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28 SES 02 B: Sociologies of Higher Education: Transnational Mobilities and Immobilities
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28. Sociologies of Education
Paper Knowledge Legitimacy and the Role of International Student Mobility in the Re/production of Global Hierarchies University of Surrey, United Kingdom Presenting Author:Higher education internationalisation has been deemed instrumental to creating and exchanging knowledge and to educating globally engaged students for an ever more fast-moving, complex, and interconnected world. Yet for some years now critical perspectives on the development and current orientation of internationalisation have been emerging, expressing concern about the risk of reproducing already uneven global hierarchies through mainstream internationalisation activities, particularly in institutions of the Global North and Western/ized higher education institutions. Since the beginning of the European colonial expansion in the sixteenth century, Western knowledge has become dominant across the world (Schwöbel-Patel, 2020). Travelling with the colonisers, ways of knowing, influenced by Western ethnocentrism, imposed a monolithic world view, and added new layers to Europeans’ position of control and power (Akena, 2012). Knowledges from the Global South were delegitimised and marginalised, while Western thinking was considered as legitimate knowledge (Schwöbel-Patel, 2020). Coloniality has shaped the relationship between the Global North and the Global South, and the enduring colonial-like, unequal global relations continue to influence knowledge production and circulation (Dei, 2008). Critical scholarship on epistemic diversity in higher education has illustrated that Western hegemony maintains its position of dominance and authority (R’boul, 2020). Universities are one of the key agents in the dissemination and legitimisation of knowledge. However, due to universities’ historical focus on Euro-American traditions, international students from non-Western backgrounds have often been treated as passive receivers of ‘Western wisdom’ (Tange & Kastberg, 2013). Previous research has shown that the knowledge of international students is largely seen as inferior (Stein, 2017), and many international students report that their indigenous knowledges are not recognised within the Western higher education landscape (Dei, 2000; Zhou et al., 2005). Considering the skewed geopolitics of knowledge and the entanglement of knowledge circulation and international student mobility, it is indeed relevant to ask whether internationalisation of higher education is yet another way to promote Western knowledge and maintain Anglo-American hegemonic domination. International student mobility, higher education, and knowledge mobilities have been discussed in relation to particular places of the world, depicting Europe, North America, and Australia as assumed centres of knowledge production (Jöns, 2007). The geographical location of universities plays a pivotal role in attracting international students with respect to their decisions of where to study (Kölbel, 2020). Places are positioned hierarchically, and student mobility is driven by the differential worth ascribed to particular countries (Waters & Brooks, 2021). This has implications for students’ mobilities and the re/production of established hegemonic knowledge centres in Europe and the US and emerging ‘knowledge hubs’ in Asia, reinforcing asymmetric power relations (Jöns, 2015), and it is concerning that internationalisation becomes Westernisation (Liu, 2020). Fundamentally, this paper is concerned with how international student mobility is embedded within a global regime of hegemonic knowledge centres, built on the structures and foundations that imperial and colonial practices laid down. It seeks to explore knowledge legitimacy and the role international student mobility plays in the re/production of global hierarchies and the promotion of certain kinds of knowledges. By taking on a critical orientation, I wish to promote social and cognitive justice and challenge taken-for granted norms and epistemologies. I focus on power relations and the dynamic interrelation of knowledge and power. I wish to discover and recognise different ways of knowing and bodies of knowledge practised and circulated by students and lecturers in and beyond university classrooms. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The project is a cross-national study between the UK, Denmark, and Germany, anchored in ethnographic fieldwork. In each country, I follow a group of international degree master’s students at one university. I use participant observation in different educational spaces (e.g., classrooms, study groups, social events) on and off campus with the aim to study the (spatial) interconnectivity and negotiations of different forms of knowledge. I conduct timeline interviews (Spangler, 2022) with the international students to capture their life paths and geographical mobilities across space and in time. I use go-along interviews as a type of mobile ethnographic interview method. Walking with the students is a unique way of gathering knowledge, while, at the same time, it also captures other ways of, for instance, knowing about the world, pushing back against the dominance of modern, objective knowledge (which we mostly meet and are required to perform in formal educational settings). Further, I am offering a zine