chineseedmobilities

‘Diaspora at home’: class and politics in the navigation of Hong Kong students in Mainland China’s Universities

Xu, C. L. (2019). ‘Diaspora at home’: class and politics in the navigation of Hong Kong students in Mainland China’s Universities. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 1-18. doi:10.1080/09620214.2019.1700821

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**Dr Cora Lingling Xu, Durham university**

Abstract

This paper draws on ‘diaspora at home’, a concept that encapsulates the unique dynamics between Hong Kong and mainland China, as an analytical tool to explore the cross-border experiences of 23 Hong Kong students at 11 universities in mainland China. It empirically ascertains how the made and imposed claims and identifications of these Hong Kong students resulted in inclusion and exclusion as their interactions with their mainland peers and institutions deepened. Specifically, it highlights how their ‘diaspora at home’ status offered exclusive access to privileged higher education opportunities, preferential treatments and opportunities for upward social mobility. Meanwhile, such a status also resulted in an overwhelming sense of political liability as they unwittingly became ‘political tokens’ and suspected political subjects amid the increasingly tense political atmosphere between mainland China and Hong Kong. This paper pinpoints the relevance of class and politics in understanding how diasporic groups engage with higher education.

Diaspora at home

When Hong Kong returned to the PRC, overnight, the people of Hong Kong no longer belonged to the overseas Chinese diaspora. However, the legacy of colonial rule and Hong Kong’s special status continue to mark Hongkongers’ distinction from their counterparts in mainland China. This is a typical example in which the border migrated over people. Consequently, Hongkongers ‘were suddenly narrated into the experiential status that diaspora marks when coded as the stranger[s]-within. They may not have crossed the border. The border crossed them.’ Extending ‘diaspora’ to ‘diaspora at home’, in this case, seems fitting to capture the complex and multiple Chinese identities of the Hong Kong students who journey across the within-country border.

This article examines an understudied population in migration studies – cross-border students who are neither international nor domestic but have a unique ‘diaspora at home’ status. Through the ambiguous status of such students, the paper examines a central research question: what roles do class positions and political stances of Hong Kong students play in their experiences of mainland universities? Furthermore, this article illustrates both positive and negative roles the ‘diaspora at home’ status plays in these Hong Kong students’ educational and occupational navigation in mainland China. The paper sheds important light on rethinking the notions of border, citizenship, and nation-state in migration studies, and contributes to an expansive understanding of international students and cross-border education.

More specifically, I have drawn on data to argue firstly that the experiences of these Hong Kong students have been deeply politicised due to their ‘diaspora at home’ status; and secondly, that their class positions in Hong Kong have uniquely oriented them to take up the opportunities offered by the politically-motivated preferential higher education admission policies of the PRC government, due to the prospect of upward social mobility which was much less accessible in Hong Kong.

In navigating their journeys in mainland China, these students’ ‘diaspora at home’ status interplayed with the special ‘diasporic space’ in Beijing and resulted in these students’ exclusive access to an elite circle of Hongkongers made up of top-rank government officials and business elites. Such social connections would not have been possible had they stayed in Hong Kong, and enabled these students to accumulate social capital that facilitated subsequent competitive internship and job opportunities. Getting admitted to prestigious mainland universities also provided these Hong Kong students much-needed institutional and professional prestige and channels to secure ‘dignified’ employments, either in mainland China or in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, the highly politicised nature of their ‘diaspora at home’ status has been characterised by their simultaneous roles as ‘political tokens’ for conveying political unity messages and as potentially ‘dangerous’ and ‘suspicious’ political others, subjecting them to intense public scrutiny, hostile political confrontations and surveillance on campus. While these Hong Kong students took advantage of the higher education and upward social mobility offered by the PRC government and institutions, they became unwittingly committed to serving as subjects (or indeed ‘tokens’) for fostering political integration. In these senses, the Hong Kong students could be considered as becoming ‘political sacrifices’ for the PRC government’s ‘state driven strategy…toward eventual political integration’ of ‘disarticulated political entities including Hong Kong’ (Lan and Wu, 2016, p. 745).

