Category: Research Highlights

Research Highlighted:

Hong, Y. (2021). The Educational Hopes and Ambitions of Left-Behind Children in Rural China: An Ethnographic Case Study. Routledge.

Listen to an interview with Yang here, and watch the interview here.

Children who are ‘left behind’ by migrating parents is a growing phenomenon across Asia. Left-behind children is a consequence of China’s rapid urbanization and its peculiar household registration system. The number of this highly disadvantaged young population across China is overwhelming (61 million in 2013). These young people are doubly disadvantaged, first by their poverty and secondly, by the loss of their parents in their day to day life. Research in different national contexts has provided evidence of how growing up as a ‘left-behind child’ can have a profound impact on young people’s development. Large-scale quantitative research has demonstrated well that being ‘left behind’ has an impact on educational attainment as well on measures that explore sense of well-being and character development.

I conducted an ethnographic case study in a rural school with a high proportion of left-behind children in southwest China. Data were collected from 17 left-behind children. I explored in-depth the individual educational experiences of being poor and ‘left behind’ in rural China, and understood how the experiences of young people themselves had shaped their aspirations as well as self identity. Through this deeply qualitative study, first hand insights into the day to day experiences of left-behind children were gained. By living with the students for 4 months; eating, sleeping and spending academic and leisure time together, a rich and detailed understanding of what it meant to be ‘poor’ and ‘left behind’ for the children in this study were possible.

Extending from Bourdieu’s sociological theories, my study offered an original contribution by combining three theoretical/disciplinary perspectives (cultural capital – sociology, rational action – behavioural economics, and self-efficacy – psychology) in a new and useful way to conceptualize aspirations for higher education in the context of rural China. The three different disciplinary perspectives are often seen, at the surface level at least, not especially compatible; this study however integrated them as well as transferring these Western theories to an Eastern context and demonstrating cultural nuances that these theories do not capture when applying in the West.

Key findings

Results of the study were organized as two chapters (Five and Six) in the book to reflect the different educational attitudes and aspirations of left-behind children under study. “University Non-aspirers and ‘the undecided’” referred to those who did not intend to receive university education and those who had difficulty making decisions. “University aspirers’ were those who explicitly expressed that going to university was what they definitely wanted to do. Findings indicated that whilst educational aspirations were embedded in left-behind children’s disadvantaged social background, they were also shaped by the consequences of being ‘left-behind’.

University non-aspirers and ‘the undecided’, and university aspirers were primarily differentiated by their differential attitudes towards higher education as well as schooling in general. Comparing to university aspirers who demonstrated a strong faith in meritocracy, university non-aspirers and ‘the undecided’ shared a strong desire to enter, what they saw as, the real social world instead. Their beliefs and plans with respect to how to achieve their developed future goals were very individualized because they had very personal and varied understandings of the social world as well as how they saw themselves in terms of personal advantages and weaknesses.

Family played a significant role in shaping student aspirations. What was distinct for university non-aspirers and ‘the undecided’ was that educational aspirations appeared to be linked strongly with loose family connections as well as authoritarian family members. But for university aspirers, parents’ expectations, their concern and encouragement became a strong motive to learning. However, despite this, these young people expressed an extreme sense of isolation as even though having developed an aspiration for university, there was no extra parental involvement, advice or support provided as guidance when making future plans.

Although the school provided no guidance and very little support with respect to future preparation, university aspirers were able to gain support from their peers as well as their teachers, while university non-aspirers and ‘the undecided’ were left alone to make decisions only with limited source of information circulated among classmates and friends.

‘Left-behind-ness’ was seen by all these young people as being compensated by a clearly improved family financial situation and their opportunity to stay in education. However, university non-aspirers and ‘the undecided’ felt they could have more positive personal changes if they were not ‘left behind’. University aspirers, while some also acknowledged they could have a better school performance and a closer relationship with parents, being ‘left behind’ was viewed by some as beneficial for securing independence and freedom to decide the future. Overall though, university aspirers largely expressed a strong sense of loneliness and in particular, a sense of making the best of life’s circumstances with bravado. 

