Learning and Teaching in Transnational Education in China: Voices from Sino-Foreign Cooperative Universities

After the founding of a first Sino-Foreign Cooperative University (SFCU) in Ningbo in 2004, between 2005 and 2021 nine more campuses were established by UK, American, Israeli, Russian, and Hong Kong universities cooperating with mainland Chinese institutions (Sun et al. 2022). SFCUs are probably the most visible but not the only form of Sino-foreign cooperation in running schools in higher education within China. Including collaborations taking place within existing Chinese universities, in the mid-2010s, the Chinese Ministry of Education reported over 50 foreign educational institutions operating in China which offered, through various forms of partnership, around 1,000 programs of study (Wilkins 2016). Although the figure decreased in 2018 after the termination of several programs (Sharma 2018), the COVID-19 pandemic changed the context, making these partnerships more valuable as a way of addressing the challenges faced by Chinese students seeking higher education opportunities abroad, which were, inevitably, disrupted by mounting travel restrictions (Cao 2021; Xue and Li 2023). In 2023, the number of collaborations was as high as 1,400, with some industry commentators noting a slowdown in the launch of new programs due to changed market conditions and the need to review the model of cooperation to ensure its sustainability (Shi and Ramos 2023). Despite the ebb and flow, collaborative transnational education remains an established niche in the landscape of higher education in mainland China (Xue and Li 2023; Yang 2023).

Chinese Education & Society has published special issues on the theme of cross-border/transnational education in China in 2009 and 2016. In the former, the editor, Postiglione, noted that “the opening of trade in educational services has necessitated a new round of strategic thinking in China about how to capitalize on Sino–foreign partnerships while avoiding the pitfalls” (Postiglione 2009, 3). Back in 2009, the articles published pointed out numerous problems and potential issues in the establishment of transnational cooperations in the field of higher education, from the point of view of Chinese authors. One author noted that OECD countries had come to see education as a commercial export, a phenomenon that could potentially threaten the development of receiving countries (Qin 2009). Another article criticized that the quality of the educational resources made available through the collaborations so far had been unsatisfactory (Lin and Liu 2009). However, seven years later, in 2016, some of the same authors painted a considerably brighter picture of the state of transnational education in China, indicating an array of quality improvements (Lin 2016). Challenges remain, though, as some continue to lament the prevalent one-directional nature of internationalization practices in China relying on Western systems (Guo et al. 2022).

This special issue appears eight years after the last one on this subject (Qin and Te 2016) and well represents both trending trajectories and attempts to address some of the remaining gaps in the literature. The focus of the articles is on SFCUs, one of the forms of collaborative transnational education in China. The authors are all affiliated with institutions in China (and two more, while located abroad, maintain strong connections with Chinese scholars) in line with the finding (presented in Miani and Picucci-Huang in this issue) that research on transnational education in China offers a good balance between the sending and receiving countries’ perspectives (while much research on transnational education globally has been shown to be skewed toward the sending institutions’ point of view, see Knight and Liu [2017]).

In the first article of the issue, Miani and Picucci-Huang offer a broad review of the research articles on transnational education in China published in international English-language journals, complete with a selection of Chinese-language publications, from 2016 to 2023. The article makes a case for using the term collaborative transnational education in referring to SFCUs and various forms of Sino-foreign cooperation in mainland China. The profile of the literature explored clearly shows a turning point during this period: the researchers’ interest appears to have shifted from institutional narratives of quality management toward the exploration of the lived experiences of students, academics, and managers in transnational institutions in China. Several new research trajectories have been formed during the last decade, including student motivation to attend Sino-foreign cooperative institutions, teaching challenges, the impact on the local higher education sector, and the first-year transition. More trajectories just beginning to take a shape can be found in this literature, such as the theme of employability and intercultural relations. In line with the findings of the scoping review, it can be observed that the rest of the articles of this special issue of Chinese Education & Society builds on this literature and makes contributions to the understanding of students’ motivation, employability perceptions, first-year pedagogies, and managerial perceptions affecting teaching staff’s well-being.

In the second article, Chiocca and Zhang add to the emerging literature on students’ motivation to attend collaborative transnational programs in China, focusing on a specific group: international students coming to China from abroad. Their findings are based on in-depth interviews with 11 students coming from both Global North and Global South settings to study for a four-year degree in an SFCU, not just for a short sojourn. The authors found that students were driven toward the institution as a way to create for themselves a unique position in the job market. They exhibited a pioneer spirit and desire to step out of their comfort zone. These students also seemed to anticipate undertaking a learning journey that would encompass interactions both inside and outside the classroom. While these findings need to be read within the context of international students that have the economic and cultural resources to embark on such an “adventure,” nonetheless they shed light on a unique population attracted to China through the mediation of SFCUs. The authors also point out a stark difference between international students and Chinese nationals when it comes to underlying motivations, as the former do not seem driven by external pressures but by a sense of instrumentality toward gaining an edge when beginning their future professional lives.