Adopting ‘diaspora at home’ as an analytical lens has made it possible to tease out the nuances of the types of exclusions and navigations that these Hong Kong students as ‘strangers-within’ (Charusheela, 2007) have experienced, pertaining to politics and politicisation, and class and social mobility. As members of the ‘diaspora at home’, these Hong Kong students embodied and became impacted by many of the tensions and efforts that traditional diasporic groups have experienced when migrating abroad, e.g. exclusion and suspicion based on assumed and imposed political beliefs. Importantly, these Hong Kong students are dissimilar to their peers from middle-class backgrounds (Waters, 2007) and/or of higher academic achievement levels (Te and Postiglione, 2018); instead, their working-class background and/or academic standing inclined them towards such cross-border higher education moves. Distilling such embedded nature of class and politics thus allowed me to follow Brubaker’s (2005, p. 13) argument and focus on their ‘disaporic stances, projects, claims…practices’. Such an analytical orientation thus resonates with the consensus among migration scholars regarding the pertinence of departing from methodological nationalism and becoming sensitive to internal heterogeneity of the diaspora groups (Anthias, 1998; Brubaker, 2005; Kleist, 2008).

Author Bio

Dr Cora Lingling Xu(PhD, Cambridge, FHEA) is Assistant Professor at Durham University, UK. She is an editorial board member of British Journal of Sociology of Education, Cambridge Journal of Education and International Studies in Sociology of Education. In 2017, Cora founded the Network for Research into Chinese Education Mobilities. Cora has published in international peer-reviewed journals, including British Journal of Sociology of Education, The Sociological Review, International Studies in Sociology of Education, Review of Education, European Educational Research Journal and Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. Her research interests include Bourdieu’s theory of practice, sociology of time, rural-urban inequalities, ethnicity, education mobilities and inequalities and China studies. She can be reached at lingling.xu@durham.ac.uk, and via Twitter @CoraLinglingXu.

Youth, Mobility, and the Emotional Burdens of youxue (Travel and Study): A Case Study of Chinese Students in Italy

Lan, S. (2019) Youth, Mobility, and the Emotional Burdens of youxue (Travel and Study): A Case Study of Chinese Students in Italy. International Migration. doi: 10.1111/imig.12676

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Dr Shanshan Lan, University of Amsterdam

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in China and Italy, this article examines the affective dimension of middle‐class Chinese students’ youxue (travel and study) practices in Italy. With the liberalization of state policy in China’s self‐funded study abroad market and the proliferation of educational intermediaries, youxue has become a special type of educational consumption that caters to the middle‐class Chinese family’s desire for transnational mobility and cosmopolitan life styles. The blurring of the line between travel and study points to the open‐ended and multi‐linear nature of transnational student mobility. However, due to the limitations and pitfalls in international education policies in both the sending and the receiving countries, Chinese students’ youxue experiences in Italy are marked by notable contradictions between mobility and immobility, hopes and frustrations, self‐appreciation and self‐reproach.

INTRODUCTION

I met Brian in summer 2017, when he was working as a volunteer tutor for Chinese students at University X. Originally from Nanjing city in East China, Brian came to study in Italy in 2008 as an eighteen‐year‐old high school graduate. Since his score in the Gaokao (National College Entrance Exam) was not high enough for him to be admitted to an elite university in China, Brian decided to follow the popular trend of youxue (travel and study). Helped by a study abroad agent in Nanjing and financial aid from his parents, Brian managed to enrol in University X, a reputable university in Northern Italy. With much hesitation, Brian confessed to me that it took him eight years to learn to speak Italian fluently. A few days later, Brian made another confession: he never graduated from University X. He said, “I am still working on my thesis, but I sometimes tell Chinese students here that I graduated because I do not want them to doubt my ability as a tutor”. While promising to keep the secret, I was deeply troubled by the many contradictions in his overseas educational experiences. Why is it so easy for Brian to enrol in an elite university in Italy but not in China? Why did it take so long for him to learn to speak Italian fluently? How to explain the deep sense of shame he felt for not being able to graduate on time?

Brian is only one among many young Chinese students who study abroad at an early age. With the marketization of higher education in China and the liberalization of state policy concerning the self‐funded study abroad market, student migration from China has developed new trends in terms of the diversification of student backgrounds, motivations for studying abroad, and choice of destination countries. The rise of the youxue phenomenon in the late 2000s is one example: the Chinese word xue means study, but the word you has multiple meanings, such as travel, tourism, wandering, play, and fun. To expand their consumer market, commercialized intermediaries often trace the origin of youxue back to ancient China, when Confucius travelled with his students to surrounding countries for the purpose of building their knowledge and character. While upholding the combination of knowledge formation and character training in the Confucius model, the contemporary concept of youxue also highlights the experimental and experiential dimensions of overseas education. There are generally three types of youxue activities in the Chinese context: short‐term study tour or summer camps for children or adolescents (sometimes accompanied by parents); touring elite overseas university campuses by pre‐college youth and their parents; and short or long‐term study abroad projects for the purpose of obtaining language certificates, course credits, overseas degrees, and cross‐cultural experiences.