making workshop for international students. Zines are small (maga)zines and historically originated from underground movements of marginalised communities to record and share their stories (French & Curd, 2021). This continues in current times in which zines operate at the intersection of activism and art as a form of social action. I understand zine-making as a chance to do research with, rather than on international students, encouraging them to express themselves through the active process of creating. I also collect semi-structured interviews with lecturers to learn about their perspectives on teaching and learning in an ‘international classroom’, pedagogical approaches, and classroom practices. Engaging in the everyday life of my participants and spending time in the same social spaces as them allows me to comprehend moments of interaction, practices, and knowledge creation. This provides me with insights to the kinds of knowledges the individual institutions provide, produce, and seek to spread, how incoming international students’ knowledges are selectively incorporated or dismissed, and what types of knowledge circulate in the respective institutions and in what ways both lecturers and students engage in and enable this process. Following the international students also beyond the campus allows me to see how the students make and learn place; walking with them their everyday mobilities and placemaking practices provides me with an understanding of how learning, knowing, but also becoming happens through these entanglements of bodies, humans, and the socio-materiality of place. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings This project explores how contextualised factors of engagement or participation are differently perceived and evaluated as in/valid contributions or legitimised forms of knowledge. It studies what and where certain forms of knowledge (including e.g., languages, behaviours) are privileged and hegemonic, and, thereby, investigates how internationalisation or interchangeably student mobility affects and enables processes of knowledge sharing and production, and what knowledge circulates and eventually gets disseminated. The everyday, social practices in, for instance, an ‘international classroom’ are shaped by the students’ various educational and cultural backgrounds and by structural, cultural, and national characteristics of the host institution and the lecturers teaching there. The ‘international classroom’ thus becomes some sort of meeting point and a dynamic place of knowledge sharing and in ways negotiation of legitimacy. The various trajectories of international students involved in educational mobility create a web of extended, multiple connections and complex relations, often across long distances. In a classroom, where international students and lecturers meet, various trajectories, backgrounds, and knowledges merge. This project constitutes an original contribution by addressing macro questions of knowledge, power, and global hierarchies through examination of the micro-experiences of international students and staff in three different locations. It seeks a deeper engagement with relational, ethical, and political issues of internationalisation and mobility to understand but also put forth new approaches to forms of knowledge production, classroom practices, and pedagogies. The findings of this research will have relevance for the growing field of critical internationalisation studies, providing new empirical insights on how spatial associations of knowledge and relations of (global) power manifest and become articulated in interactions and ways of knowing. At the point of the conference, I will have finished fieldwork in all three countries (around 1 year in total) and present empirical accounts from the different places. References Akena, F. A. (2012). Critical Analysis of the Production of Western Knowledge and Its Implications for Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonization. Journal of Black Studies, 43(6), 599-619. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934712440448 Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Rethinking the role of Indigenous knowledges in the academy. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 4(2), 111-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/136031100284849 Dei, G. J. S. (2008). Indigenous knowledge studies and the next generation: pedagogical possibilities for anti-colonial education. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 37, 5-13. French, J., & Curd, E. (2021). Zining as artful method: Facilitating zines as participatory action research within art museums. Action Research, 20(1), 77-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503211037104 Jöns, H. (2007). Transnational mobility and the spaces of knowledge production: a comparison of global patterns, motivations and collaborations in different academic fields. Social Geography, 2(2), 97-114. https://doi.org/10.5194/sg-2-97-2007 Jöns, H. (2015). Talent Mobility and the Shifting Geographies of Latourian Knowledge Hubs. Population, Space and Place, 21(4), 372-389. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.1878 Kölbel, A. (2020). Imaginative geographies of international student mobility. Social & Cultural Geography, 21(1), 86-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2018.1460861 Liu, W. (2020). The Chinese definition of internationalisation in higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 43(2), 230-245. