UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
MASTER’S THESIS RESEARCH MASTER SOCIAL SCIENCES 2015-2017
Social Class and Moral Geography
A mixed-methods study on transnational mobility decisions of Chinese students in the Netherlands
Name: Laurens Steehouder Student ID: 10192360 Supervisor: Dr. S. Lan
Second reader: Dr. S. Fransen
1 Social Class and Moral Geography
A mixed-methods study on transnational mobility decisions of Chinese students in the Netherlands
Laurens Steehouder
ABSTRACT
In this article, I examine how mobility decisions of Chinese students who are currently living in the Netherlands are mediated by their social class background. It contributes to discussions on spatial mobility as a strategy for social class (re)production and self-development. This research, which combines semi-structured interviews and an online survey, challenges the view of Chinese students as one homogeneous group and shows that they have become spatially and socially diversified. It puts forward three major arguments. First, the value of an international experience is no longer universal but depends on the position of a destination country in a global moral geography, where some places are perceived as more prestigious than others. I use the concept of symbolic place capital to analyse different groups of students’ mobility strategies at different life stages. Second, the research reveals that there exists a difference between students from the upper-middle class, who possess high levels of social and cultural capital, and students from the middle class, who have less economic wealth and social connections. In conclusion, I argue that these spatial hierarchies between countries and social inequalities between students are mutually constitutive of the spatialisation of class at a transnational scale. Spatial (im)mobility has become intertwined with social inequality.
Key words: Spatialisation of class, internationalisation of higher education, moral geography, Chinese student
migration, capital, social mobility, spatial mobility.
I. INTRODUCTION
Zheng is a Chinese student1 who grew up in Wuhu, which she describes as ‘a middle-sized city with about 3 million people’ located in the East of China. After finishing an undergraduate programme in accounting in Chengdu, another medium-sized city in Southwest China, she wanted to ‘see the world’ and decided to do her master’s degree abroad. Going to the Netherlands was a relatively inexpensive way to get an education in an English-speaking environment and thereby improve her career prospect in China’s highly competitive labour market. I was therefore surprised to find out that one year after attaining her master’s degree she was still living in the Netherlands. When I asked her why, she replied: “I studied at the
Erasmus University. It is a famous university in the Netherlands, but very few people know it in China. If I go back to China with this degree, the HR [human resources] department will think it is nothing. I will be the same as all the students who did not go abroad to get their master’s degree. That is why I am planning to stay here and get some more work experience”.
1 In this article, I use the term ‘Chinese student(s)’ to denote people who are citizens of the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) and who are following tertiary education in the Netherlands. Students from Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong are thus not included.
2 The story of Zheng is not unique. In the schoolyear 2016-2017, 2265 Chinese students decided to follow a master’s programme in the Netherlands. Compared to the figures of 2006, the total number of Chinese master’s students in the Netherlands has increased more than 250 percent within this 10-year period (Nuffic, 2016). Due to this tremendous growth, Chinese students are now, after the Germans, the second largest group of international students in the Netherlands. Most of them return to China after graduation. Of all the Chinese students who started a Dutch programme in 2009, only 25.3 percent was still working in the Netherlands three years after graduation (Hong et al., 2017). Zheng’s story and these numbers raise a couple of questions. Why do so many students still come to the Netherlands if a Dutch degree is not highly valued in China? And how to explain the divergence in Chinese students’ mobility decisions after their graduation from Dutch universities?
In what follows, I will answer these questions and offer an empirical account of the spatial mobility decisions of Chinese students in the Netherlands. I build upon previous studies which interpret studying abroad as a strategy for self-development and social (re)production (Abelmann, Newendorp, & Lee-Chung, 2014; Anagnost, 2013; Waters, 2005; Xiang & Shen, 2009). Contrary to Fong (2011) who has argued that studying abroad is motivated by a desire to leave China and attain ‘developed world citizenship,’ this research finds that it is a temporal strategy to attain symbolic place capital in order to improve job prospect and social status in China. Moreover, my research challenges the view of Chinese students as one homogeneous group. Based on data from an online survey and 18 semi-structured interviews with Chinese master’s students in the Netherlands, it is revealed that going abroad is not the same for all the students. Mobility decisions involve a spatial, temporal, and social dimension. Transnational mobility is an open-ended process that is deeply entangled with global moral geography, life stages of individual students, and their class backgrounds. This three-dimensional view on mobility opens up the possibility to rethink the relationships between social class background and mobility decisions of Chinese students. In this research, I set out to investigate these relationships and explore how social class mediates temporal and spatial mobility trajectories of Chinese students in the Netherlands.
The empirical findings of this research contribute to existing literature in three aspects. First, my research reveals that there exists a hierarchical view on different study abroad destinations among Chinese students. The perceived place specific characteristics of the Netherlands as a destination country are important. In her ethnographic work in the city of Dalian, Fong (2011) found that Chinese students perceived the West as ‘an imagined developed world community’. She describes that her respondents were unaware of any major differences
3 between ‘developed world’ countries and saw them as belonging to one homogeneous group. My research reveals that, at least for the Chinese students in the Netherlands, this view is no longer accurate. The students had clear ideas about the distinct advantages and disadvantages of going to the Netherlands compared to other study abroad destinations. They see different study abroad destinations as symbolically ordered in a ‘global moral geography’ (Hansen & Thøgersen, 2015). What is more, they view studying in the Netherlands as less prestigious than studying in, what they perceived as, more prestigious places in for instance the United States. For students with less competitive academic abilities or financial means, going to the Netherlands is an alternative strategy to attain a degree in an English-speaking environment.
Second, my research reveals that Chinese students are a socially diverse group. As a result of China’s economic development, studying abroad is no longer privileged for the elites alone (Xiang & Shen, 2009). There exists a notable difference between students from the ‘upper-middle class’ and those from the ‘middle class’ in terms of their mobility strategies and choices. The first group often grew up in China’s first tier-cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and have at least one parent who is employed in the private sectors. Students in the second group often grew up in second- or third-tier cities and both their parents are generally employed in the public sector. As a result, the upper-middle class students can rely more on the higher level of economic capital and privileged social capital (guanxi) possessed by their families than the middle-class students.
