Global linguistic capital, global cultural capital: International student migrants in China’s two-track international education market

• Published in: International journal of educational development Vol. 67; pp. 94 - 102
• Main Author: Lee, Claire Seungeun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2019
• Subjects: China; Global cultural capital; Global linguistic capital; International student migrants; Two-track educational system; Global cultural capital; Two-track educational system; China; Global linguistic capital; International student migrants
• ISSN: 0738-0593; 1873-4871
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2019.03.001

•While China is one of the major source countries of students abroad, it is increasingly also becoming an educational destination.•The research was drawn from semi-structured in-depth interviews that were conducted with 45 student migrants.•This paper seeks to show how international student migrants in China accumulate, appropriate, and make sense of global linguistic capital and global cultural capital.•The article illuminates how the experience of international students as an educationally channeled migration in the two-track educational system.•International student migrants’ understanding and undertaking of studies abroad are engaged with these different forms of capital in various ways. While China is one of the major source countries of students abroad, it is increasingly also becoming an educational destination. China receives the largest share of international students in Asia, through the government’s strong initiative to bring international educational migrants into its own territory. This study aims to understand how and why international student migrants choose China as an educational destination. It is drawn from 45 qualitative interviews that the author conducted in both the source and target countries. This article comparatively explores international student migrants who enrolled in Chinese-language non-degree and degree programs, on the one hand, and international students who studied in English-language degree programs, on the other, in China. The theoretical component of this research is based on two interrelated concepts – global linguistic capital and global cultural capital – both of which are regarded as motivational bases for cultivating the experience of living in China as well as future career trajectories and prospects elsewhere. By looking at international student migrants’ understanding and undertaking of studies abroad, this article illuminates how the experience of international students as an educationally channeled migration, in the newly structured two-track educational system of the international education market, engages with these different forms of capital in various ways.