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2020.1777500 R’boul, H. (2020). Postcolonial interventions in intercultural communication knowledge: Meta-intercultural ontologies, decolonial knowledges and epistemological polylogue. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 15(1), 75-93. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2020.1829676 Schwöbel-Patel, C. (2020). (Global) Constitutionalism and the geopolitics of knowledge. In P. Dann, M. Riegner, & M. Bönnemann (Eds.), The Global South and Comparative Constitutional Law (pp. 67-85). Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850403.003.0003 Spangler, V. (2022). Home here and there: a spatial perspective on mobile experiences of ‘home’ among international students. Social & Cultural Geography, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2022.2065698 Stein, S. (2017). The persistent challenges of addressing epistemic dominance in higher education: considering the case of curriculum internationalization. Comparative Education Review 61(S1), 25-50. https://doi.org/10.1086/690456 Tange, H., & Kastberg, P. (2013). Coming to terms with ‘double knowing’: an inclusive approach to international education. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2011.580460 Waters, J., & Brooks, R. (2021). Student migrants and contemporary educational mobilities Palgrave Macmillan Zhou, Y. R., Knoke, D., & Sakamoto, I. (2005). Rethinking silence in the classroom: Chinese students’ experiences of sharing indigenous knowledge. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 9(3), 287-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603110500075180 28. Sociologies of Education
Paper Escaping The Acquiescent Immobility Trap: The Role of Virtual Mobility in Supporting Physical Study Abroad Aspirations among Students from Russia Edge Hill University, United Kingdom Presenting Author:Amidst a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, marked by heightened tensions and unprecedented challenges, this study delves into the transformative role of virtual mobility in sustaining and enriching the aspirations of Russian students for physical study abroad experiences, offering a beacon of hope and connectivity in an era of increasing isolation pertinent in many geographical locales. The Russia-Ukraine military conflict, coupled with the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic and economic challenges, has led to a marked decline in Russian outbound student mobility. A significant 33% drop in the inclination of Russian citizens to pursue education abroad was reported by the VCIOM (2023) in comparison to year 1993, highlighting influences of economic status, urban or rural living, and media consumption. Caught in the entangled crises, students in Russia are further affected by the spread of negative attitudes towards westbound student mobility which is positioned as an unwelcomed phenomenon in Russian political and academic discourse. Being framed as the projection of the soft power leading to either brain drain or political indoctrination (e.g. Antyukhova, 2019; Savelchev, 2023), outgoing student mobility to western countries has been subjected to a suppressive top-down approach, with mass media as a third power willingly or unwillingly playing a subtle yet powerful role in this process. International student mobility is a specific form of migration that is voluntary and highly selective. Referred to as a ‘migratory elite’ (Murphy-Lejeune, 2002), international students tend to come from a higher socio-economic background (e.g. Brooks & Waters, 2011; Netz & Finger, 2016). They mostly aim to benefit from education abroad rather than escape from adverse circumstances at home, and for them the pull factors at a destination country are likely to be particularly influential based on push-pull model of migration theorised by Lee (1966). These pull factors are largely subjective (Lee, 1966) and are based on imaginaries of other places (Riaño & Baghdadi, 2007; Beech, 2014) which are curated through the scope of knowledge, often attained indirectly via media and personal accounts of others. Promotion of the imaginaries of the West as economically unstable and its educational systems being hostile towards Russian students diminishes the allure of the West as a potential study destination. Coupled with unfavourable currency exchange rates and structural difficulties in payments, visas and travel arrangements due to sanctions as well as fears for inability to succeed in Russian labour market upon return due to public ostracization, these negative portrayals shape the proximal level of international educational aspirations of Russian youth. The present research draws upon the Aspirations-Capabilities Framework of Migration and states of (im)mobility (de Haas, 2021), intergenerational transmission of migration aspirations in post-Soviet countries (Brunarska & Ivlevs, 2022), and the notion of mobility capital (Murphy-Lejeune, 2002) to:
