Transnational Mobility and the Desire for International
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TRANSNATIONAL MOBILITY AND THE DESIRE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AMONG ELITE FAMILIES IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA By Andrea Kis Submitted to Central European University Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisors: Professor Qiong (Miranda) Wu Professor Ayse Caģ lar̆ CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2020 Abstract Since the 2010s, Chinese students have become the biggest consumers of international education and made up the largest group of international students in English-speaking Western countries. Scholars have documented the motivation of Chinese international students studying abroad and their overseas experience. As previous research mostly treats Chinese international students as an unvaried and homogenous group, little attention has been paid to elite Chinese applicants. Although studying abroad is no longer exclusively attainable by only elites in China, they have different experiences than others as it has become a much-coveted commodity through “class- based consumption” (Liu-Farrer 2016). This thesis aims to advance the understanding of transnational mobility and desire for international education by zooming in on Chinese elite families. The research draws on 30 in-depth interviews with students and parents of Chinese elite families and participant observations at an elite education agency that provides personalised services to support their goals of elite education overseas. The families’ narratives and the agency’s mission demonstrate that elite international education goes beyond class-based consumption that facilitates the conversion of economic, cultural and social capital. It also means social reproduction and capital accumulation among elite families in contemporary China. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that the ultimate goals of education migration among the elites in China is not settlement overseas but to become global elites who enjoy home-field advantages in China while expanding their networks and resources across the world. CEU eTD Collection Key words: International education, transnational mobility, elites, contemporary China i Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my two supervisors, Professor Qiong (Miranda) Wu and Professor Ayse Caģ lar,̆ who motivated and guided me throughout the writing process. Through their classes and consultations, I was introduced to some crucial concepts and issues related to this thesis. I also thank those who participated in this research, for their support and generosity they showed toward me and the concept of this study. I am grateful for Riki, who inspired me to follow through with this project and the friendships I made during my fieldwork, my students, their parents and my colleagues in China. Yilin, Chitty, Ramon and Chris, your continual support and suggestions guided me during the empirical research. I want to thank my friends, Anjana, Fanni, Lina, Péter, Eszter, Gombár and Radó, who encouraged me at this difficult time of writing during the Covid-19 lockdown. CEU eTD Collection ii Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1 1 Background ......................................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 The increasing role of the education agency in international education ............................... 3 1.2 The elite and their relationship with international education mobility ............................. 4 1.3 Shanghai as a global city........................................................................................................... 5 2 Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 The elites in the West and China ............................................................................................ 7 2.2 Transnational social fields and mobility ................................................................................ 9 2.3 Social reproduction through elite education ....................................................................... 10 3 Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 12 3.1 Participants .............................................................................................................................. 12 3.2 Ethnographic methods .......................................................................................................... 13 3.3 Positionality ............................................................................................................................. 14 4 Ethnographic Analysis .................................................................................................................... 16 4.1 Who are the elite? ................................................................................................................... 16 4.2 Migration strategies – The Globally Connected Elite ....................................................... 31 4.3 Desires for Transnational Mobility Through International Education .......................... 38 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 49 References .................................................................................................................................................. 50 CEU eTD Collection iii Introduction As a result of China’s post-reform socio-economic transformation, growing participation and important role in the global expansion of transnational education mobility, this country sends more students to international schools abroad than any other. Through rapid social transformations, a new, cultural logic of migration has emerged by the elite, who are motivated by socio-cultural, instead of economic, strategies. In this recent direction in mobility, education migration has become a form of “lifestyle consumption” and a “value signifier” (Liu-Farrer 2016), similar to the practices of the global elite. As economic wealth is transformed into social prestige through elite consumer culture, an overseas diploma becomes synonymous with the idea of “successful global citizen”, which is a main driver for Chinese elite education migration. Thus, even if studying abroad is no longer exclusively for elites in China, international education nowadays becomes a much-coveted commodity based on class-based consumption. Numerous studies have explored the motivation of Chinese international students studying abroad and their oversea experience (Ma 2020, Kipnis 2011, Hansen & Thøgersen 2015, Miao & Wang 2017), but they mostly treat them as an unvaried group and “tend to “essentialise them, by seeing them as a homogenous group […] that behaves differently than Western students.” (Soong 2015: 220). While studying overseas has become “mass production” for increasingly more Chinese families, elites seek customized and personalised services for their education to maximise their payoffs. As a result, a number of private education agencies emerge to meet the needs of Chinese elite families, who intend to send their children abroad at a young age. They provide customised educational training and services for applications to prestigious CEU eTD Collection schools overseas through exclusive means and strategies. This paper aims to situate the recent phenomenon of this socio-cultural logic of education migration, as well as add to the newly emerging academic interest in the global forces effecting 1 social stratification and its relationship to inequalities in education, from the perspective of the elite class in contemporary China. My research questions are as follows: 1. Who are the elites in contemporary China? 2. How does the elite education agency support the elite families’ strategies for international education? 3. What are the motivations and desire for international education among elite families in China? The global perspective of international education can be illustrated through an analysis of a private training school in Shanghai for students aged 11-18, called GoAP1. This institution, which also functions as a visa consultation agency, places clients through tailor-made programs to suitable schools in the UK. This training centre is attractive to parents as they have close connections to a wide variety of schools in the UK, preparing applications for foundation year where the child focuses on English language improvement, single-sex schools, boarding schools and scholarships to specialised schools where the child’s talent can be cultivated with the help of professional faculty. Due to the foreign owners’ education background and connections with schools both in China and the UK, parents hire the agency’s services while spreading their reputation word-of-mouth, further facilitating the formation and cohesion of a transnational elite circle. This paper is built on the structure of the concepts