Cultural identity of Chinese students in a transnational university in China

Higher education (HE)institutions play an important role in creating contexts for the development of identities. With respect to an increase in transnational education (TNE) within the Chinese HE environment over the last 10 to 15 years, the impact on individuals is under-researched. This thesis unpacks Chinese students’ experiences in a TNE environment in China which, in turn, impacted on constructions of their cultural identities. The fieldwork included 31 semi-structured, arts-based, face-to-face interviews with students at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), and is grounded in double-analytical lenses: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Discourse Analysis. Choosing XJTLU was a complex culturally-driven process, and seemingly the second best alternative among other domestic choices. The transition period from a Chinese educational system to XJTLU significantly impacted on the construction of participants’ personal and HE learner identities. Confucian values still form the fabric of Chinese social ethics, but new family values and relations are emerging. Articulation between students’ personal and cultural values, and their embodied self and agency, suggested potentially conflicting forces between values related to culture, educational backgrounds, and desired identities. The relevance of TNE in China in shaping cultural identities of Chinese students relates to the importance of individual and cultural processes impacting on students’ transforming self-perceptions and experiences. Students need to relate to themselves (as HE students) with: their peers, international academic staff, English as a medium of instruction use and how they feel they are perceived by others. This ongoing process of identity construction may have a profound impact on how these students see themselves as HE students and Chinese youth, and their place in the world into the future, and by extension on the way China as a nation will image itself in its engagement with the rest of the world, particularly in a post-COVID-19 era