Amidst curtailed student exchange and international collaboration options with many initiatives either stopped or put under administrative pressure, virtual mobility, whether formal via bilateral institutional agreements or less formal through lower-level stakeholders’ collaboration, can be one of the ways to alter students’ perception of the existing scope of opportunities and support their aspirations for international student mobility and global inclusion. Therefore, the present research seeks to answer the following research questions: R1: Does participation in virtual student mobility increase Russian students’ aspirations for subsequent physical student mobility? R2: If so, what is the mechanism of this effect in the context of the entangled crises and under the current mobility suppressing climate in Russia? Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The study analyses 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with Russian students (18-24 y.o.) who participated in various forms of virtual student mobility between 2020 and 2023. The researcher employed semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions (Merriam, 1998) informed by literature review. Participants were recruited through international offices at Russian universities (n=72), higher education practitioners involved in VSM (n=30) and open call on social media. As the participants were not asked on how they learned about the research project to safeguard their anonymity, it is difficult to tell with confidence which channel was most effective. The transcripts underwent interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as it allows for exploration of how individuals make sense of their lived experiences (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012). “Why?”-questions were avoided to prevent post-hoc rationalization. To mitigate the potential dual bias associated with IPA (Smith, 2009), the researcher employed pre-interview bracketing and ongoing self-bracketing. The original ethical approval application did not account for constraints on mobility induced by armed conflict; therefore, the questions about the geopolitical context were not included in the interview guide. Only when the topic was brought up by a respondent could the researcher follow up on it, should it be necessary. Hence, any references in the data to existing tensions emerged naturally in the interviews as part of students’ reflections on their virtual mobility experience and study abroad aspirations in the current climate created by objective constraints on mobility due to sanctions and aggravated messages of hostility towards Russian students. The potential limitations of this study are relatively small sample size and self-selection bias of respondents during recruitment. However, qualitative studies using empirical data tend to reach saturation within a narrow range of interviews (9–17) as shown by a systematic review conducted by Hennink and Kaiser (2022). Also, as this research focuses solely on the level of affordances, the observed changes in aspirations, perceptions, and attitudes provide a sufficient basis for drawing theoretical conclusions, thereby mitigating concerns about generalizability. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The findings reveal that virtual mobility offers a unique opportunity to bolster Russian students' capacity to aspire to international studies despite mobility suppressing climate through acting as a ‘rite of passage’ en route to international education, increasing language confidence, and challenging negative portrayals of hostility towards Russian students in the West. The richness of virtual mobility experience in terms of communication with teachers and students from abroad plays a key role in activating this affordance. Therefore, more of synchronous virtual mobility initiatives could be beneficial to help young adults in Russia stay open to the world and aspire for international education as well as to foster their sense of global belonging by penetrating holes in the again-falling ‘iron curtain’. At the same time, in the context of rising nationalism, protectionism and anti-migration sentiments in political discourse across multiple geographical locales (Bieber, 2018), the study makes an important contribution to understanding the ways of operationalisation of the emergent concept of ‘knowledge diplomacy’ as a way forward (Knight, 2018) through not only knowledge exchange as a means of qualification, but also through socialisation into wider global society, and subjectification through increased awareness of the opportunity structure, as per Biesta’s (2009) triad of educational purpose. References Antyukhova, E. A. (2019). Education as a tool of “soft power” in German foreign policy. Bulletin of Tomsk State University. History [Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Istoriya], 57, 41–45. Beech, S. E. (2014). Why place matters. Area, 46, 170-177. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12096 Bieber, F. (2018) Is Nationalism on the Rise? Assessing Global Trends, Ethnopolitics, 17(5), 519-540, doi:10.1080/17449057.2018.1532633 Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educ Asse Eval Acc 21, 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-008-9064-9 Brooks, R., & Waters, J. L. (2011). Student Mobilities, Migration and the Internationalization of Higher Education. Brunarska, Z., & Ivlevs, A. (2023). Family influences on migration intentions: The role of past experience of involuntary immobility. Sociology, 57(5), 1060-1077. Retrieved from https://www.prio.org/publications/12613 de Haas, H. (2021). A theory of migration: the aspirations-capabilities framework. CMS, 9, 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00210-4 Hennink, M., & Kaiser, B. N. (2022). Sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research: A systematic review of empirical tests. