原因，他们的社交网络的组成及其对学习葡萄牙语作为外语的影响。这项研究采用混合方法纵向设计，其中98名参与者完成了两份问卷（即2016年8月和2016年11月）。对参与者提出前往巴西的原因的专题分析得出了三个普遍的“方法”：对巴西的学习特质感兴趣的演员；观察员，对出国旅行有兴趣；和Riders，他们将巴西作为方便的选择。