This research focuses on the youxue practices of Chinese students who study abroad with the purpose of obtaining a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. I chose this group due to excessive media reports of failure stories among them. Some were reported as getting involved in criminal activities in the host countries; others had to return home due to difficulties of adjusting to a new educational system (Luo, 2013; Mott, 2018). In 2014, it was reported that 8000 Chinese students were expelled from U.S. universities due to low grades, academic dishonesty, and breaking rules (Zuo, 2015). In 2017, three cases of suicides among Chinese students (one undergraduate, two doctoral candidates) were reported in U.S. universities (Chang, 2017). While such dramatic examples run the risk of pathologizing overseas Chinese students in popular media, few efforts have been made to explore the structural reasons that mediate the emotional wellbeing of these youth. This article contributes to literature on student migration and neoliberal affects by making a connection between the youxue phenomenon and neoliberal transformations in Chinese society. I argue that Chinese students’ feelings of disappointment, frustration, shame, and hope are symptomatic of structural problems embedded in the marketization of international education and the neoliberal transformation in China’s higher educational system.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

In their study of middle‐class British students attending élite universities in the United States, Waters et al. (2011) note that part of the goal of their informants’ study abroad experiences is to seek happiness, overseas adventure, and to extend the freedoms associated with youth. To a certain extent, the youth period for the Chinese students in this research has also been significantly prolonged due to their engagements in traveling and part‐time working activities, and the extra time they take to obtain an overseas degree. However, there are also important differences between the Chinese case and the British one. Most importantly, student migration from China to Italy has been heavily mediated by policies in both the sending and receiving countries and by commercialized educational intermediaries. The Marco Polo and Turandot programmes represent the Italian state’s effort to speed up its pace in the internationalization of higher education and to strengthen its geopolitical interests in China. The extremely lenient admission policy, endorsed by official bi‐lateral agreements between the sending and receiving states, not only creates a short cut for Italian universities’ recruitment of students from China but also effectively fends off competitions from universities in other European countries. However, the active involvement of both the Italian and Chinese states in transnational student mobility has its drawbacks. According to Matteo, a staff in the international office of University X, due to the politically sensitive nature of the Marco Polo programme, he and his colleagues are cautious not to offer any critique of it for fear of jeopardizing Sino‐Italian relations. Although there are plenty of complaints among the teaching staff at University X concerning Chinese students’ poor Italian proficiency and inadequate performance in class, there seems to be a lack of communication between top administrative personnel and teaching and support staff who work with Chinese students on daily basis. The politically sensitive nature of the Marco Polo programme ends up doing a disservice to Chinese students, since many of the challenges they face cannot be openly discussed and dealt with by the university authorities.

It is important to note that while the Marco Polo and Turandot programmes are state‐initiated pathways for student migration, the operationalization of the study abroad services are generally handled by private educational agents. In other words, the Chinese and Italian states not only function as big brokers of international education but also facilitate the development of agent chains at the local and transnational scales (c.f. Xiang, 2012). Collaboration between state and non‐state sectors highlights the neoliberal transformation in the international higher education market; but it also poses limits to the state’s power to regulate unethical business practices. Diego, a senior administrator at University X, disclosed to me that in 2016 the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had discovered 400 forgery cases among Chinese students. Examples of fake documents include language certificates, diplomas, transcripts, and other supporting materials. Diego blamed the unethical practices of study‐abroad agents for the relatively “low quality” of Chinese students they have recruited. Meanwhile, he considered it difficult to implement structural changes at University X. He said, “Since these students have already been admitted to the university, there is nothing I can do”. To a certain extent, the lenient admission policy of Italian universities has become a double‐edged sword. While it allows academically less competitive students from China to easily enrol in elite universities in Italy, it does not guarantee a stimulating and nurturing learning environment for these students. While it is easy to blame some Chinese students for their inadequate performance in class, the neoliberal discourse of self‐responsibility also obscures important structural constrains faced by them in Italy.