` Third, the research finds that social inequalities between students become increasingly intertwined with spatial inequalities between study abroad destinations, and thereby adds a transnational approach to the existing literature on spatialisation of class (Bauman, 1998; Zhang, 2012). The ability to go to certain study abroad destinations and the prestige of having lived in one of these places has become a main characteristic on which class is defined. In this vein, social class and spatial mobility have become mutually constitutive. On the one hand, social class mediates where a student can go to and how long he or she is likely to stay. On the other hand, going abroad is a strategy that can potentially change the social position after return to China. As a result, the Netherlands’ position in a global moral geography facilitates a spatialisation of class at a transnational scale.
The article is structured as follows: First, the increased popularity of studying abroad among Chinese students is placed within a historical context of China’s rise as an economic and political power. I will then describe the theoretical foundations of this research and introduce the concept of symbolic place capital as a new spatialized form of human capital. In the methodology section, the implications of the used mixed-methods research design are
4 described. Finally, three empirical sections will reveal how mobility decisions of Chinese students are interlinked with social class and a conclusion will be drawn.
II. THE RISE OF CHINA AND INCREASED POPULARITY OF STUDYING
ABROAD
The increased number of Chinese students who study abroad should be viewed within a historical context of the development of China as a political and economic world power. Since the economic reforms of the late 1970s, China has become the production centre of the world and underwent tremendous economic growth (Ikenberry, 2008). In about forty years of state-led capitalism, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased with an average of nearly ten percent a year, making it currently the second largest economy in the world (World Bank, 2016). As a direct result of this economic growth, an increased number of families – the new middle class – have gained the financial capabilities to pay for overseas education of their child (Cheng Li, 2010). Although overseas education is not a completely new phenomenon and the Chinese have travelled abroad for education purposes prior to the Maoist revolution, its current levels are historically unprecedented (Hong et al., 2017). In 2015 more than 800,000 Chinese students were following tertiary education abroad, making China the largest sending country of international students worldwide (UNESCO, 2017). Furthermore, a recent trend shows an increasing number of Chinese students returning after graduation instead of choosing to settle down in the destination countries (CEF-monitor, 2016).
A second structural reason for the increased popularity of studying abroad is related to the development of China’s higher education sector. In what Castells (2011) has described as a transition to an ‘information society’, knowledge has replaced labour as the primary means of production. In this ‘knowledge economy’, high-skilled workers have become the primary source of economic growth and are therefore seen as a valuable resource for national governments2 (David & Foray, 2002). As part of its ambition to become a knowledge economy
which is competitive to the West, since 1995 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has invested heavily in reforming its higher education system. In practice, this ambition led to the implementation of the ‘Project 211’ and ‘Project 985’, under which millions of dollars were invested to establish ‘top-ranked universities’. Because the main goal of the CCP was to establish world-class universities that are globally competitive, the allocation of educational
2 I use the definition of ‘high-skilled migrants’ as generally used in policy reports and define the concept as ‘people
who earn more than a certain income threshold or are employed in academia’ (see IND, 2016). With the use of the term ‘high-skilled migrants’ I do thus not mean that other migrants are necessarily ‘low-skilled’.
5 resources has been highly unequal. As a result, a hierarchal order of domestic universities emerged, with a few prestigious universities at the top that receive all the funding (Lixu, 2004; Mohrman, 2013). Only the best students, with the highest scores for the college entrance exam (gaokao), can get in the most prestigious universities at the top of this hierarchy. The rest of the high-school graduates can settle for a mediocre university, a transnational education programme3, or go abroad. Overseas education is thus an alternative to the highly competitive domestic university sector, where university ranking is directly tied with future job opportunities (Fang & Wang, 2014). Compared to domestic education, overseas education is believed to indicate certain ‘international traits’, which cannot be attained in China. Studying abroad can be a strategy to accumulate linguistic and intercultural skills and distinguish oneself from those who only followed education within China (Waters, 2005).
In the Asian context, the decision to go abroad can be understood as a strategy by the family unit for social reproduction (Ong, 1999; Waters, 2005; Xiang & Shen, 2009). Social (re)production is understood as a set of different practices that maintain or improve a family’s social position in the future (Bourdieu, 1986). Because in China the meaning of being spatially mobile has become closely connected to being successful, having been abroad becomes a strategy for social distinction (Nyíri, 2010). For wealthy families, studying abroad is a way to transfer economic capital to high-value cultural capital, which functions to distinguish them from the other classes (Xiang & Shen, 2009). The educational mobility of Chinese students is, thus, no longer a strategy to attain ‘developed world citizenship’ (Fong, 2011). Going abroad is not a way to escape from mainland China and settle in another country, but a temporal strategy to improve the social position of the family in China in the future.
Although the family unit is highly important, it is no longer accurate to present the Chinese students as passive actors who are sent abroad by their parents. Students of the one-child generation often have strong personal motivations to go abroad (Fong, 2004). In addition, students’ desire to study abroad is not motivated by economic reasons alone. On an individual level, the decision to study abroad is part of what Abelmann, Newendorp, and Lee-Chung (2014) have called a ‘new discourse of human development’. Processes of neoliberal restructuring and individualisation have led to a view of the subject as an ‘enterprising self’. In this discourse, the individual is autonomous and self-responsible for his or her future career. This differs from the traditional discourse during Maoist times where the individual only existed by virtue of continuation of the group (Ong & Zhang, 2008; Yan, 2010). To ensure a successful
3 A transnational education programme is a higher education programme located in China which is established by
6 career, and remain competitive to the rest, the students constantly have to ‘invest’ in themselves. Anagnost (2013) calls this ‘life making’, meaning the “investments in the self to ensure one’s forward career progression as embodied human capital” (2). Alternatively, in her ethnography on Japanese youth in New York, Sooudi (2014) reveals that this discourse of self-development can also take a somewhat different form. The motivations of Japanese youth to go to the United States were not directly related to a strategy to improve the individual competitive position after return to Japan. Instead, for this group self-development was more associated with non-materialistic reasons and attainment of certain life-styles.
The decision to go abroad is thus embedded within different structural changes and related to personal aspirations and familial aspirations for class (re)production. In the rest of this article I will reveal that these factors do not affect the students in the same way.