Conclusion

This book employed the concepts of cultural capital, habitus, social capital and emotional capital to investigate the role of family in shaping aspirations. I casted some doubts on Bourdieu’s deterministic view that the value families place on their children’s education is the result of class-based dispositions and habitus. Where Bourdieu is useful is in the ways that poverty can impact on families and in the resources families have to support their children, the results of this study led me to suggest that the idea of habitus should be re-considered specifically to different cultural contexts – in this case, in the Chinese society. Whilst family cultural capital supports a child’s education with knowledge, skills and abilities, emotional capital invested by parental encouragement, support, confidence and interest cultivates a strong sense of belonging, assurance and security for a child, which arguably is significant in promoting self-confidence and self-esteem or encouraging a sense of self-efficacy and autonomy. I also suggest it is being emotionally ‘left behind’ that ultimately is the specific disadvantage of Chinese left-behind children, as opposed to the disadvantages associated with poverty alone. 

Author Bio

Dr Yang Hong is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China. She specializes in the area of social justice, focusing on issues of poverty, gender, education and identity. She can be contacted via email: ruiyinghong2017@163.com.

Research Highlighted

Peng, B. (2021). Chinese migrant parents’ educational involvement: Shadow education for left-behind children. Hungarian Educational Research Journal, 11(2), 101-123. DOI: 10.1556/063.2020.00030.

China’s turn towards neoliberalism has exerted significant influences on all aspects of life for Chinese people. This article zooms in on changes that take place in Chinese education system and focuses on responses of families, especially those of lower social-economic status victimized in an educational marketplace that emphasizes individual choices (Harvey, 2005) and the (false) logic of meritocracy (Sandel, 2020).

With a focus on “shadow education” for left-behind children in China, this article aims to look at the opposite of a booming Chinese economy depicted domestically and abroad – rural areas and people marginalized in cities – and considers education as an institution of social mobility in neoliberal contexts. This approach is line with growing scholarship (e.g. Roberts, 2020) that penetrates through the surface of the economic miracle and dives into an often blurred field of inquiry of the “cost” of the robust economy.

Shadow education, or “private tutoring” (课外补习), has become a focal point of discussions recently thanks to the “Double Reduction Policy” (双减政策) that sets harsh restrictions on tutoring agencies. Despite its popularity in the public domain, shadow education as a field of scholarly inquiry is still undergoing a process of institutionalization, and it remains unfamiliar to many researchers. Given this, it is necessary to briefly chronicle its theoretical development and depict industrial realities.

Shadow education, as Bray (1999) proposed, takes place outside of formal schooling at private cost, and serves to give students a competitive edge in high-stake (transitional) academic examinations. It is “shadow” because it mimics formal schooling and reflects its requirements, standards and processes. It has been studied across the globe, and diverse theoretical and methodological approaches have been utilized to generate insights that inform policies and guide practices. In China, prior to the “Double Reduction Policy”, nationwide 38% of primary and lower-secondary school students had received shadow education, and average annual household expenditure on the service was RMB 1,982 per student nationwide (Wei, 2019).

While Chinese migrant families have been studied extensively, and opportunities and difficulties associated with education access and outcomes for their children have been well documented in the literature, what is largely missing from the knowledge base is the ways in which migrant parents engage in the educational marketplace.

To fill the gap, research was conducted in 2018 in a village primary school in Sichuan Province home to 6.92 million left-behind children (Duan et al., 2013). Since the research was exploratory in nature and sought to document the lived experiences of migrant families, research methods were qualitative. The bulk of interviews were conducted in December when migrant parents had turned to hometown to prepare for celebrations of the Spring Festival, and face-to-face interviews with them were thus possible. In total, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six migrant parents (two mothers and four fathers), 26 left-behind children (16 boys and 10 girls), and six teachers. The interviews were supplemented with information collected from researcher observation and field notes in data analysis.  