Another difference between the Chinese case and the British case is the intensive emotional turmoil most of my student respondents had to go through, mainly resulting from the tensions between the study dimension and the consumption dimension of their youxue experiences in Italy. This research finds a contradiction between Chinese youth’s self‐narration of personal growth and the reality of their prolonged youth period abroad, which highlights the emotional complications of some Chinese youths’ mobile transitions to adulthood through overseas youxue practices (Robertson et al., 2018). Regarding their job prospect in China, younger returnees with Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees from non‐traditional study abroad destinations often find themselves falling into the cracks of state policies, which favour overseas returnees with doctoral and post‐doctoral qualifications (Zweig, 2006; Xiang, 2011). The structural marginalization of these younger returnees in China’s job market is further aggravated by negative media coverage of radical examples of failure, mentioned in the introduction to this article. This research suggests that we need to move beyond the success and failure binary in evaluating the youxue experiences of Chinese youth. Instead, we should pay attention to how youxue impact youth’s mobile transition to adulthood and how this process is filled with feelings of vulnerability, confusion, self‐appreciation and self‐depreciation. Instead of criticising these youths’ problematic behaviours, we need to question the institutional power relations that normalize youxue as a pathway for middle‐class youths’ transition into adulthood. Due to the limitation of the research sample, this article cannot represent the study abroad experiences of all Chinese students in Italy. Future research needs to be conducted on the experiences of returnees and how these youxue experiences translate back into life in China.

Author Bio

Shanshan Lan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include urban anthropology, migration and mobility regimes, comparative racial formations in Asia and Euro-America, transnational student mobility, African diaspora in China, Chinese diaspora in the United States, and class and social transformations in Chinese society. Lan is the Principal Investigator of the ERC project “The reconfiguration of whiteness in China: Privileges, precariousness, and racialized performances” (CHINAWHITE, 2019-2024). For more information, please see www.china-white.org

CfP: ‘Resilience of Chinese children, parents, and educators’ for International Journal of Disability, Development and Education (IJDDE)

Title of the Special Issue

Resilience of Chinese children, parents, and educators: A powerful response to “lazy inclusivism”

Name of Special Issue Editor and Affiliation

Guanglun Michael Mu (m.mu@qut.edu.au), Queensland University of Technology

Introductory Statement

Three decades after the advent of “Learning in Regular Classroom” (LRC), various strategies have emerged to do “inclusion” in China. At the national level, the State Council (2010, 2019) has stressed the importance of inclusive education. At policy level, Ministry of Education (2018, 2019) has consistently included LRC as one of its annual key work objectives. At school level, students with special needs have become increasingly visible in regular classrooms (Mu, Hu, & Wang, 2017). Parallel to these developments is the strident criticism of the structural absence of system support to LRC (Wang et al., 2015). Behind the commitment to, and the criticism of, LRC is the logic of “lazy inclusivism” where seemingly hard-working legislation, regulation, and education paradoxically engage in much tokenistic inclusive practice that barely introduces transformational change.

In response to the paradox of “lazy inclusivism”, the Special Issue aims to produce knowledge about the ordinary and extraordinary wisdom of Chinese children, parents, and educators emerging from the context of inclusive education full of attractions and distractions. When faced with visible adverse conditions and invisible structural constraints, some may play the game of tokenism and become “lazy”; others, however, may strategically refuse to play the game, demonstrating resilience to symbolic violence of “lazy inclusivism”. Questions remain in terms of who become “lazy”, why and how; and who awaken from the epistemic slumber of “laziness”, why and how. To address these enigmatic questions, articles to be included in the Special Issue will collectively explore pathways to resilience that purposefully not perfunctorily transforms inclusive education into an enabling and welcoming pedagogical space for the betterment of children with diverse needs in China.

Paper Information

The Special Issue aims to put together seven articles, including an introductory article and a concluding article by the Special Issue Editor, and five empirical articles written by key researchers with expertise in Chinese inclusive/special education. Details regarding the authors and the topics of each empirical article are be confirmed.

Concluding Article

Author: Guanglun Michael Mu, Queensland University of Technology

The concluding article will engage in a critical analysis of the issues raised by the five empirical articles, connect these issues to the global debates around the concept and praxis of inclusion, and propose a tentative agenda for research and policy for Chinese inclusive education, which may also be of reference to inclusive education elsewhere.