III. DIVERSIFICATION OF THE CHINESE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT
POPULATION
Spatial diversification in a global moral geography
Scholars have noted that in China different study abroad destinations are perceived to “offer different options for financial gain, intellectual growth and personal development” (Hansen and Thøgersen, 2015, 3). The developed world is no longer seen as a homogeneous group, but every country is perceived as having certain advantages and disadvantages compared to other possible study abroad destinations. Chinese students use factors such as university ranking, level of English, and cultural stereotypes to rank different study abroad destinations in a global hierarchy, in which some places considered more prestigious than others. Hansen & Thøgersen (2015) have argued that this perceived global hierarchy is highly dependent on ‘cultural imaginaries of places’, which they call ‘moral geography’. I adopt this concept of global moral geography, which I define as the subjective evaluation of different places in the world in which some places are considered to be ‘better’ than others. Similar to Shapiro (1994) who uses the term to point to the contentiousness of the nation-state geography, the concept emphasises that imagination of geographical space is not an objective representation of the world; different values and meanings are projected upon different places. My research reveals that the Netherlands occupies a middle position within a moral geography of the Chinese students. It is considered an English-speaking country that is less prestigious than native English-speaking countries.
7 In addition, the value of an international experience is highly dependent on the perceived prestige of a destination country in this moral geography. Due to the increased number of returnees and the resulting diploma inflation in China, a degree from a foreign university does not automatically guarantee a favourable job after return (Hansen, 2015). In the highly competitive Chinese labour market, a degree from a prestigious university is valued more than a degree from a less famous university. To highlight this importance of position of a destination in the global moral geography, I will introduce the concept of ‘symbolic place capital’. Symbolic place capital can be defined as the place-specific assets that can be accumulated by a person by going abroad. Its value depends on the discursive evaluation of a destination – its position in a moral geography – and is therefore highly symbolic. Similar to Bourdieu's (1986) description of cultural capital, symbolic place capital becomes an integral part of the subject and can therefore not be transferred instantaneously to other forms of capital. Yet, it differs from previous literature which treats educational mobility as cultural capital accumulation in two ways (Waters, 2005; Xiang & Shen, 2009). First, it emphasizes the spatial dimension of social mobility. The symbolic value of being a mobile subject as described by Nyíri (2010) is not universal, but place dependent. Second, symbolic place capital does not only refer to an international degree, but is much broader. Next to a Dutch university degree, a student can accumulate other types of symbolic place capital by going to the Netherlands. The desire to get work experience in the Netherlands can, for example, be understood as a strategy to accumulate a different type of symbolic place capital. Similar to education, work experience can be an asset, whose value is highly dependent on the symbolic evaluation of the place of the activity.
Apart from different possibilities for the accumulation of different forms of symbolic place capital, places in the global moral geography of the Chinese students have different requirements for access (Hansen & Thøgersen, 2015). As Kaufman et al. (2004) have pointed out, different levels of motility – the concept they use to describe the capacity to be spatially mobile – are required to get access to certain places. This ability to overcome the location-specific costs and get access to a certain place depends, among others, on the socio-economic position of the family and the academic capabilities of the students. For example, due to differences in tuition fees and costs of living, studying in the United States is more expensive than studying in the Netherlands. These economic barriers will be easier to overcome for families from a high social position, who possess high levels of economic capital.
8 Social stratification and multiple middle classes
In addition to increased material wealth for middle-class families, the post-Maoist economic development has also led to an increase in social inequality between families (Anagnost, 2008). In the last three decades, China moved from a socialist mode of production with (officially) no social inequality, to a post-socialist economic system with one of the highest levels of social inequality in the world (Zhang, 2012; World Bank, 2016). Due to the speed of this transition, it has become quite complex what constitutes the different social strata (Anagnost, 2008; Cheng Li, 2010; Chunling Li, 2010). The social position of a family derives from a complex interaction between level of income, consumption power, sort of occupation, sector of employment, level of education, home ownership, urban residency, and extent of social network (guanxi) (Anagnost, 2008; Chunling Li, 2010; Tang & Unger, 2013; Zhang, 2012). Depending on the definition that is used, the size of the Chinese middle class in 2006 varied between 9 to 30 percent of the population (Chunling Li, 2010).
As a result, the concept of middle class in China has very different meanings from its counterpart in a Western context. The Chinese middle class is not a uniform group with shared characteristics (Tang & Unger, 2013). Instead, it is better to use the plural and speak of the existence of ‘multiple middle classes’ (Chunling Li, 2010). There exists, for example, a major difference between people employed in the private sector and those in the public sector. Although the latter group does not possess the same level of material wealth as the former group, they do not see themselves as having a lower social status. A job in the public sector provides higher job stability, can generate more hidden income, indicates better personal quality (suzhi) and is therefore often seen as more desirable than a private sector job (Gao, Ying, & Luo, 2015; Tang & Unger, 2013). In addition, there is a difference between people in first-tier and second- or third-tier cities. First-tier cities have higher levels of income and are seen as more desirable and prestigious to live in compared to other urban areas (Hansen & Thøgersen, 2015). Furthermore, there is a difference in the level of social capital a family possesses. Informal interpersonal networks (guanxi) are a highly important aspect of China’s political economy and regulate the exchange of different types of resources and services. Lee & Tsang (2016) have for example shown that families in Shanghai often use their privileged social networks to find professional employment for their children.
My research shows that this difference between different parts of the middle class is also relevant for Chinese students in the Netherlands. It will become clear that there exists a difference between, what I will call, ‘the middle class’ and ‘the upper-middle-class’. The main difference between these two groups consists in the higher level of economic capital and more
9 prestigious social capital of the upper-middle class compared to the middle-class. I use the term ‘upper-middle class’ to describe families from China’s first-tier cities who are (at least partially) employed in the private sector and have a high level of material wealth and extensive social networks (guanxi). The term ‘middle class’ refers to families from second-tier cities, where both parents are employed in the public sector. The concept of class is thus understood as not just economic but existing in a much broader cultural and social realm (Zhang, 2008). Furthermore, the difference between first-tier and second- or third-their cities reveals that this class difference also has a spatial dimension.
The mobility decisions of Chinese students are related to this diversity in social class backgrounds. Fang and Wang (2014) revealed that transnational education programmes in China are primarily attended by students from wealthy families who have relatively low academic performance. For this group, the expensive programmes are an alternative to the highly competitive domestic education sector. Furthermore, Salaff, Wong, and Greve (2010) showed that the social class position of Hong Kong families shapes both the mobility decisions and outcomes. Similar to these two examples, mobility decisions of Chinese students in the Netherlands are mediated by social class. Class mediates spatial mobility in two different ways. Drawing from the work of Carling (2002), I see mobility decisions as a ‘function of aspirations and capabilities to move’ (Castles, de Haas, & Miller, 2013). Although these two are in reality closely related, there is an analytical distinction between a person’s desire to move, and a person’s ability to realise this wish to migrate. The spatiotemporal mobility trajectories of Chinese students in the Netherlands reveal that both the ability and the aspiration to move are mediated by social class background.
