Transnationalization of Aspirations: International Mobility of Chinese & Japanese Students

Robert Dujarric Announcement
Location
Japan
Subject Fields
Asian History / Studies, Educational Technology, History Education, Social Sciences, East Asian History / Studies

Date & Time: Friday, July 19  |  19:00 - 21:00 p.m. (doors open at 18:30 p.m.)
Venue: Temple University, Japan Campus, Azabu Hall, 1F Parliament
Panelists: Yasemin Soysal, University of Essex
Hector Cebolla Boado, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)
Dorothee Schneider, University of Essex

Admission: Free and open to the public.
Language: English
RSVP: RSVP is encouraged but not required (icas@tuj.temple.edu).

Overview:
In the last two decades, the number of international students has sharply increased. Student from Asia constitute more than half of all globally mobile higher education students. Conventionally, international education is studied either in relation to classical push & pull drivers at the country (aggregate) level or as an investment in human and cultural capital accumulation, by governments and increasingly widening urban middle-class families. However, such perspectives are not sufficient to understand the mobility of higher education students in the 21st century.

Starting from a transnational vantage point, we suggest an analytical perspective which connects educational migrations to transnational convergences, among higher education institutions towards global standards and among students towards the spread of educational and mobility aspirations. Methodologically such a perspective requires multi-sited comparisons of higher education students, not only those who move abroad for their education but a so who move internally, and those who do not move at all. Bright Futures project draws on such comparisons of representative data of Chinese and Japanese higher education students in the UK and in Germany, Chinese students in Japan, as well as comparison groups of home students in each country. We will draw on the key findings of the project to elaborate on the commonalities and differences across these student groups, including aspirations for mobility, future life course and career projections, and national and global value orientations.

Panelists:
Yasemin Soysal is Professor of Sociology at University of Essex. Her research focuses on transnational transformations of the nation-state, citizenship, and human rights, and intersections of migrations and higher education. She is currently leading two collaborative projects: a) “Bright Futures”: A Comparative Study of Internally and Internationally Mobile Chinese and Japanese Higher Education Students (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the German Science Foundation, and the Chinese National Science Foundation); b) Universities’ Global Outlook (funded by the British Academy). Soysal is past president of the European Sociological Association.

Hector Cebolla Boado is Associate Professor at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid, Spain. He received his Ph.D. from the Nuffield College, University of Oxford and the Juan March Institute, Madrid. His research seeks to understand how migrant status determines educational and health outcomes among children of migrants and migrant children.

Dorothee Schneider, Senior Research Officer at the University of Essex, is in charge of the conduct of Bright Futures survey. She has extensive expertise and experience in social survey research.

Contact Information

Robert Dujarric
Director, Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University Japan Campus

Contact Email
icas@tuj.temple.edu