Chinese students studying in American high schools: International sojourning as a pathway to global citizenship

• In Event: Chinese Students Studying Abroad

Proposal

A sojourn refers to a “temporary stay” which could vary between 6 months and 5 years, and sojourners are those who “voluntarily go abroad for a set period of time that is usually associated with a specific assignment or contract” (Ward, Bochner and Furnham, 2001, 21), and they are usually expected to return home after the completion of their assignment, contract or studies. International students is one major group of international sojourners. Among the rapidly increasing population of international sojourners, the largest flow is from China to the United States. In 2016, there were 544,500 Chinese students studying abroad, an increase of 36.26% over 2012 (Ministry of Education, 2017). China has been the top sending country of international students to the US since 2009, and the US has always been the most popular destination for Chinese students in recent decades. In 2015, 328,548 Chinese students studied in the US, accounting for 31% of all international students (IIE, 2016).

One noticeable trend among Chinese students studying overseas is the increasingly young age of those students: In 2009 China became the No. 1 sending country of international high school students in the US surpassing South Korea. In 2005-06 only 65 Chinese students came to the US to attend high school, whereas in 2014, among the 73,000 international students seeking U.S. high school diplomas, Chinese students accounted for 32.3% (Farrugia, 2014). In 2016 the total number of Chinese students in American K-12 schools rose to about 35,627 (Lew, 2016).

This paper examines the impacts of education overseas on international students from mainland China in American high schools, and the mechanisms through which the impacts take place. Even though studies have been conducted on the topic of international students from China, existing studies on Chinese students in the United States have mostly focused on the higher education level and little attention has been paid to those young students at the secondary level. The impacts of international sojourning experiences on those at a younger age may be different from those who are older because they are at a more malleable age.

Global citizenship is a concept that can be traced back to the cosmopolitan tradition in ancient Greece. Derived from the Greek word kosmopolites, cosmopolitan means “citizen of the universe.” (Heater, 2004). From the 18th century, the term acquired the connotation “for an individual enjoying comfortable familiarity with a variety of geographical and cultural environments” (Heater, 2000, 179). Then, for two hundred years, between the late 18th century and the end of the 20th century, the concept of nation-state along with the ideology of nationalism was in such a dominating position that cosmopolitan thinking gradually gave way to nationalism and patriotism. In the second half of the 1990s, however, there was a rekindled interest in the cosmopolitan thinking and thus global citizenship as the deepening process of globalization continued to weaken the state-citizen tie and global interdependence continued to increase (Urry, 1999).

In spite of the large variation in the definition and typology of global citizenship, there seem to be three areas of development one needs to have in order to be a global citizen: 1) knowledge and understanding, 2) skills, and 3) values and attitudes. This qualitative study employs the framework of those three areas in examining the impacts of the international sojourning on Chinese students studying in American high schools.

The data were collected from interviews with 15 Chinese students studying at American high schools and 7 teacher participants who work closely with them. Findings reveal that international sojourning could potentially serve as an effective pathway to global citizenship because it may help international students develop relevant knowledge and understanding, skills, as well as values and attitudes through the mechanisms of non-vanity motives, proactive mindset, exposure to different perspectives and experience with disadvantages. The paper argues that the process of growing into a global citizen may be viewed as an advanced level of student development In this process, students’ knowledge is enhanced about themselves and other cultures and their understanding of the common predicament and vulnerability of humanity, their skills are fostered in thinking, analyzing and performing tasks, and their values are cultivated in open-mindedness, empathy and compassion, respect for diversity and difference. As a result, they are better equipped for the challenges and hardships during the process of adaptation.



Farrugia, Christine A. 2014. New Pathways to Higher Education: International Secondary Students in the United States. NY: New York. Institute of International Education.

Heater, Derek. 2000. “Does Cosmopolitan Thinking Have a Future?” Review of International Studies 26: 179-197.

Heater, D. 2004. Citizenship: The Civic Ideal in World History, Politics and Education. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
IIE. 2016. Open Doors. Washington DC: Institute of International Education.

Lew, Tiffany. 2016. “Chinese ‘Parachute Kids’ Tackle U.S. Schools on Their Own.” The Hechinger Report. October 4.

Ministry of Education. 2017. “Press Release.” Accessed March 1, 2017. http://sh.qq.com/a/20170302/008029.htm

Urry, John. 1999. “Globalization and Citizenship.” Journal of World-Systems Research 2: 311-324.

Ward, C., Bochner, S., and Furnham, A. 2001. The Psychology of Culture Shock. Philadelphia, PA: Routledge.

Authors

• Baoyan Cheng, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

• Po Yang, Peking University