Understanding campus-based intercultural social capital for minority university students in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Social capital accrued via cross-racial/ethnic networks plays an important role in the adjustment, persistence and success for minority groups of university students. Yet, few studies offered insight into how intercultural social capital impacts learning and socialising experiences among minority students in non-Western contexts. Drawing on interviews with minority university students in Hong Kong, this study canvassed their intercultural networking, its influences and institutional factors that conditioned its accessibility. Findings showed that participants garnered a full array of social capital in ethnic minority cliques, whereas their connections with institutional agents were more inclined to pastoral care rather than academic advising and mentor services. This study unearthed a campus environment wherein a monolithic Chinese/Cantonese culture and de facto racial/ethnic-segregation contributed to their restricted academic/social engagements with other counterparts and added to the manifestations of marginalisation in the literature that has been preoccupied with racial lines around the Black-White binary in Western contexts.

摘要

通过跨种族/族裔社交网络积累的社会资本在少数族裔大学生的适应、持续和成功中发挥着重要作用。然而，很少有研究深入探讨非西方背景下跨文化社会资本如何影响少数族裔学生的学习和社交体验。本研究通过对香港少数族裔大学生的访谈，调查他们的跨文化社交网络及其影响，以及决定其可获得性的机构因素。研究结果表明，参与者从少数族裔小团体中获得了全面的社会资本，而他们与大学代理人的联系更倾向于生活和心理辅导，而不是学业建议和导师指导。这项研究揭示了一种校园环境，在这种环境中，单一的中文/粤语文化以及事实上的种族/族裔隔离导致香港少数族裔与其他同学的学术/社会交往受到限制。本研究丰富了现有关于边缘化显现的文献，这些文献主要关注西方社会黑人—白人二元种族界限问题。

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural social capital
• academic and social support
• collective and individual agents
• minority university students
• Hong Kong

关键词:

• 跨文化社会资本
• 学业和社会支持
• 集体和个体能动性
• 少数族裔大学生
• 香港

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fang Gao

Dr Fang Gao is Associate Professor in the Department of International Education, The Education University of Hong Kong. She specialises in the Sociology of Education with an emphasis on Education, Equity, and Diversity. Her research examines educational policies and processes of teaching and learning in local and global contexts and in relation to demographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity. She has published widely in the field of minority education.