Routes to a Western Undergraduate Degree: Chinese Families’ Mobilization of Capital and Flexible Citizenship
Abstract
Today, an increasing number of Chinese families send their children to study in the West to open up future opportunities. While studying abroad has a long history in China from late Qing dynasty (1836–1911), in the last couple of decades Chinese student mobility occurred on a much larger scale. Chinese families view an undergraduate degree from the West as a way to enhance career opportunities and familial social status. My study examined Chinese families’ intentions and strategies to gain advantage in their transnational trajectory. Specifically, I explore how forms of capital accumulate and transfer through transnational educational routes. Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986) notions of capital and habitus, as well as Aihwa Ong’s (1999) concept of flexible citizenship were employed in this study as complementary frameworks to understand Chinese families’ exploitation of study abroad.
This research employed exploratory qualitative study methodology. Semi- structure interviews were conducted with 23 families (one parent and one student in each family). Each of these families had a child who had studied or was studying in a Western country. Nine key informants, including study-abroad agents, recruiters, principals, and ESL teachers, were also invited to share their knowledge in this research.
This study affirms that the formation of Chinese families’ flexible citizenship is a trend driven by cultural and social forces in Chinese national and local contexts with neoliberal permeation. These multilevel forces include social, cultural, political, and economic roots, which are interwoven in complex ways. My participants strategically mobilize their various forms of capital in order to develop flexible citizenship, but they also face challenges and lost partial cultural and social capital in China.
Insights developed in this study will benefit the following audiences: educational scholars who are interested in student transnational mobility in both China and the West; Chinese international students themselves and their families; officers working at Canadian academic institutions who are recruiting international students; and educators, principals/teachers/study-abroad agents who are working with international students, specifically Chinese students.