This talk examines how and why Chinese citizens from working-class and middle-class families ended up studying abroad as young adults, what they experienced abroad, and how and why they decided to stay abroad or return to China for permanent residence. While earning a prestigious college education in China is the main path to elite status, study abroad provides an alternative channel by offering a particularly flexible "developed world" citizenship. This flexible citizenship promises the potential for greater happiness and freedom afforded by transnational mobility, but also brings with it unexpected suffering, ambivalence, and disappointment.

Discussants:
Gritt B. Nielsen, Assistant Professor, DPU, Aarhus University
Martin Bech, Ph.D. scholar, DPU, Aarhus University.

Admission to the seminar is free.

Arranged by the Research Programme EPOKE - Education, Policy and Organisation in the Knowledge Economy