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 292, 114523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114523 Knight, J. (2018). Knowledge Diplomacy - A bridge linking international higher education and research with international relations. 10.13140/RG.2.2.20219.64804 Lee, E. S. (1966). A Theory of Migration. Demography, 3(1), 47–57. https://doi.org/10.2307/2060063 Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. Jossey-Bass. Murphy-Lejeune, E. (2002). Student Mobility and Narrative in Europe: The New Strangers. Routledge. Netz, N., & Finger, C. (2016). New Horizontal Inequalities in German Higher Education? Social Selectivity of Studying Abroad between 1991 and 2012. Sociology of Education, 89(2), 79–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040715627196 Pietkiewicz, I., & Smith, J. A. (2012). Praktyczny przewodnik interpretacyjnej analizy fenomenologicznej w badaniach jakościowych w psychologii. Czasopismo Psychologiczne, 18(2), 361-369. Riaño, Y., & Baghdadi, N. (2007). Je pensais que je pourrais avoir une relation plus égalitaire avec un Européen. Le rôle du genre et des imaginaires géographiques dans la migration des femmes. Nouvelles Questions Féministes, 1, 38–53. Savelchev, L. A. (2023). Mutual Enrichment or Brain Drain? The Analysis of International Student Mobility in the Cases of Russia and Germany. Administrative Consulting, 7, 121-141. https://doi.org/10.22394/1726-1139-2023-7-121-141 Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. SAGE. VCIOM (2023). Emigration Sentiments: Monitoring. Russian Public Opinion Research Centre. Accessed 18 January 2023 from https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/ehmigracionnye-nastroenija-monitoring-2 28. Sociologies of Education
Paper Break loose of symbolic violence: The pathway to sociology of resilience for Chinese students in Transnational Higher Education (TNHE) University of Manchester, United Kingdom Presenting Author:The internationalization of higher education aims to foster competencies and qualifications at both individual and collective levels, enriching students' interaction with diverse learning styles and contexts. Amid the burgeoning interest in China's transnational higher education (TNHE) programs, including articulation programs like "2+2", "3+1", or "1+2+1", these initiatives offer Chinese students opportunities to pursue degrees abroad, fostering intercultural learning and knowledge acquisition (Yang, 2008). Existing research has further explored the adjustment and acculturation of international students, emphasizing how they overcome challenges in the intercultural space, fostering cross-system learning and resilience development (Gill, 2007; Ungar, 2010 & 2019; Li & Yang, 2016). However, TNHE represents a unique field within which students encounter diverse academic, cultural, and social challenges. In the neoliberal and neoconservative context, the overemphasis of the individual adaptation can unintentionally lead to self-exploitation, where students become instrumental in the internationalization agenda (Mu, 2022). A psychological approach to adaptive resilience may inadvertently reinforce constraining social structures and inequalities by ‘coercing’ TNHE students to fully adapt to the new systems (Bottrell, 2013).
As such, there is a need to re-examine the resilience process of TNHE students while acknowledging the systemic roots of social inequalities that are both created and perpetuated (VanderPlat, 2016). As Bourdieu’s theoretical framework is valuable in illuminating underlying structural or systemic factors, which provides a new lens for us to recognise the “embeddedness of resilience in social inequities, social processes, and the differentiated societal and ideological expectations of young people” (Bottrell, 2009, p. 321). This study thus draws insights from Bourdieu's conceptual tools—field, habitus, and capital (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) to provide a sociological understanding of the resilience process and its construction in the dynamic reality of TNHE settings, with a primary focus on the experiences of Chinese students in this context.
For Bourdieu, the trajectory is constructed by those choices made under the constraints of an individual’s inherent disposition (habitus), which is the internalization of the social fields. These social fields are conceptualised as field, defined as ‘a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positions’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 97). Bourdieu (1986) defines capital as time-intensive resource with the potential capacity to yield profits and replicate itself in identical or expanded forms. Forms of capital include economic (financial resources), social (networks, relationships), cultural (knowledge, skills, education), and symbolic (prestige, recognition) (Bourdieu, 1986). The analysis of objective structures within a field extends beyond merely examining the distribution and competition for capital. It also encompasses habitus, which Bourdieu describes as ‘an embodied history internalized as a second nature and so forgotten as history’ (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 78). In applying these concepts, Chinese international students' resilience in TNHE is not just a result of individual traits but is deeply influenced by the interplay of their habitus (social and cultural backgrounds), the fields (TNHE setting) they navigate, the capitals (resources) they possess or lack, the symbolic violence they may encounter, and the structural constraints they face.
