The Call of the Homeland: Transnational Education and the Rising Nationalism

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Eleven
  In Roundtable Session: Ethical Dilemmas in International Contexts (Table 9)

Abstract

This study investigates how the desire for Western credentials and transnational mobility reconcile with strong nationalist sentiments among Chinese students and how Chinese students’ overseas educational experiences are largely structured by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Through a 12-month transnational ethnography study of 15 Chinese students migrating between China’s Pearl River Delta and the US Midwest, I argue that transnational education has become a crucial part of China’s nation-building in the era of intensified globalization. The seemingly contradictory existence of the transnational desire for Western education and rising nationalist sentiments work jointly in the neoliberal market economy to build entrepreneurial individuals, who are expected to contribute to China’s economic growth as well as political rejuvenation.

Author

• Shanshan Jiang-Brittan, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author