The theory of concerted cultivation and natural growth (Lareau, 2011) was employed in this article to frame strategies and practices of migrant parents. Concerted cultivation, in its original meaning, refers to a logic of interventionist parenting exercised by middle-class families, featuring organized participation in extracurricular activities (e.g. music, sports, chess), parent-child discussions, and close parent-school relations. On the other hand, working-class parents adopt the logics of natural growth: a non-interventionist parenting logic that places parental responsibilities in providing necessities for the children and entrusts further development (e.g. leisure, education) with the children themselves. While concerns might arise as to the applicability of the Western theory in the Chinese context, findings (as shown below) attest to not only its fitting but possibilities of development.

It was found that shadow education creates a space where parental responsibility and aspiration converge into either expected outcomes or bleak realities of anxiety and guilt. While most of the families (20 out of 26) studied in the research felt obliged to purchase shadow education for their children in view of intensified educational competition, only four of them actually used the service. These families, with more resources than others, heavily invested in the service that as a result occupied much of their children’s after-school time in hopes of university degrees that signaled, in the parents’ eyes, “a better life”. Their strategies and practices fit into the model of concerted cultivation, and in the meantime extending it to the domain of academic support. On the other, the remaining 16 families were left in a “mixing zone” that falls between concerted cultivation and natural growth. These families lacked necessary resources and confronted diverse barriers to access to shadow education. They felt obliged to provide additional support (i.e. concerted cultivation) for their children, and their inaction (i.e. natural growth) led to anxieties and guilt.

Overall, this research provides a glimpse at educational strategies of Chinese migrant families in neoliberal contexts and suggests that shadow education is a worthy vintage point to examine relationships between urbanity and rurality as well as processes of inequality in contemporary China. A final remark: since this article was published prior to the “Double Reduction Policy” that has reshaped the supply of shadow education in China, further research is needed to follow up with this recent development in efforts to understand the needs and circumstances of migrant families.

References:

Bray, M. (1999). The shadow education system: Private tutoring and its implications for planners. Paris: UNESCO, International Institute for Educational Planning.

Duan, C., Lv, L., Guo, J., & Wang, Z. (2013). Woguo nongcun liushou ertong shengcun he fazhan jiben zhuangkuang – Jiyu diliuci renkou pucha shuju de fenxi [Survival and development of left-behind children in rural China: Based on the analysis of sixth census data]. Population Journal, 35(3), 37–49.

Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods: Class, race and family life (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Roberts, D. (2020). The myth of Chinese capitalism: The worker, the factory, and the future of the world. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Sandel, M. (2020). The tyranny of merit. TED Talk available at https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit.

Wei, Y. (2019). Report on household education expenditure in China (2019). Beijing, China: Social Sciences Academic Press (China).

Author Bio

Baiwen Peng holds a Master of Education degree from The University of Hong Kong and is currently a researcher at The Education University of Hong Kong. Being a qualitative researcher, he is interested in shadow education, the sociology of education, and China studies. He investigates neoliberalism in Chinese education and its impacts from interdisciplinary perspectives. He can be contacted via email: pengbw@connect.hku.hk.

Research Highlighted:

Chen, L., & Tian, F. F. (2021). Rural-urban gap and career preparation trajectories in a Chinese elite university. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2021.1948893

Given the college expansion in China, increasing numbers of scholars have paid attention to the variations in college experience. A growing number of studies have shown that the urban-rural gap is still pervasive in both entry to and exit from the Chinese higher education system. Rural students were marginalized, felt inferior, and experienced a huge emotional burden trying to fit into the university culture (Tian & Chen, 2018, 2020; Li, 2013, 2015; Liao & Wong, 2019).

Informed by Bourdieu’s two classic concepts––habitus and field, we conceptualized inequality in the college experience as a distinction between habitus fits and misfits. Students with college-educated parents tend to have a habitus that fits with college culture, which gives them a sense of being entitled to participate in both academic and extracurricular activities (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Stuber, 2012) and to seek advice and help from professors and mentors (Jack, 2016). By contrast, less privileged––and for purposes of this study often rural––students may be trapped as habitus misfits in college culture. As a result, they feel confused and inferior, and have less of a sense of belonging (Lehmann, 2007; Li, 2013, 2015; Reay, 2005; Reay et al., 2009).