This study aims to investigate the structural inequalities and constraints that extend beyond the challenges of cross-cultural communication in resilience building and explore the pathways to change for students in TNHE settings. It sets the stage for investigating students' resilience from the perspective of their social transformation. This sociological perspective offers a nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in students’ mental health experiences, going beyond mere adaptation to also consider the broader structural forces at play. Therefore, this study seeks to bridge the gap between individual agency and structural conditions in TNHE settings by delving into the structural constraints within the field that contribute to students' resilience building. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used This study explored the process of building resilience for students in Sino-American “1+2+1” articulation programs. In the ‘1+2+1’ model, students complete their first-year studies at a Chinese university, then transition to a partner university in America to continue their second- and third-year studies, before returning to complete their final year of study in China. Upon completion of this program, students earn degrees from both countries. The study adopted an exploratory qualitative design and a semi-structured interview approach. Purposive sampling was used to recruit research participants, and 35 participants who completed Sino-American articulation programs voluntarily joined this research. The first author conducted semi-structured interviews online with these students in China from February to July 2023. Students were interviewed in Mandarin, and the interview were audio-recorded between 1-1.5 hours. The research was informed by three broad interview questions: Can you please tell me about the difficulties you faced in the program? What support do you receive in this program? What outcomes have you achieved? More open-ended and probing questions were also asked during interviews. The transcripts of these interviews were analyzed and interpreted through thematic analysis, allowing researchers to draw insights from actual events and experiences and further elaborates on the social context associated with interpreting these experiences (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The data were initially analyzed inductively to identify the significant challenges, supporting factors, and outcomes in participants' resilience process. Subsequently, we undertook a deductive analysis of the transcripts, taking into account our theoretical frameworks. This deductive perspective facilitated our interpretation of the participants' resilience process, with a particular focus on resilience to symbolic violence. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings This study investigated the resilience process of students in the TNHE setting, revealing valuable insights into resilience to structural constraints. In response to the questions posed, we argue that students construct their resilience by simultaneously confronting a multitude of challenges within the context of symbolic violence. Students utilize their cultural capital as a response mechanism to navigate and counteract symbolic violence, ultimately shaping their resilience-building process as they contend with the structural complexities inherent in TNHE settings and the associated constraints. Furthermore, we contend that these structural constraints intrinsic to the TNHE setting contribute to an instrumentalist orientation. Specifically, the "1+2+1" program structure, which prioritizes English proficiency, the pursuit of high GPAs, and timely program completion, underscores the structural significance accorded to conforming to this predefined habitus. This structural emphasis within the TNHE field restricts students' flexibility and autonomy in shaping their habitus from an internationalism perspective, reinforcing an instrumentalist approach wherein education is primarily perceived as a means to attain specific cultural capital. These findings not only illuminate the significant challenges facing individuals within articulation programs but also highlight their resilient responses to the symbolic violence inherent in this field. Within the transnational habitus, participants grappled with seeking assistance from peers and universities. Their adaptive strategies exemplify a form of resilience, defined as the capacity to effectively navigate and cope with substantial challenges. Additionally, the disposition characterized by critical inquiry into symbolic violence itself demonstrated a sociological form of resilience. This form of resilience transcends individual adaptation to challenges; instead, it involves a deeper exploration of the fundamental roots of these challenges, potentially paving the way for transformative change. References Bottrell, D. (2009). Understanding ‘marginal’perspectives: Towards a social theory of resilience. Qualitative social work, 8(3), 321-339. Bottrell, D. (2013). Responsibilised resilience? Reworking neoliberal social policy texts. M/C Journal, 16(5). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.708 Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). Réponses (Vol. 4). Paris: Seuil. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Gill, S. (2007). Overseas students’ intercultural adaptation as intercultural learning: A transformative framework. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 37, 167–183. doi: 10.1080/03057920601165512. Li, M., & Yang, Y. (2016). A cross-cultural study on a resilience-stress path model for college students. Journal of Counselling and Development, 94(3), 319–332. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcad.12088 Mu, G. M. (2022). Sociologising child and youth resilience with Bourdieu: An Australian perspective. Taylor & Francis. Ungar, M. (2010). What is resilience across cultures and contexts? Advances to the theory of positive development among individuals and families under stress. Journal of family psychotherapy, 21(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/08975351003618494 Ungar, M. (2019). Designing resilience research: Using multiple methods to investigate risk exposure, promotive and protective processes, and contextually relevant outcomes for children and youth. Child abuse & neglect, 96, 104098. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104098 Yang, R. (2008). Transnational higher education in China: Contexts, characteristics and concerns. Australian Journal of Education, 52(3), 272-286. https://doi.org/10.1177/000494410805200305 | ||