Asian Educational Mobilities: A Comparative Study of International Migration of Japanese and Chinese Higher Education Students

This project will conduct a systematic and comparative analysis of Asian student mobilities--one of the most intense flows of educational migrations. We will shed new light on the relationship between educational mobility and life course aspirations and formation, and their regional dynamics. Our research design is innovative: We propose three-way comparisons on a representative sample of Japanese and Chinese students in British and German universities, with those who stayed domestically for their education, as well as Chinese students who migrated to Japan. Through such comparisons, and using a variety of multivariate techniques and network analysis, we expect to unveil a number of theoretical issues such as selectivity in educational migration; how individual preferences are shaped for regional as opposed to beyond region migrations; and the differential impact of such preferences on perceived value and potential of tertiary education for future life course aspirations. In addition to producing invaluable survey data on Chinese and Japanese student migrants, the research will benefit a range of non-academic stakeholders, including governments, tertiary institutions, think-thanks, and organizations involved in providing information and support to international students. The project builds upon European partners' current funded survey study "Bright Futures: Internal and International Mobility of Chinese Students" and their collaboration with University of Kyoto researchers.

Our impact strategy aims to involve four groups of stakeholders at the project design stages, so that we can make full use of their contextual knowledge and feed their needs for information into the design of our survey instruments. This is particularly important since one of the main real world impacts of this project is reducing information gaps so that actors including governments, universities and students and their parents can make more appropriate choices. The initial phases of our project thus have such consultation with interested parties as a central objective, combining gathering input and gathering data.

Governments and parliaments: In all project countries, governments have a need for quality information as input into policymaking affecting educational mobility and provision of higher education to domestic and international students. Both the UK and German governments have identified increasing educational exchanges with East Asia, and particularly with China, as an aspect of a broader programme of cultural interaction and engagement. Such
aims are often in tension with border control policies, and our research may provide insight on dynamics of mobility and migration that could contribute to more integrated policy regarding international students. We will prepare briefings on our findings for government actors in various settings.

Higher education institutions: This research will be of interest to virtually all HEIs in the UK and Germany, as it is highly relevant to understanding and potentially improving the educational experience of the growing number of students from East Asia they are receiving. Although this project focuses on students studying in the UK and Germany, many of its conclusions may also be relevant to academic administrators in other countries with a high volume of student migrants from East Asia. We expect that our findings could be used by university administrators to improve measures to integrate students from East Asia, addressing specific needs and information gaps that may exist for this group.

Education agents and NGOs: A wide range of for for-profit and non-profit organizations will also benefit. These include education recruiters such as the British Council, Goethe Institute, German Academic Exchange Service and EIC Group; national and international organizations and associations concerned with higher education trends, professional matters and international student welfare; and national and regional student unions and advocacy organizations. Many associations in the higher education sector have recently identified student mobility as a specific concern for their members. To reach HEIs and education agents, we plan three main approaches: half-day conferences for HEIs, education agents and organizations involved in international education; articles in specialist education media; and a downloadable policy-oriented report in the three languages of the project partners on the websites of our institutions.

Students, parents and the general public: East Asian students and their parents face a bewildering array of choices regarding higher education, and our findings can potentially provide them with feedback on the implications of different options. While our data gathering will identify specific information gaps among this group, it will also generate ideas on how to reach them with our findings. Briefings to mainstream media covering education issues in China, Hong Kong, and Japan, and blogs on relevant websites and dedicated forums discussing educational migration will be a useful beginning.