According to Bourdieu, when individuals encounter an unfamiliar field, their habitus can transform but such transformation can be cirsumscribed by past experience (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Yet some recent efforts at hybridizing habitus and reflexivity have stressed a larger role for reflexive deliberation in habitus transformation (Adams, 2006; Elder-Vass, 2007). For young adults, one critical aspect of reflexivity is future expectations. How young adults think about the future and design plans to achieve it is an important part of reflexivity in shaping habitus transformation. Therefore, we theorized career preparation in college as a reconciliation between thinking about future, which is reflexive but at the same time bounded by habitus, and the blueprint of a ‘bright future’ that students seek in college.

In this article, we compare how rural and urban students prepared for their career in 4 years of undergraduate study at a top-ranking public university (WU) in China. This study conducted longitudinal in-depth interviews with 32 students majoring in social sciences from 2014 to 2018.

Elite universities often have a popular career preparation trajectory, which consists of steps to be achieved over 4 years. At WU, such path exists as well. While the path provides a promising blueprint for students from various family backgrounds, students approach it differently. We identify four career preparation trajectories––implementing, following, transforming, and downgrading––in relation to students’ various perceptions and experiences.

The four career preparation trajectories illustrate dynamic experiences among students at WU over 4 years. With their parents’ help, students on the implementing trajectory appraised their capabilities and resources before college so that they implemented their career plans right after matriculation. They continued to strategically solidify their prowess in academic performance and noncognitive skills through various activities on and outside campus. With these cumulative advantages, their career preparation was well ahead of that of their peers. Students on the following trajectory were inspired by the path ideal and tried to develop plans that aligned with the path. However, they seldom contemplated life beyond the path but were more attracted by the immediate results of following the path, which helped them maintain their status as rural/county exceptions. Students on the transforming trajectory critically appraised their resources and realistically chose pragmatic skills to fit their own future expectations. Their understandings of their future careers evolved along with their resources and understandings of the future, from an ideal process to tangible goals that fit their means. Students with less privileged family backgrounds showed creative and diverse reactions to the evolving habitus (Li, 2013; Reay et al., 2009). Although students in the downgrading trajectory realized that the less competitive milestones of the path were less attractive to future employers, they continued to stick to the path because they did not know how to prepare for a future career otherwise due to limited capabilities and resources.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), the career preparation trajectories of these 32 students fell along a spectrum with habitus fit and misfit at two ends. The implementing trajectory leans toward the habitus-fit end and the downgrading trajectory is, unfortunately, prone to the habitus-misfit end. The following and transforming trajectories show a status swinging between habitus fit and misfit, which we conceptualize as a habitus fluid-fit, as ‘habitus reshaping is an evolving process with continuous adaptation and position-takings’ (Li, 2013, p. 841). For students on these two trajectories, habitus fits may alternate with habitus misfits given their resources, the reflexivity of their career plan, and their experiences with career preparation. As such, these students’ habitus fitting presents versatility and flexibility, echoing their evolving reflexivity and habitus transformation in the elite university.

This study sheds light on the dynamic and yet uncertain habitus transformation and career preparation in the elite universities in China. Career preparation oftentimes is not a prearranged activity for college students, especially for students from underprivileged family backgrounds (Savickas, 2005). During the career preparation process, the usual discussions, distinctively comparing habitus fit and misfit (e.g. Lehmann, 2007; Li, 2013) or habitus transformation and habitus hysteresis (e.g. A. Xie & Reay, 2020) may not be able to capture the dynamic, evolving nature of students’ own reflexivity. As their understanding of career and reflexivity unfold during the process, students are able to be directed with useful information as well as exercise sufficient autonomy to decide their own career path. As such, students’ career preparation trajectories can vary and show habitus fluid-fit. Also, although rural students in this study show similar vulnerabilities in existing studies (e.g. Cheng & Kang, 2019; Li, 2013; Liao, 2016; A. Xie & Reay, 2020), some of them are able to exercise the power of ‘looking ahead’ and of reflexivity in order to generate opportunities and successes (Reay et al., 2009). Therefore, this study sheds light on understanding nuanced career preparation processes in elite universities in China and the nuanced mechanism that shapes inequality in Chinese higher education.