Working Timeline

December 2019: Call for EOIs

January 2020: Editor’s response to EOIs

February 2020: Deadline for submission of proposal that includes a concise title, a 250-word abstract, and six keywords maximum

March 2020: Editor’s response to proposal

September 2020: Deadline for submission of full paper, 7000 words maximum including title, abstract, keywords, main text, footnotes and endnotes, tables and figures, references, acknowledgements, and appendices

October 2020: Completion of internal review by editor

December 2021: Deadline for submission of revised paper with a response to editor’s review

March 2021: Deadline for submission for external blind review

Expected publication date: End of 2021

Reference

Ministry of Education, P. R. C. (2018). 教育部2018年工作要点[2018 key work objectives of the Ministry of Education]. Beijing: Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education, P. R. C. (2019). 教育部2019年工作要点[2019 key work objectives of the Ministry of Education]. Beijing: Ministry of Education.

Mu, G. M., Hu, Y., & Wang, Y. (2017). Building resilience of students with disabilities in China: The role of inclusive education teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 125-134. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.06.004

State Council, P. R. C. (2010). 国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要(2010-2020年)[State guidelines for medium- and long-term education reform and development plan (2010-2020)]. Beijing: State Council.

State Council, P. R. C. (2019). 中国教育现代化2035[Modernisation of Chinese education 2035]. Beijing: State Council.

Wang, Y., Mu, G. M., Wang, Z., Deng, M., Cheng, L., & Wang, H. (2015). Multidimensional classroom support to inclusive education teachers in Beijing, China. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 62(6), 644-659. doi:10.1080/1034912X.2015.1077937

Call for Papers: Emerging and (re)shaping higher education ‘identities’ in China for Special Issue of International Journal of Chinese Education (IJCE)

Submission deadline: 1 May 2020

Guest Editors: Dr Kun Dai (Peking University), Prof Mei Tian (Xi’an Jiaotong University)

Kun Dai

Dr Kun Dai

Prof Tian

Prof Mei Tian

China’s government and universities have taken many steps to internationalise higher education. Chinese universities are encouraged to collaborate with international partners on teaching and research. China continues to be the largest international student source country in the world. China has also developed its ability to attract international students to its own universities. Selected Chinese universities are also building campuses and research facilities abroad.

Such internationalisation diversifies Chinese higher education, and reveals opportunities as well as challenges. One critical challenge involves how Chinese people and universities perceive and (re)position their identify among the change. Much can be gleaned from foreign experiences, theories and methodologies. But it is becoming more important to move beyond such borrowing, adaptation and normalisation. There is an opportunity to build innovative insights into the nature and development of the ‘Chinese identity’.

In this IJCE Special Issue we invite discussions of and reflections on the ‘identities’ of different parties (e.g., policymakers, universities, academics, and students) in the current changes of Chinese higher education. We welcome contributions engaged with studies of ‘identities’ in Chinese higher education from different perspectives, i.e., sectoral, institutional, professional, or individual. Authors from doctoral students to established scholars are welcomed to contribute papers. Articles should make a theoretical or technical contribution.

Possible topics include but are not limited to studying:

Educational policy and identity
Globalisation/internationalisation of systems
University characteristics
Faculty education and research identity
Student characteristics and theories

Interested authors are invited to contribute a 7,000 word paper (including abstract, references, footnotes, tables and figures) to the two guest editors Dr Kun Dai (kdai@pku.edu.cn) and Prof Mei Tian (temmytian@mail.xjtu.edu.cn). All submitted manuscripts will be double-blind reviewed. All paper submissions will use the online editorial system.

First draft paper due for editorial consideration and review	1 May 2020
Papers returned to authors for revision	1 June 2020
Second draft paper due for editorial consideration and review	1 July 2020
Final submission after changes for publication	31 August 2020

Asian Students’ Brain Circulation and Japanese Companies: An empirical study to explore the relationship

Sato, Y. (2019). Asian students’ brain circulation and Japanese companies. Asian Education and Development Studies. Vol. & No. ahead-of-print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-02-2019-0044

Yuriko

Dr Yuriko Sato, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Return of the international graduates to home countries has been called brain circulation in contrast to brain drain/gain, the traditional one-way mobility from developing countries to developed countries. Brain circulation is said to bring benefits to both their home countries and study destination countries. However, the role of study destination companies in relation with students’ brain circulation has not been studied enough. In this regard, this paper explores the benefits and constraints of study destination companies in relation with international students’ brain circulation based on empirical study, picking up the case of Japanese companies.