Nevertheless, the relationship between class and mobility does not mean that class ‘determines’ mobility decisions. Rather than influencing the decision, social class should be understood as influencing what Kalir (2005) calls ‘the migratory disposition’. With this concept, the author refers to “the subjective perception of people with regard to the possible adjustments of their position in relation to their social and economic environment” (175). This disposition to migrate – what a person considers an appropriate possible action - is part of what Bourdieu (1986) called the habitus, and is thus closely connected to social class background. Although Fong (2011) is right in pointing out that the decision of Chinese students to go abroad often seems random and uninformed, on a deeper level different macro- and individual level factors are influencing the migratory disposition. Next to personal relationships, gender, and age, class is one of these factors. Social class cannot be seen separately from these other contextual factors. This also implies that although Chinese middle-class students are for
10 example more disposed to stay in the Netherlands, they still have the agency to act otherwise. Furthermore, if we view mobility decisions from a life course perspective, this role of agency becomes more apparent.
Spatialisation of class at a transnational scale
The decision to go to the Netherlands is not self-contained but is embedded within multiple mobility decisions over the life course. Although all the students in my research made the decision to come to the Netherlands, their previous and prospective mobility decisions may differ. To account for these differences, I will adopt a long-term view and look at the whole spatiotemporal mobility trajectory rather than the single decision to come to the Netherlands. The spatiotemporal mobility trajectory can be understood as the spatial reflection of the different mobility decisions of a student over his or her life course. In line with Sooudi (2014), this view emphasises that migration is an open-ended process, in which length of stay and outcomes are unclear. Furthermore, a life course perspective highlights that mobility decisions are not simply individual, but are linked to “culturally and socially defined concepts of the family” at a certain life stage (Kobayashi & Preston, 2007). With the transition to adulthood, students are confronted with cultural and familial expectations, which may influence their migratory disposition.
When we include a temporal dimension and view mobility decisions as part of this broader life trajectory, we see that educational mobility contributes to the spatialisation of class at a transnational spatial scale. In her ethnographic work, Zhang (2012) describes how the emergence of a privatized housing market in the city of Kunming facilitated a spatial (re)production of social class in the city. The development of a commercialized real estate sector led to both the redistribution of wealth to a selective group and spatial segregation of housing. Moreover, this social inequality and spatial inequality became intertwined. Because the newly build private apartment complexes allow for middle-class lifestyles and exclude others from entering this communal space, they function as class distinction. My research reveals that the emergence of a private study abroad market facilitates the spatialisation of class in a similar way. Similar to apartment complexes in Kunming, places within a moral geography have certain requirements to get access and have a symbolic function in class distinction. The study abroad destinations that are hardest to get into are also most prestigious and provide the best prospects for a good job in China. Consequently, length and place of an international experience become a main characteristic on which class is defined and redefined. Class can thus
11 become spatialised at multiple spatial scales. Whereas Zhang (2012) describes an urban scale, studying abroad facilitates a spatialisation of class at a transnational scale.
Furthermore, this view is in line with Bauman (1998) who has argued that in the late capitalist mode of production, mobility becomes the primary mode on which class is defined. The ‘winners’ of globalisation have the capability to be mobile while the ‘losers’ are bound to the local. According to Kaufman, Bergman, and Yoye (2004) this capacity to be spatially mobile cannot be seen separately form the social position of the family. In addition, the inclusion of a temporal dimension reveals that the relationship between class and mobility is not unidirectional. Spatial mobility has also the potential to change class position (Waters, 2005; Xiang & Shen, 2009). The symbolic place capital that is accumulated by going abroad may help improve the job prospects of returnees and enhance the class status of the family. Class is thus a dynamic rather than a static characteristic. Although class mediates the migratory disposition, an individual still has agency to make individual choices.
IV. RESEARCH DESIGN
To study the spatial mobility of Chinese students I decided to use a mixed-methods, rather than a single-method, research design. This approach, which mixes both quantitative and qualitative methods, has the advantage of combining the strengths inherent to both research paradigms (Creswell, 2011).
The first stage of the research consisted of the collection of the quantitative data on social class background by using an online survey method. The main goal was to gather information on social class background of students, which would be used to sample respondents for the interview in stage two of the research. This survey, which was distributed through research universities, social media and the social network of previously interviewed students, yielded a response of 55 Chinese master’s students (of whom 38 filled in all the questions). Next to questions on previous mobility, future mobility plans, and motivations for (in)mobility, the survey included a set of questions on the social class background. From the existing literature, several indicators were deduced. These included: parents’ level of education, parents’ sector of employment, car possession, house possession, estimated net income, city of origin, and subjective class placement. To ensure that the questions were exhaustive and complete, 8 interviews were conducted prior to design of the survey and several pilot surveys were conducted. In addition, it helped to sample more male respondents, who were initially more difficult to get in contact with. Although the data was usefull for the sampling of interview
12 respondents, due to its small sample size it is not representative for the whole population of Chinese master’s students in the Netherlands (Bryman, 2008).
For this reason, descriptive statistics from a secondary dataset, which was collected by the Leiden Asia Centre (LAC), were used (see Hong et al., 2017). After filtering for Chinese master’s students, the dataset consists of 190 respondents. Although the respondents were not randomly selected, the gender ratio and field of study distribution suggest that the data is representative of the population of Chinese students in the Netherlands.
The second, and most important, stage of this research project consisted of 18 semi-structured interviews with Chinese students who do, or recently did, a master’s program in the Netherlands. Although the first 8 participants were selected with a method of snowball-sampling, the selection of the remaining 12 interviewees was based on social class indicators in the survey data, which ensured variety in the sample for the different indicators for social class. The interviews were semi-structured, meaning that prior to the interview an interview guide with the most important themes was constructed. I used a technique common in life history research and first asked the research subjects to tell something about the place where they grew up. This ‘light topic’ often made the conversation flow more ‘natural’ and encouraged the student to tell about the different decisions they made in a chronological order. Furthermore, during the interview, the students were asked to make an ‘exercise’, which involved making a list of all the places where they had lived in the past and would like to live in the future. This assignment ensured a clear overview of the spatial-temporal mobility trajectory of the students and encouraged the students to take the time to think about their past mobility and future mobility plans.