In the third article, Shan He addresses the topic of liberal-arts education in the context of an SFCU in relation to employability. The liberal-arts ethos has been long associated with transnational universities in China even if, as in the case study explored by He, the programs of these universities do not always match the classical structure of a liberal-arts curriculum (Zhang and Kinser 2016). In the case examined by He, the liberal-arts spirit that was central in the founding president’s vision has been achieved mostly through pedagogical approaches of student centeredness and rich extracurricular activities all pointing toward the cultivation of well-rounded individuals. He shows that this ideal is far from foreign within the context of China with the concept of Boya—a broad form of curriculum aimed at a whole-person development—dating back to the time of Confucius. Sino-foreign universities represent, then, an interesting experiment in bringing together Eastern and Western conceptions of education, creating, possibly, a new format. Through a qualitative lens, He shows that the liberal-arts ethos found in one of these universities influenced the construction of narratives about employability by students near graduation, alumni, instructors, and employers. While admittedly ideals such as student-centeredness, critical thinking, and seminar interactivity are not unique to transnational universities, the people interviewed by He used these ideas to frame an educational experience that they perceived as distinctive and leading to positive outcomes. Among interviewees, there seemed to be an agreement that this set of skills/competencies/traits helped “students showcase their workplace competency in alternative and possibly more distinctive ways.” He informs her analysis through a Bordieuan framework, an ever-popular approach in studying transnational education (Mu and Dooley 2023), and this leads her to conclude that, as these universities help to build new cultural and social capital, they may contribute to replicating current social structure rather than facilitate social mobility. This is certainly a challenge that decision makers shaping educational policy should consider. By exploring micro-level perspectives on individuals’ school-to-work transition process through a multivocal orchestration, this research serves as a helpful start for the investigation of the impact of the liberal-arts dimension of SFCUs and other transnational programs on employability within China.

In the fourth article, Veecock and Zhang put the construct of employability in relation to the concept of graduate attributes and graduateness. The authors develop their own model of graduate attributes, MIDAS, based on five categories: (1) mindset, outlook, and character dispositions, (2) innovation and creativity skills, (3) digital literacy skills, (4) academic and research literacy skills, and (5) social skills. On the strength of this conceptualization, the authors try to understand what attributes the university experience of an SFCU, now entering its third decade of operations, fostered in its graduates and where this was learned. Admittedly, it is a retrospective exercise, but capable to shed light on the relationship between perceived growth and “places of learning.” Consistent with the findings from Shan He’s research in this issue, the classroom is not the only place where skills are developed, with respondents often rating experiences outside the classroom or self-directed learning as of primal importance. Veecock and Zhang’s exploratory study paints a picture of graduates from an SFCU being happy to characterize themselves as critical thinkers, problem solvers, experts in navigating digital environments, but less as communicators. In trying to locate the places of learning that impacted specific skills, the authors show how micro-level pedagogical practices, meso-level university experiences, and macro-level institution frameworks interact together in influencing a graduate’s self-image. This research should be of interest for curriculum designers in transnational programs, reminding them of the importance to weave together consistent narratives through the experiences offered to their students inside and outside the classroom.

In the fifth article, Zhang and Veecock explore the impact of extra- and co-curricular activities (ECAs and CCAs) on the development of students’ social skills within the context of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Through a mixed-method approach, the authors found that “the undergraduate research participants overwhelmingly agreed that ECAs and CCAs have value in developing their social skills.” More specifically, the authors suggest that both ECAs and CCAs contributed to the development of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and collaborative skills, with ECAs enhancing language and communication skills the most. The picture painted seems to add even more evidence to the importance of the entire learning environment fostered by SFCUs in developing well-rounded graduates.

In the sixth article, Miani, Wang, and Picucci-Huang bring curriculum development challenges faced by British-style education in China to the forefront. The article builds on the experience of three educators coming from different cultural backgrounds working in the foundation year of an SFCU in China with a UK partner. Foundation years are a prominent feature of British transnational education, and Sino-British cooperative universities and programs enrolling over 60,000 students represent a significant portion the transnational space in Chinese higher education. The authors present a framework named 4 Is, stemming from the interplay among the authors’ rich experience in teaching in SFCUs and engagement with the wider literature. The result is a model demonstrating four principles—integration, inspirational teaching, inclusiveness, and innovation—that is well linked to the emerging literature on first-year students in transnational programs in China. The four principles answer deep-rooted needs stemming from the tensions arising from students (mainly Chinese, but with interesting differentiations depending on the high school background), multicultural staff, and the dual embeddedness of the institutional context. A framework to guide development in the key area of first-year studies in an SFCU may be relevant for those interested in the first-year transition of students into transnational higher education in China, a burgeoning area of studies, as reported above.

Finally, in the seventh article Morris, Li, and Xu, through an interpretative qualitative lens, explore the perceptions of educational leadership in an SFCU. Of interest is that they present three case studies of middle- and supervisory-level managers, a position often neglected in the educational-leadership literature. The analysis shows how the contested differentiation between leadership and management has real implications in a transnational setting. Middle-level academic managers perceive that leadership can be diffused and found at every level of the organization, while managerial roles are more fixed. The authors derive a number of practical lessons for leaders in transnational campuses, for example, cautioning them from trying to effect large organizational changes without a clear sense for the impact on individual workload and well-being, something that can be detrimental to teaching and learning quality.

Overall, the studies included in this special issue look at the phenomenon of teaching and learning in SFCUs through qualitative lenses and the voices of people living in these institutions—students and educators. With the issue of generalization being a concern in all kinds of research, methodological discussion in the articles has illustrated the value and applicability of the research conducted. While the findings provided by this issue may not be directly applicable to other contexts, they represent rich descriptions and discourse of how complex pedagogical phenomena unfold within the unique context of SFCUs. Through these descriptions, decision makers, policy analysists, and scholars can gather important ideas of how the phenomenon of collaborative transnational education has evolved in practice since back in the early 2000s when the legal framework was laid down.

Acknowledgments

The guest editors wish to thank founding editor Gerard Postiglione for his encouragement and Tanja Sargent for her advice and help in marshalling this special issue to completion.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mattia Miani

Mattia Miani is a Director of Education and Student Experience for Preliminary Year Content at the University of Nottingham campus in Ningbo China.

Shih-Ching (Susan) Picucci-Huang

Shih-Ching (Susan) Picucci-Huang is an EAP tutor at University of Nottingham Ningbo China.