References

Adams, M. (2006). Hybridizing habitus and reflexivity: Towards an understanding of contemporary identity? Sociology, 40(3), 511–528. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803850663672

Armstrong, E. A., & Hamilton, L. T. (2013). Paying for the party: How college maintains inequality. Harvard University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Robinson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. (pp. 241–258). Greenwood Press.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. University of Chicago Press.

Cheng, M., & Kang, Y. (2019). Rural youths admitted to elite universities: “Empathy” and destiny. Chinese Education & Society, 52(5–6), 363–377. https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1693813

Elder-Vass, D. (2007). Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an emergentist theory of action. Sociological Theory, 25(4), 325–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2007.00312.x

Jack, A. A. (2016). (No) Harm in asking: Class, acquired cultural capital, and academic engagement at an elite university. Sociology of Education, 89(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040715614913

Lehmann, W. (2007). “I just didn’t feel like I fit in”: The role of habitus in university dropout decisions. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 37(2), 89–110. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v37i2.542

Li, H. (2013). Rural students’ experiences in a Chinese elite university: Capital, habitus and practices. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(5–6), 829–847. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2013.821940

Li, H. (2015). Moving to the city: Educational trajectories of rural Chinese students in an elite university. In C. Costa & M. Murphy (Eds.), Bourdieu, habitus and social research: The art of application (pp. 126–147). Palgrave Macmillan.

Liao, Q. (2016). Learning experiences of rural students in elite universities: Reflections on the theory of production [In Chinese]. Journal of Higher Education, 37(11), 77–84. http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-HIGH201611014.htm

Liao, Q., & Wong, Y. L. (2019). An emotional journey: Pursuing a bachelor’s degree for rural students in four elite universities in Shanghai, PRC. Cambridge Journal of Education, 49(6), 711–725. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2019.1592114

Reay, D. (2005). Beyond consciousness? The psychic landscape of social class. Sociology, 39(5), 911–928. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038505058372

Reay, D., Crozier, G., & Clayton, J. (2009). “Fitting in” or “standing out”: Working-class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1), 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920902878925

Savickas, M. L. (2005). The theory and practice of career construction. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work. (pp. 42–70). John Wiley & Sons.

Stuber, J. M. (2012). Inside the college gates: How class and culture matter in higher education. Lexington Books.

Tian, F. F. & Chen, L. (2020). Higher education and career prospects in China. Springer.

Tian, F. F. & Chen, L. (2018). Unequal at the college door: Career construction among freshmen at an elite Chinese university. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 38, 1041–1056. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-03-2018-0050

Xie, A., & Reay, D. (2020). Successful rural students in China’s elite universities: Habitus transformation and inevitable hidden injuries. Higher Education, 80(1), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00462-9

Authors’ Bio

Dr. Chen (Ph.D., UCLA) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at Fudan University. She joined the department in June 2014 and was promoted to Associate Professor in December 2017. Her research focuses on: identity, gerontology, community, and qualitative research methods. Her monograph “Evolving Eldercare in Contemporary China: Two Generations, One Decision” was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. She co-authored and published “Community Eldercare Ecology in China” and “Higher Education and Career Prospects in China”, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020.

Dr Felicia F. Tian is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Fudan University. Her research focuses on transition to adulthood, marriage and family, social capital, and social network analysis. She co-authored with Dr. Lin Chen in a book “Higher Education and Career Prospects in China”, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. She can be contacted via email: ftian@fudan.edu.cn.

