Negotiating Class, Mobility, and Social Capital: Transnational Practices of Chinese Master's Students in the UK

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 4:15pm
  In Poster Session: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Poster Session

Abstract

This study critically examines how international education reshapes class identities and social capital among Chinese Master’s students in the UK. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction and based on longitudinal interviews conducted before and after students’ return to China, the research reveals how mobility disrupts symbolic privilege, fractures guanxi-based networks, and exposes the mismatch between meritocratic and relational logics. Rather than achieving upward mobility, many students pursue horizontal security through state-affiliated institutions. Their experiences highlight the emotional, institutional, and symbolic tensions embedded in transnational trajectories. This study challenges linear narratives of international education as empowerment, offering a more complex understanding of class (re)positioning shaped by structural constraints, identity negotiations, and field-specific capital conversions.

Author

• Xiaolin Ma, University of Manchester