Cross-border higher education of mainland Chinese students: Hong Kong and Macao in a globalizing market

Cross-border higher education of mainland Chinese students: Hong Kong and Macao in a globalizing market

• Li, Mei Comparative Education Research Centre , University of Hong Kong and Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences

2006

• N Students & Student Services
  • NN Overseas Students in Hong Kong

Bilingual Education Multicultural Education Higher Education College Student Mobility - Hong Kong College Student Mobility - China - Macau (Special Administrative Region) College Student Mobility - China Foreign Study - China College Students - China - Attitudes

• Hong Kong
• Macau

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

Cross-border higher education has become an urgent agenda item for policy makers, and a major focus of scholarly enquiry. The existing literature mainly focuses on international flows, and pays less attention to flows across internal borders. The literature also underplays the complexity of forces which either push students to study away from home or pull them to new locations.
This thesis contributes to the literature by examining the distinctive determinants and characteristics of cross-border flows of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong and Macao. This mobility within a single country has some similarities to international mobility because Hong Kong and Macao are Special Administrative Regions governed under different laws from the rest of China. Patterns in Hong Kong differ from those in Macao, and the territories are compared with each other as well as taken as a pair for comparison with other parts of the world. Hong Kong and Macao are hybrid in nature, with characteristics that are neither fully domestic nor fully international, and play a dual role both as destinations in themselves and as stepping-stones for further internationalization.
In a global market, both excess and differentiated demand trigger flows to the external locations in which various suppliers compete with and complement each other. The borders across which mainland Chinese students flow, both internationally and internally, are blurred and loosened by the interests of domestic and external actors and by the powers of globalization and neo-liberalism. Two categories of financial mechanisms of cross-border mobility, i.e. fee-paying and scholarship, serve as differentiated instruments of China’s social stratification and mobility. Fee-paying enhances social stratification, and scholarships favor social mobility.
The thesis presents a framework which includes analysis of internal and external dynamic forces. Among these forces are the actions of governments, institutions and individuals. One dimension of the study focuses on the characteristics, perceptions and motivations of individual students. Decisions on destinations for higher education, and on the choice of institutions within those destinations, are determined by the interaction of students’ personal factors, and the external forces of two-way push-pull factors. Relevant considerations for individuals include the affordability, accessibility and desirability of external higher education. The two-way push-pull model and the interaction of personal and external factors help to explain why some students study in Hong Kong or Macao (or elsewhere) while others remain at home.
The research draws insight from both quantitative and qualitative data collected through questionnaires and interviews in two universities in Hong Kong and another two in Macao. It starts with the broad literatures on international student mobility, examines changing trends and policy shifts both in China and abroad, and constructs an analytical framework following critical review of existing theories of globalization, internationalization and push-pull models. It then turns to the specific data on Hong Kong and Macao. It concludes by showing ways in which the research contributes to broad conceptualization of cross-border higher education.

PhD

University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

• English

Dissertation Theses

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/ccbcaa9d

2010-12-16