Most interviews took place in the informal setting of cafes in the cities of Leiden, Den Haag, Delft, Eindhoven, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. In addition, 7 interviews were conducted over live video chat. The idea to do the interviews over Skype was suggested by the students repeatedly and, though I was sceptical at first, this turned out to work well. The students were very comfortable in the setting of their own houses and were clearly used to communicate through video chat. The interviews took between 40 and 120 minutes with an average duration of approximately one hour.
With consent from the interviewees, 16 interviews were recorded and later transcribed. These transcriptions were analyzed with the help of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (QAQDAS (Friese, 2012). The coding followed an abductive approach, meaning that the most important topics were deduced from the literature but also new themes emerged from the data (Bryman, 2008).
13 Although my role as a white Dutch male researcher could be described as an ‘outsider’ and the interviews were not conducted in the respondent’s native language, I do not think this had a negative influence on the reliability of my data. On the contrary, this role as outsider allowed me to ask about topics that were self-evident for the Chinese students, but for me revealed their implicit ideas on the definition of the middle class. Because I am master’s student of about the same age as my respondents, I could relate to the dilemmas they face. This led to very open conversations about their mobility plans and the problems they encounter, which often made me feel really ‘close’ to my research subjects. In the next sections I will portray these stories and reveal some of the complexities involved in their decision to study in the Netherlands.
V. STUDYING IN THE NETHERLANDS AS A PROJECT FOR
SELF-DEVELOPMENT
Like Chinese students in other countries, the Chinese students in my research wanted to go abroad because they wanted to ‘broaden their horizon’, ‘see the world’, ‘experience something different’, and ‘become more independent’ (Hansen, 2015; Kajanus, 2015; Wu, 2014). These motivations closely resemble what Abelmann, Park and Kim (2013) have described as a ‘discourse of human development’. The respondents often use the words ‘investment’ or ‘opportunity’ to describe their education in the Netherlands. Following a master’s programme is viewed as an investment in themselves and is assumed to have a positive effect on their future career development. The students expect that going abroad will help them find a ‘good job’ after return to China. They explicitly make a distinction between ‘a job’ and ‘a good job’ and state that ‘finding a job is not difficult, but finding a good job is’. The meaning of a good job differs per student. Good payment and relevance to field of study are often mentioned as desirable features of a good job. Furthermore, almost all respondents preferred to live in first-tier cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing, after return to China.
As Nyíri (2010) has argued, “Cross-border spatial mobility has become central in the discourse that ascribes what it means to be Chinese in the modern world” (6). By being spatially mobile a student can distinguish oneself from others who are ‘less mobile’, and therefore less successful. Although the educational quality of a master’s degree abroad is no longer necessarily ‘better’ than a degree from one of the prestigious master’s programmes in China, it has an additional symbolic meaning. By studying abroad, the symbolic meaning of being a mobile subject becomes in some way part of the individual. They hope that this will give them
14 a competitive advantage compared to the other students who stayed in China and will help them to secure forward career progression in the future. The decision to go to the Netherlands is thus a spatial strategy to accumulate this symbolic value of being spatially mobile as part of a project of self-development. With this development of the self the Chinese students hope to attain or maintain middle-class life in China’s first-tier cities.
Yet, the meaning of cross-border spatial mobility is not universal. The Chinese students in this study had a clear view of the advantages and disadvantages of the Netherlands in comparison with other places. Based on a set of factors, they saw the Netherlands as occupying a quite unique position within a moral geography. A first factor is related to the English-speaking environment and the availability of courses in English. Most students only considered places where they could speak English as possible study abroad destinations. Although France and Germany both host four times as many Chinese students as the Netherlands, the respondents had not even considered these countries (UNESCO, 2015). They often only considered countries where English is the official language and, when they became aware that there are a lot of programmes in English, included the Netherlands in this group. As a quote from a student in communication science from Lanzhou makes clear:
“For Chinese students, the easiest places to apply to are in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands because they have courses in English. That is the important thing. We don't want to learn another language” (Respondent 6).
A second important factor was the perceived ‘good level of education’ in the Netherlands. With this ‘good education’ the students mean the place of the universities in the global university rankings. Before applying, they looked up Dutch universities and were impressed that most are ranked in the top 100. These higher rankings together with the many programmes in English made the Netherlands a possible destination to be considered.
However, this perceived good level of education interacts with two other factors. Some students explicitly refer to the level of education in relation to what they perceive as ‘relatively low costs of studying’ in the Netherlands. In comparison to other English-speaking countries, such as the U.K., the U.S., and Australia, the tuition fees and the cost of living in the Netherlands are relatively low. For other students, going to the Netherlands was a relatively easy way to attain this degree in an English-speaking environment. These students emphasise that going to the Netherlands is a ‘second choice’ or a relatively ‘easy option’. Because of the relative
15 unfamiliarity of the Netherlands as study abroad destination in China, they can escape the fierce competition with other Chinese students.
Thus, it is no longer the case that Chinese students have a view of ‘the developed world’ as a universal spatial category (Fong, 2011). The interviewees in my research had a clear notion of the differences between ‘developed world countries’. Having studied in famous universities in the U.S. is considered more prestigious than having studied in the Netherlands. The U.S occupies the top position in their moral geography and is viewed as being the best place for personal development: “If you go to America you can get more money, you can get a lot of great career opportunities, that’s why many just choose for America” (Respondent 11). The Netherlands is a place for those students for whom the U.S. is too expensive or too difficult to get in. The Netherlands occupies a middle position in the moral geography. It has an English-speaking environment and a good level of education but is less expensive and less known in China. It is an alternative strategy to ‘develop the self’ and secure a good social position for the future.
Symbolic place capital
As mentioned above, degrees from famous universities in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, the three top destination countries for Chinese students, are well recognised in China. This is not the case for a degree from a Dutch university. Although the Dutch universities are relatively high in the global rankings and the students think the education is of a high quality, they think that a Dutch degree is not well recognised in China. According to the respondents, most employees in China will not be familiar with the Dutch universities. Because the Netherlands is a relatively rare study abroad destination, and only 0,56 percent of all the Chinese students who study abroad decide to go here, it is not well known (Nuffic, 2017; UNESCO, 2015). As one student clearly explains:
“But generally, a Dutch degree is not that popular. A lot of companies have the tradition to only hire people from the top universities in China or famous universities in America or the United Kingdom. Degrees from the United States and the United Kingdom are most popular. For the Netherlands, although I know the education is good and I really learn a lot here, I am just not sure if people will value it that much” (Respondent 2).