Japanese companies are picked up considering their strong overseas business expansion tendency: the number of Japan-affiliated companies overseas has increased by 42% from 2008 to 2017 and the overseas production ratio of Japanese manufacturing companies rose to 25.4% in 2017. This has been promoted by the prospect of shrinking domestic market because of the aging of population. This business tendency created the greater need of personnel who manage overseas subsidiaries in close communication with the headquarters in Japan; graduates of Japanese universities who understand Japanese culture and language will be ideal staff in such positions. Japanese government has also prompted the employment of international students by Japanese companies. Japanese government’s “Revitalization Strategy 2016” set a goal of raising the international student employment rate in Japan from the current 30% to 50%.

This paper focuses on the Chinese, Thai, Indonesia and Vietnamese students who graduated from Japanese universities and now work for Japanese companies after graduation. Chinese students have constituted the largest groups in Japanese universities, followed by other Asian countries including the three remaining target countries. Their home countries have also hosted large number of Japan affiliated companies.

To explore the reason of their choice of workplace, satisfaction with working environment and future plan, online questionnaire survey was conducted to them from 2016 to 2018. 283 responses were collected and compared among the four country graduates and among those who work for Japanese companies in Japan and in their home countries. Interviews of some of these graduates and human resources (HR) managers of Japanese companies who hire them in Japan and in their home countries were also conducted.

As the result of the analysis, it was found that these graduates tend to choose to work for Japanese companies with the expectation of career development. Japanese companies have a tradition of spending considerable amounts of cost, time and energy to train new recruits; it is natural for the international graduates to choose employment at Japanese companies in order to develop their career and capacity. However, more than two thirds of them who are employed in Japan don’t plan to work there for a long time. This is partly because of the slow promotion derived from Japanese style HR management.

Satisfaction with working environment of those who work for Japan-affiliated companies in their home countries tends to be higher than those who work for Japanese companies in Japan. Since there is not much difference in actual salary considering the commodity price level, or even higher as is the case in China, it is natural for the graduates to choose to return home and seek employment in their home countries, where they can have better prospects of promotion, better care for their parent(s) and less work stress. They can also directly contribute to the development of their home countries. So, in the countries which enjoy economic development and increase of Japan-affiliated companies, a mobility of Japanese university graduates from Japan to their home countries has been prompted by the above factors.

Then, does this kind of brain circulation benefit both home countries and study destination country? If the returned graduates are willing to seek employment in Japan-affiliated companies in their home countries, it could be the case. However, the choice of workplace in their home countries includes not only Japan-affiliated companies but also other multi-national companies and local companies. Since many Japan-affiliated companies still adopt semi-Japanese style HR, it is not easy to adopt “fast track” system, which would enable the recruitment and retention of returned graduates of Japanese universities. A Thai graduate who had worked for Japanese companies and now work for a Thai company, an affiliate of a Thai financial combine, attested that his company offers a better salary and position than Japan-affiliated companies. Another Thai doctorate degree holder of a Japanese university, who now work for a Japan-affiliated company in Thailand, says that she is looking for another job since she is not happy with the unpaid overtime, which seems to be transplanted from the head office in Tokyo.

The above analysis indicates that Japanese companies which have expanded overseas business and recruited Asian graduates of Japanese universities need to provide better working conditions to secure their retention. Since it is not easy to change the Japanese-style HR management at head offices for a short period of time, it is suggested that the HR management of Japan-affiliated companies overseas should be reformed first to provide more attractive working conditions for the talented local staff, including the returned graduates. It will also facilitate the earlier overseas assignment of Japanese university graduates recruited at head offices in Japan by decreasing the possibility of friction with the local staff employed at the overseas subsidiaries. Earlier overseas assignments will also increase their retention rate since it is an ideal career path envisaged by many international graduates. By taking these measures, it would be possible to realize the brain circulation which is beneficial for both Japan and their home countries.

Author Bio

Yuriko Sato is an Associate Professor at the School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. She works in the fields of educational sociology and development economics, with specific interests in the intersections of international student policy, migration policy, and economic development.

She received her Ph.D.in Educational Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology. She is currently the principal investigator of a research project on “International Comparative Study on the Mobility and Career Development of International Students: Considering the Relation with the Overseas Expansion of Study Destination Companies” supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).