A Colourful University Life? Transnational Higher Education and the Spatial Dimensions of Institutional Social Capital in Hong Kong

Abstract

Transnational higher education represents a lesser‐known aspect of the international education industry. In relation to the UK, transnational education is a booming business. British qualifications are offered in 217 countries outside the UK, representing in excess of 388,000 students in total. These students are fascinating precisely because they are acquiring an ‘international education’ in situ, raising a number of pertinent questions relating to the ‘capital’ young people are developing. How valuable is a British degree delivered entirely overseas? What does it actually represent – both conceptually, in terms of students' (im)mobilities, and in relation to individuals' embodied experiences of transnational higher education? This paper draws on the findings of a qualitative project examining British degree programmes offered in Hong Kong and their implications for young people locally. We focus on the experiences of students and graduates and the intentions of a number of UK ‘providers’ (representing different British higher education institutions). We explore the social capital accessible to students undertaking transnational educational programmes and focus in particular upon the spatial availability of ‘institutional social capital’. We argue that the ability of young people to cultivate social capital in the context of transnational higher education is circumscribed in various ways, with implications for subsequent employment opportunities and social mobility. Our paper furthermore responds to recent calls to spatialise the conversion of social capital. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Trans-knowledge? Geography, Mobility, and Knowledge in Transnational Education

“…In many cases, the Hong Kong institutions delivering the TNE program employ locally sourced lecturers to teach it, and (coincidentally) these are often the same individuals who teach in their associate degree or higher diploma courses. As we go on to discuss, this has implications for the kinds of social capital students are able to acquire in TNE programs (Waters & Leung, 2013a). Positive differences in the nature of knowledge on TNE degree programs vis-avis the higher diploma/associate degree were also noted by a minority of interviewees, however:…”

“…Pierre Bourdieu (1986, p. 243) famously described three main forms of capital: economic ("which is immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights"), cultural ("which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications"), and social ("made up of social obligations, which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital"). We discussed in an earlier publication (Waters & Leung, 2013a) the relationship between TNE in Hong Kong and the development of institutional social capital (Brinton, 2000) among students. According to Bourdieu (1986), social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to the possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition-or in other words, to membership in a group-which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a "credential" which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word.…”

“…TNE provides, we argue, a fascinating case study of the mobility of knowledge, not least because it lies at the forefront of recent, hugely significant developments in the internationalization of higher education (HE), globally (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS], 2011;Bone, 2010). And yet, very little is known about the geographies of knowledge within this innovative form of teaching and learning (Leung & Waters, 2013a;Waters & Leung, 2013b).…”

“…To what extent do they critically engage with the geography of their practices, and with what consequences? We refer here to our data, as well as some previously published work on this topic, to address these questions (see Leung & Waters, 2013;Waters & Leung, 2013a, 2013b. We begin, however, with a brief discussion of some of the conceptual ideas underpinning debates in geography around mobility and knowledge.…”

From Transit Migrants to Trading Migrants: Development Opportunities for Nigerians in the Transnational Trade Sector of Istanbul

“…Movement from such a perspective, as also underlined by livelihood approaches [30], is indeed -one of the basic actions that individuals can choose to take in order to realize their life plans‖ ( [29], p. 14-15). In line with this, some authors approach mobility as a form of capital that can be put in the same line as human and social capital [31]. Following this logic, migration-development policies should aim for more mobility and open up channels for migration, also for the so-called unskilled migrants.…”