Chinese international students in a Canadian private secondary school: becoming flexible citizens?

ABSTRACT

This study employs the notion of ‘flexible citizenship,’ to examine how national and transnational forces and discursive logics mediate Chinese international secondary school students’ educational routes and life trajectories. It draws upon a larger ethnographic research programme that followed 11 Chinese students in a Canadian international secondary school across a period of 14 months. Our current findings affirm that neoliberal logics mediated by (trans)national cultural forces shape how participants navigate their lives. In employing flexible citizenship as a lens, we seek to support more comprehensive understandings of Chinese international students as agentic and socially regulated citizens-in-the-making in their transnational routes. More comprehensive understandings, in turn, elicit pedagogical insights on how study abroad might better support the education and wellbeing of (Chinese) students studying internationally.

KEYWORDS:

• Canadian secondary schools
• Chinese international students
• capital accumulation
• ethnography
• flexible citizenship
• transnational space

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our appreciation to the reviewers and editors of this paper for their valuable and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Sponsored by Peak Discipline Construction Project of Education at East China Normal University.