This quote highlights the importance of these imaginations, or lack of imaginations, of place for the valuation of a Dutch degree. By using the concept of symbolic place capital, I emphasise
16 this importance of place for the evaluation of an international experience. The value of symbolic place capital is place dependent. It is determined by the symbolic evaluations in a moral geography.
The decision of the Chinese student to do a master’s programme in the Netherlands is a strategy to accumulate this symbolic place capital as part of self-development and class (re)production. The symbolic place capital of having a master’s degree from a Dutch university is, however, often not enough to get a favourable job after return to China. Although the students are aware that the symbolic place capital accumulated by going to the Netherlands is not as valuable as the symbolic place capital of having studied in the United States, they still decide to come here. In order to compete with their peers who studied in the U.S and the U.K., the students need to compensate with different forms of capital. As one possible strategy, some middle-class students aspire to accumulate an additional different kind of symbolic place capital by staying in the Netherlands after their graduation and acquiring some work experience. Similar to a degree from a foreign university, work experience abroad is a personal asset which can improve an individual’s competitive position after return to China.
Symbolic place capital is thus more than the value of an international degree. In fact, we see that by going to the Netherlands the Chinese students can accumulate different forms of symbolic place capital. They can (1) become recognised as a mobile subject, (2) acquire a degree from a Dutch university, and (3) get some work experience abroad. In the next section, it will become clear that students from the middle class and students from the upper-middle class want to accumulate different types of symbolic place capital.
VI. THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS
Although different authors disagree on the exact definition of the middle-class, there is a general consensus that since the beginning of the 20th century a new social group with higher levels of wealth, income, and education emerged in Chinese cities (Chunling Li, 2010). The Chinese students who study in the Netherlands are part of this group. When asked to describe the social status of their family, almost all interviewees saw themselves as belonging to ‘the middle class’ or the ‘middle stratum’. For them, the term ‘middle class’ is primarily related to the material wealth of the family. Since there are families who possess more and also families who possess less, they see themselves as belonging to the middle stratum. Furthermore, they explicitly distance themselves from ‘the upper class’, who they see as ‘unimaginably rich’ and often
17 associate with semi-illegal practices, such as ‘moving assets abroad’ and ‘benefiting from their position’.
When we look at the different characteristics of the middle class as described in the literature, the respondents are indeed best described as belonging to the middle class. As a first characteristic, more than 80 percent of the respondents (N=213) in the LAC survey do not receive a scholarship and thus depend on the financial support of their parents to study abroad. Given that education in the Netherlands is much more expensive than education in China, this signifies that the families have the financial abilities to ‘invest’ in overseas education. Furthermore, the families of all interviewees owned at least one, and in most cases possessed more, apartments. This is in line with Anagnost (2008) and Zhang (2012) who argue that home-ownership and real-estate investments are key characteristics of the middle class. Furthermore, as a third indicator, about 94 percent of the LAC survey respondents (N=197) is from an urban background (hukou). As Anagnost (2008) has pointed out, there is a strong rural-urban divide in China and the rise of the middle class is an urban phenomenon. Because the income in urban areas is much higher, people from rural areas will often lack the financial means to pay for their child’s education in the Netherlands by themselves (Lee & Tsang, 2016). As a third indicator, the majority of the interviewees had at least one parent with a university degree. This is in line with Chunling Li (2010) and Tang and Unger (2013) who argue that middle-class families no longer solely rely on their material wealth, but also distinguished themselves from lower classes with higher levels of education.
Nevertheless, though almost all students’ families are part of the middle class, they cannot be considered to belong to a homogeneous social group. In line with Chunling Li (2010), they can be considered to belong to ‘different parts of the middle class’. We can distinguish two groups of students from, what I call, the ‘middle class’ and the ‘upper-middle class’. As was explained before, due to their private sector employment and location in the first-tier cities, the upper-middle families class have privileged social networks and more material wealth than middle-class families. In the words of Bourdieu, they possess higher levels of social and economic capital. Furthermore, the difference between first-tier and second-tier cities indicates that class differences are already spatialized at a national scale. Living in the first-tier cities is seen as more prestigious and almost all students want to move to cities such as Shanghai and Beijing after return to China. As a result, the social networks of the upper-middle class, which
18 are located in these first-tier cities, are more useful for to find employment than the social network of middle-class families, which are located in second- or third-tier cities4.
In addition, studying abroad contributes to a further spatialisation of class on a transnational scale. Social class background influences where a person is capable of going to, and which type of symbolic place capital is most important (Salaff et al., 2010). By comparing the spatiotemporal mobility trajectories of students from the middle-class and students from the upper-middle class, we will see that going abroad as part of a self-development project takes a different form for both groups.
Trajectory of students from an upper-middle class background
Students from an upper-middle class background often grew up in China’s first-tier cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. They went to high-school and started an undergraduate programme within this same city. During this period they often achieved, what they describe themselves as, ‘disappointing academic results’. Because of these relatively low academic achievements they did often not attend one of China’s top universities during their undergraduate education. Furthermore, before they came to the Netherlands these students already acquired some international experiences. They went for example to Taiwan during their undergraduate programme, followed part of their degree in Australia, or followed an undergraduate programme in the Netherlands (see figure 1). For this group of students, going abroad is first and foremost a strategy to avoid competition in the domestic education sector. Like transnational education programmes, the high cost of studying abroad makes it less competitive than a domestic master’s programme (Fang & Wang, 2014). In addition, studying abroad is a way to ‘see the world’ and travel while their parents pay for it. As one student who already followed a master’s programme in Australia makes clear:
“I didn’t want to go back to work. I just hadn’t travelled enough yet. And the only way to ensure that my parents pay for my travel is to go study. Otherwise they would not pay for sure. They would say that I am not doing my best” (Respondent 2).
4 Although in my research living in first-tier cities and employment in the private sector are often related, there is
no necessary connection the two. It could be that families from first-tier cities with both parents employed in the public sector and families in private employment in the second-tier cities do study abroad in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, I have not encountered any cases like this.