Research Highlighted:

Xu, X, Tran, L. (2021): A qualitative investigation into Chinese international doctoral students’ navigation of a disrupted study trajectory during COVID-19. Journal of Studies in International Education. doi:10.1177/10283153211042092

Despite the growing scholarship on the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, there remains a scarcity of a nuanced probe into how international doctoral students perceive their navigation of an overseas study journey that has been holistically disrupted. It is not yet clear whether and how this cohort enacts agency during this navigation. Bearing these gaps in mind, this study recruited a group of international Chinese doctoral students (ICDS) to share their emic perceptions, aiming to unpack two research questions: 1. How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the PhD study trajectory that is embedded within a complex system of person−environment factors? 2. How have the ICDS coped with these impacts?

To facilitate data analysis, this study brought together two theories—bioecological systems theory and needs−response agency. The first theory is suitable for probing into how the COVID-19 breakout as a global risk has a ripple effect on a doctoral student’s study trajectory that is constructed within a constellation of persons, settings, relations and objects, all of which are subject to change due to the pandemic. The second theory is of particular relevance to investigate how international students perceive and respond to situated needs arising out of the unprecedented context. Combining these two branches of theoretical underpinnings into the conceptual framework, this study teased out a full picture of international doctoral students’ navigation of a disrupted study trajectory at the interface of person−environment factors.

To facilitate a deep investigation, this study employed a qualitative methodology. The recruitment was circulated with a purposive snowballing strategy to target ICDS who were either overseas or in China when the interview was conducted between late September 2020 and February 2021. While snowball sampling is helpful in allowing the researchers to access potential participants who meet the eligibility criteria through the nomination of people, it might not ensure a good representativeness of the sample. To mitigate this limitation, we tried purposefully to attend to the issue of diversity in the sample. To overcome physical constraints, online one-on-one semi-structured interview was conducted, each lasting approximately 30−60 min. During this time, the students were encouraged to share their lived experiences around open-ended questions about how they navigated a disrupted PhD trajectory since the outbreak of the pandemic. All transcripts were transported into NVivo 12 for a thematic analysis informed by the data and the theoretical underpinnings adopted by the study.

The findings revealed that the impacts of the pandemic penetrate into diverse layers of subsystems within which their doctoral study is nested. COVID-19 has impacted profoundly on the microsystem where the innermost circle of interactions happened between the ICDS and their immediate surroundings. The impact was most saliently embodied in the change of doctoral supervision and family relations. Beyond the microsystem, the mesosystem that constitutes the interconnections of situations, events and relations within the ICDS’ immediate surroundings was also affected by COVID-19. The pandemic has disabled many formal and informal networking functions which used to be a key to cohesion of the research community and PhD student’ academic socialization. A massive and abrupt relocation of networking to virtual space was identified less engaging and attractive. The study also manifested that the exosystem incorporating policy-designing and decision making processes which although were executed at the institution/faculty level and did not involve the ICDS directly have yet had tremendous impacts on their doctoral study. These processes were mainly orientated toward crisis management, about which the ICDS’ perceptions varied. Finally, COVID-19 has intensified existing sociopolitical conflicts, distorting belief and value systems in relation to international Chinese students, which enclosed this cohort in a macrosystem less favorable than it was before the outbreak of the pandemic. Enmeshed in a changing bioecological system, the participants as autonomous and active agents explored and mobilized resources to mitigate the damage, sparing no efforts to restore the stability of the bioecological system. Bearing in mind structural adjustments in response to the risk, they enacted needs−response agency to deal with the specific demands rising from a gloomy context that however garnered latent force for empowering personal growth. Making full use of domestic and overseas, on-site and online resources, they practiced virtual internationalization at home, thus preserving immobile mobility.