19 For this group, the Netherlands was often not their preferred destination to study abroad. They often first applied to universities in, what they perceived as, more prestigious countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. After being rejected at these places, they started to consider other places and, at some point, applied for the Netherlands. Their previous academic results and international experiences were not enough to go to the United States but were sufficient to get accepted in a Dutch university. Although they did not know much about the Netherlands prior to migrating, they were impressed by the university rankings and the number of master’s programmes that are available in English. Furthermore, because the Netherlands is a relatively rare study abroad destination, they can avoid the competition with other Chinese students. The relative unpopularity of the Netherlands makes it easier for them to get admitted.
Almost all upper-middle class students plan to directly return to China after graduation. Although staying some more time in the Netherlands could be good for their career, they perceive this as much too difficult. Based on stories of other students they are very pessimistic about finding a job without the ability to speak the Dutch language and do not even think it is worth the effort to try. Besides, they often have the option to get a favourable job back in China. As one marketing student from Shanghai described how she found a job for the period after graduation:
“The head of the HR [Human resources] is my dad’s client. I didn’t even go to the first interview and directly went to the second one. It was not necessary because you have a connection you know” (Respondent 7).
The upper-class students do not have to stay in the Netherlands for more personal development. Because of the priviledged social capital (guanxi) of their parents, a Dutch degree is sufficient for them to find a job in China. Informal personal relationships (guanxi) are still highly important to find a job in China’s post-socialist economy (Lee & Tsang, 2016). Because almost all students want to live in first-tier cities after return to China, only the upper-middle class students can use their parents’ networks. Although middle-class parents also possess social networks (guanxi), these contacts are predominantly located in China’s second- and third-tier cities, and are therefore less useful to find a job or housing in first-tier cities.
Trajectory of students from a middle-class background
The students from a middle-class background grew up in the second-tier cities, such as Lanzhou or Hainan. Their move to the Netherlands to follow a master’s programme was often their first
20 international experience. For many, this was even the first-time outside mainland China. They generally have moved within China before they went abroad though. Unlike students from the upper-middle class, there was no university they could go to in the same city where they grew up. Because they did generally well on the ‘college entrance examination’ (gaokao), they were admitted to universities in larger cities and had to move. This means that they often already lived a couple of hundred kilometres away from their parents since they started their university education. For this group, going abroad is more directly related to the discursive meaning of being a mobile subject. They have not been abroad before and hope that going to the Netherlands will help them with finding a favourable job in China and the development of a successful career in the future.
The middle-class students also often applied for other master’s programmes in mostly the United Kingdom. Yet, contrary to the upper-middle class students, going to the Netherlands was not a second choice after being rejected in other countries. Students were often also admitted to these other programmes for which they applied, but they made a deliberate decision to study in the Netherlands. As a main reason, they name that a programme in the Netherlands is less expensive than programmes in other English-speaking countries. For example, one student told me:
“Compared to the U.S, Canada, and Australia the Netherlands is cheaper. It is like half or even less. Not like other European countries. In Germany you can sometimes have it for free, but they have the language requirements” (Respondent 8).
For these families, who possess less economic capital, the Netherlands is a relatively inexpensive way to acquire a degree in an English-speaking environment. Although they are aware that a degree in the Netherlands is not as highly valued as a degree from other countries where they were admitted, they still see it as a ‘better investment’. The symbolic place capital of the Netherlands is less valuable but also less expensive compared to going to other English-speaking countries.
The difference between the two groups is most prominent for what they plan to do after their graduation. Most middle-class students do not want to directly return to China when they complete their master’s degree. They first want to find a job or an internship and get some more work experience. The main reason for this is that they do not think that they will be able to find favourable employment when they return to China with their degree from a Dutch university.
21 Compared to students who went to more well-known countries, a degree from a relatively unknown study abroad destination such as the Netherlands is not that valuable.
“I do not plan to go back to China yet. I don’t think it is really a good time. If I can get a position in an international company, and get some work experience, I think my prospects for getting a good position in China will be better. Although the TU Delft has a good reputation in engineering, it is not well-recognised in China. If I went back to China at this stage, I don’t think I could get a very high-paying job” (Respondent 11).
For the middle-class students, who cannot rely on the social network of their parents, the symbolic place capital accumulated by a master’s degree in the Netherlands is not sufficient to start their career in China. Staying in the Netherlands to acquire more work experience can be a strategy to accumulate a different type of symbolic place capital. Just as education, work experience becomes an embodied asset of the student which can be used to secure future career progression.
22
VII. SOCIAL AND SPATIAL MOBILITY OVER THE LIFE TRAJECTORY
Based on these stories we see that social class shapes the spatiotemporal mobility trajectory of students from different social groups. When we compare the spatiotemporal mobility trajectories, we see that not only the decision to go the Netherlands, but the whole mobility trajectory is shaped by social class background. Whereas students from the upper-middle class (figure 2) have often already been abroad before starting their education in the Netherlands, for the middle-class students (figure 1) it is often the first time outside China. Furthermore, the middle-class students are more disposed to stay in the Netherlands for a couple of years. This shows that to understand the relationship between spatial and social mobility, we have to adopt a long-term perspective and look at the life trajectory. The decision to do a master’s programme in the Netherlands is related to students’ previous (im)mobility experiences and their intended prospective (im)mobility.When a temporal dimension is included, it becomes clear that class is not a static characteristic but can change over the life course. Social position is at the same time a requirement as well as a motive for spatial mobility. Spatial mobility has the potential to lead to social mobility. For instance, with their previous spatial mobility, the academically weak upper-middle class students accumulated symbolic place capital which helped them to get accepted to a university in the Netherlands. Their previous spatial mobility made further spatial mobility possible. Yet, due to the reliance on the social networks of their family, they have less incentive to stay in the Netherlands. A higher social position in the home country does thus not necessarily mean that a person is more likely to stay abroad.
The explanation for this is that social class background mediates the spatiotemporal mobility trajectory in two distinct ways. First, the social class position influences where in the moral geography a person can go to. Not all places have the same requirements for access (Hansen & Thøgersen, 2015; Kaufman et al., 2004). Due to the high tuition fees and living costs in countries where English is the native language, these places were out of reach for the middle-class students. In other words, the ‘abilities’ of the family – expressed by the possession of different forms of capital – shape whether a person will go abroad and where a person will go to. Second, social class moderates what type of symbolic place capital is important. For the upper-middle class students, the symbolic place capital of having studied in the Netherlands is sufficient to find a favourable job. However, the middle-class students, who cannot rely on the social capital of their parents, need to acquire an additional asset to be competitive. In the words of Carling (2002), they have more ‘aspiration’ to stay in the Netherlands. They need to
23 accumulate an additional type of symbolic place capital. Although the upper-middle class students might have more financial support from their parents for a prolonged stay in the Netherlands, they have less aspiration to do so.