In light of the findings, some practical implications were proposed for related stakeholders in the bioecological system to generate conditions and support for students to harness possibilities for growth amidst and beyond the health crisis. To begin with, in the spirit of empathy and professionalism, supervisors should sensitize themselves to extra difficulties faced by students, and make pedagogical adaptations to cater for students’ needs. As well, it is contingent upon host universities to protect students’ wellbeing, and provide more coherent and systemic support in order that students can better tap into the potential of online programs and activities, many of which are made readily available and free access during COVID-19. Further, more investment in educational technology should be enhanced to boost research connectivity so that the potential of virtual exchange can be harnessed to provide an inclusive approach for intercultural learning (Jørgensen, Mason, Pedersen, & Harrison, 2020). Third, at the macrosystem level, some governments and social media should stop spreading hostile sentiments and practices that Chinese and other international students have been unjustifiably suffering. On top of that, as the core navigator of a doctoral journey, international students themselves need to take advantage of the benefits of transnational mobilities of research, ideas, knowledge and networks through various online channels. Given possibilities are high that the fallout may continue for a relatively lengthy period for international students, it requires concerted efforts from concerned parties to address these challenges and transform them into generative forces where possible.

Read about Xing’s research on enactment of agency of female Chinese doctoral researchers in Australia here.

Authors’ Bio

Dr Xing Xu is a lecturer at Sichuan International Studies University, China. Her research interests include internationalization of higher education, doctoral students’ evaluation of educational experience, academic mobility, identity construction of doctoral students, and qualitative inquiry. She can be contacted via email: xing.xu@uon.edu.au.

Dr Ly Thi Tran is a professor in Deakin University, Australia, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Her work focuses on the internationalization of education, international student mobility, the New Colombo Plan, and teacher professional learning in international education. She can be contacted via email: ly.tran@deakin.edu.au.

Research Highlighted:

Yu, J. (2021). Lost in lockdown? The impact of COVID-19 on Chinese international student mobility in the US. Journal of International Students, 11(S2). https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v11iS2.3575

This article is a part of a broader critical qualitative research project investigating Chinese international students’ decision-making, agency, and racial learning during the COVID-19 crisis. International student mobility has received substantial attention in the past two decades (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Altbach, Reisberg, & Rumbley, 2009). Due to the uneven and hierarchical global context, the United States has been the world’s number one “Educational Hub” (Knight, 2011), leading the internationalization of higher education in multiple forms, the top priority of which lies in international student recruitment and enrollment. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has thoroughly disrupted the traditional mobility experience—a situation that has broader implications for the demographic landscape of US higher education. Therefore, it is urgent to explore what factors and experiences affect Chinese students’ decision-making and how these factors potentially shape the flows that transform the demographic landscape of US higher education.

The social imaginary (e.g., Taylor, 2004; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010) exerts a significant impact on the unipolar model of the US as the most popular educational destination in the international arena. Related to ideology, the concept of the social imaginary is tied to power and dominance, representing “a common way of thinking that is shared by a group of people and guides everyday practice” (Kubota, 2016, p. 348). The United States, a nation that offers “world-class” higher education, attracts the highest proportion of international students, and dominates the international higher education market. However, the year 2020 seems to have shaken the traditional social imaginary—fetishism of American higher education in spite of its deep ideological embeddedness in people’s shared thinking. Combined with the pandemic, US-China rivalry and anti-Asian racism also significantly impact the trends of Chinese student mobility.

To capture the complexity of students’ views on their overseas decisions, I adopted one-on-one in-depth online interviews as the primary method for data collection. I specifically focused on full fee-paying Chinese undergraduate students’ perspectives on their future educational decision-making, with an aim to explore the impact of COVID-19 on Chinese ISM. This study is guided by two research questions: 1) How have COVID-19 and pandemic-related Sinophobia affected Chinese undergraduates’ perspectives on study-abroad decisions in the US? 2) What destinations will these students consider when pursuing graduate study abroad? Altogether, I recruited 21 undergraduates enrolled at a US research university in the University of California system. Based on my qualitative data analysis, three major factors that may prevent Chinese students and families from choosing the US as the destination for their graduate study in the post-pandemic world: disillusionment regarding their original romanticized views of the US, psychological stress brought by uncertain US policies, and parental concerns about students’ health and well-being.

For many Chinese students and their parents, the US has always been the most attractive country to earn a well-respected degree, meet a diverse range of people, and enhance career prospects. This perception is unconsciously driven by their social imaginary of US higher education. As Stein and Andreotti (2016) argue, the social imaginary both constructs Western higher education as a desirable product and, at the same time, underlies the racist reception by the host campus and country. Deeply embedded in people’s common understanding, the social imaginary of the US is formed through images, stories, and videos via popular media. However, this idealized image is gradually undermined 1) through Chinese students’ firsthand observations of the US, 2) through Chinese people’s collective skepticism about the market value of US degrees, and 3) through persistent Sinophobia in the US context.

The second factor that influences Chinese students and families in decisions about study abroad is uncertain US-China relations and related unpredictable visa policies. After a series of xenophobic policies targeting Chinese graduate students were implemented, the Chinese undergraduate students I interviewed suffered tremendous psychological stress. Particularly when Trump signed a presidential proclamation on July 6, 2020, requiring all international students on F1 visas whose university curricula were entirely online to leave the country or face deportation. Trump wanted to utilize international students as political leverage for the purpose of threatening US colleges and universities to reopen during the pandemic. In response, Chinese students were extremely frustrated and alarmed. The impact of political unrest and abrupt policy change on students’ mental health concerns is also a factor that influences their future overseas study plans.

Parental concerns are the third factor in study-abroad decision-making and one that is often overlooked by researchers. In fact, parents should be seen as the hidden protagonists who enable and sustain cross-border higher education. It is Chinese parents who communicate with educational brokers to select countries, schools, and majors for their children (Lan, 2018), who financially and emotionally support their children to study abroad in the US (Fong, 2011; Ma, 2020), who facilitate the new model of international student mobility for the educational purposes rather than the earlier immigration model (Zhang-Wu, 2018). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made the role of Chinese parents even more salient and crucial.

Owing to the COVID-19-induced problems discussed above, Chinese international students are becoming increasingly aware of alternative countries and regions to pursue their graduate study. Singapore and Hong Kong were repeatedly mentioned as potential alternative study-abroad destinations due to their effective handling of the virus as well as shared cultural practices. While COVID-19 seems to open up new preferences for destinations in the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese student mobility is still largely facilitated by neoliberal ideology, as evidenced both by my findings and Mok et al.’s study (2021). Hence, it can be argued that COVID-19 has a profound impact on the direction of Chinese international student mobility from the traditional East-to-West mode to the East Asia-oriented mode; however, this disruption has not changed the neoliberal nature of international education. To avoid repeating regional asymmetries and inequalities, lessons need to be learned from internationalization, and early interventions need to be made if additional persuasive evidence confirms this trend of regionalization.

In summary, in this article, I explore ideological, structural, and individual factors that are likely to discourage Chinese undergraduate students from pursuing their graduate study in the US. Ideologically, disillusionment with the US compels Chinese students to be critical of their previous fetishism of US higher education and credentials. Structurally, US-China relations and visa regulations will likely affect students’ preferred destination. Individually, parental views stand out as a critical factor in shaping the future of Chinese international student mobility. Another key finding is that Singapore and Hong Kong are becoming the emerging destination options for Chinese undergraduate students seeking to pursue graduate studies. Finally, this article looks beyond the immediate impact of the pandemic on Chinese student mobility. While it is impossible to predict the future with precision, this study shows that COVID-19 will almost certainly have a long-lasting, negative impact on Chinese international student mobility to US higher education institutions.

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Ma, Y. (2020). Ambitious and anxious: How Chinese college students succeed and struggle in American higher education. New York: Columbia University Press.

Mok. K. H., Xiong W., Ke, G., & Cheung J. O. W. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on international higher education and student mobility: Students perspectives from mainland China and Hong Kong. International Journal of Education Research, 105, 101718.

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Author Bio

JING YU is a PhD candidate in Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at University of California Santa Barbara. She received M.A. in Teaching and Learning from the Ohio State University in 2015. Her research interests focus on international education, multicultural discourses as well as lived experiences of Chinese international students in the context of American higher education. She can be contacted via email: jing02@ucsb.edu and Twitter @yujing6633