Different forms of self-development
On an individual level, we see that going abroad as part of a project of self-development can take different forms for different students. Although for all the students going abroad is part of what Abelmann et al., (2013) and Anagnost (2013) have described as a discourse of self-development, what constitutes this self-development is different for the two groups of students.
The motivations of upper-middle class students closely resemble the discourse of self-development as described by Sooudi (2014) and are related to non-materialistic reasons. Going abroad is primarily a way to prolong the student life and travel in Europe while their parents pay for it. Because the upper-middle class students are already secured of a favourable job after return to China, the fact that a Dutch degree is not well recognised by Chinese companies is for them less important. Going to the Netherlands and doing, what is sometimes a second, master’s degree is a way to postpone their entry into adulthood, which is marked by starting working life in China and supporting themselves. The symbolic place capital they want to accumulate is related to acquiring a foreign degree, rather than the convertibility of the symbolic place capital. For them, the main function of symbolic place capital is related to cultural distinction, rather than economic distinction, from other less mobile groups back in China.
For the middle-class students, doing a master’s programme in the Netherlands is more related to material concerns of belonging to the middle-class and more closely resembles the ‘burden of self-development’ as described by Anagnost (2013). Although going abroad is not viewed as a burden in a negative sense, for this group spatial mobility is more directly a requirement to secure their future career chances. With less economic security for the future than upper-middle-class students, the need to accumulate symbolic place capital is more urgent. Because the middle-class students aspire employment in China’s first-tier cities and do not want to return to the second- or third-tier cities where their parents are living, they cannot rely on their parent’s locally bound social networks to find a job. Since they face the competition with other students more directly, the convertibility of symbolic place capital is for them more important. Only a Dutch master’s degree is often not enough to find employment in the first-tier cities and secure a stable future career. To secure social and spatial mobility after return to China, they need to stay in the Netherlands to accumulated a different type of symbolic place
24 capital. This desire to work and to meet more challenges is in sharp contrast to upper-middle class youth’s desire to delay their adulthood and is mediated by class differences.
To conclude, two final notes should be made. First, it should be made clear that although social class is shaping the mobility decisions of the students, it is not the only influencing factor. Social relations and life stage are, for instance, also highly important for students’ decision where to go. The almost universal desire to eventually move back to China was for example closely related to the wish ‘to take care of my parents’. Spatial mobility is viewed as belonging to a certain life-stage. After a couple of years abroad, the students are expected to return to China to take care of their parents, find a partner, and start a family. Conversely, this influencing role of personal relationships can also work the other way around and influence students to stay in the Netherlands. For a number of female students, a relationship with a Dutch boyfriend was the reason why they decided to stay in the Netherlands. This role of love relations transcends the role of class and is independent of a student’s social class background. The interviews do, however, suggest that these love relations interact with gender. I only encountered female students involved in mixed-ethnic relationships.
Second, although many of the middle-class students have a strong aspiration to stay in the Netherlands after graduation, this does not mean that they will all stay. The respondents express that they face many obstacles to realising this ambition. The first year after graduation the students can apply for the ‘search year for higher educated workers’ (zoekjaar hogeropgeleiden), which gives them a one-year residence permit. If they want to stay after this period, they have to find a job which meets the requirements that are needed to qualify them as a ‘high-skilled migrant’ (IND, 2016). Because the Chinese students often lack Dutch language skills and the employer has to sponsor their visa, it is hard to find a job which meets these (income) requirements. This reveals the sometimes precarious nature of social (re)production. Although the students belong to a relatively privileged highly educated group, they are no high-skilled migrants yet, and some of them never will be.
Thus, social class is an important factor, but not the only factor, that mediates the spatiotemporal mobility of the Chinese students. A wide range of other micro-, macro- and mesostructures influence the migratory disposition as well (Carling, 2002).
VIII. CONCLUSION
The development of China since the reform policies of the 1980s has led to an increased popularity of studying abroad among middle-class families and an increased level of social
25 inequality between these families. This research showed that these two processes are interlinked and have led to a diversification of the Chinese international student population.
Social class background mediates both the ability of a student to overcome the requirements for access to different places and the aspiration to accumulate different forms of symbolic place capital. As a result, the nature of the study abroad experience and the resulting spatiotemporal mobility trajectories are different for students from the upper-middle class and students from the middle-class. For the students with a middle-class background who grew up in second- or third- tier cities, going abroad is primarily a strategy to accumulate symbolic place capital, improve the competitive advantage, and get a good job after return to China. However, because of the middle position of the Netherlands in a global moral geography, the symbolic place capital of having studied in the Netherlands is not enough to find a good job in one of China’s first-tier cities. For this reason, the middle-class students aspire to accumulate an additional different form of symbolic place capital by staying in the Netherlands to get some work experience after their graduation. For students from an upper-middle-class background, the value of symbolic place capital is less important. Because of the higher levels of material wealth and privileged social networks (guanxi) of their families, a Dutch degree is sufficient to find a favourable job after return. For this group going abroad is more related to non-materialistic aspects of self-fulfilment and a way to postpone starting their working life in China.
Furthermore, the decision to go to the Netherlands is not self-contained but is embedded within a broader spatiotemporal mobility trajectory, which involves multiple decisions over the life course. If we include this temporal dimension, and also examine previous and prospective mobility decisions, we come to see that the social inequality between the students has become truly intertwined with spatial inequalities. On a national scale, the higher level of economic and social capital of the upper-middle class compared to the middle-class is closely related to their families living in China’s first-tier cities (Hansen & Thøgersen, 2015; Nyíri, 2010). The ability to use their social networks to help their children find a favourable job is highly dependent on this spatialised class position in China. In addition, my research reveals that the differentiation of China’s study abroad market facilitates a spatialisation of class on a transnational scale. The geographical differences in requirements for access and prestige between different study abroad countries in a moral geography have become closely connected with a student’s social class position. Social class background mediates a person’s migratory disposition, and influences where a person will go. After return to China, symbolic place capital functions as a way of class
