Conference Agenda

Introduction

The growing number of forcibly displaced people worldwide has raised concerns about providing essential services to ensure their integration into the socio-economic systems of host countries. Higher education (HE) has been recognized as a fundamental service that helps mitigate the impacts of displacement (Arar et al., 2021; Cin & Doğan, 2021) and supports the ongoing development of human capital among Forcibly Displaced Migrants (FDMs), enabling them to rebuild their lives in host countries, move to third countries, or return to their home countries after conflicts, equipped with necessary skills and qualifications. Although there is extensive literature on FDMs’ access to and experiences within higher education, there is a critical need for reassessment in Türkiye, where post-graduation outcomes for FDMs remain underexamined. In particular, the transition from university to employment is inadequately explored, reflecting a broader gap identified in global systematic reviews (Parkinson, 2025; Kuzhabekova & Nardon, 2023). Against this backdrop, this study aims to investigate the transition of FDMs from higher education to work and the role of HE in easing this transition, focusing on Syrian FDMs in Türkiye. Given this gap, the study explores how higher education facilitates employment among Syrian FDMs in Türkiye.

Theoretical Framework

The instrumentalization of university education by marginalized populations introduces numerous complexities, prompting a reevaluation of existing discursive frameworks (Damelang & Kosyakova, 2021). When individuals migrate internationally, they encounter changes in language, culture, and economic systems, which can influence the transferability of their acquired human capital. As a result, international migrants may not fully utilize their education and work experience in the new country, leading to a form of adverse selection regarding skills and qualifications, unlike economic migrants (Chiswick 1978; 1979; Massey et al., 1993). HE is conceptualized as the main public services that equip FDMs with various capitals that enable them pursue the social and economic life in their desired destinations including host country, home country or a third country (Kondakci et al., 2023). Using human capital theory and the capability approach, this research examines investments in higher education and the role of inclusive institutions in expanding real freedoms. The human capital of refugee migrants, together with their individual and family resources, exerts a substantial influence, comparable to that of established community members, regardless of their migration background (Kogan & Kalter, 2020). Governments and higher education systems share a symbiotic relationship where universities contribute to societal progress through their services, while governments establish the essential legal framework within which these institutions operate. Therefore, there is an urgent need for capability-oriented policies and inclusive institutions that address forced migration, higher education, and employment transitions.

International student mobility (ISM) plays an important role in developing global and regional knowledge economies by facilitating knowledge exchange, fostering innovation, and contributing to the talent pool. Amid rising geopolitical tensions, restrictive migration policies, and increased experiences of xenophobia and discrimination among international graduates, ISM is shifting from a predominantly south-north pattern to something more complex and nonlinear. For example, there is a noticeable trend of Chinese international graduates choosing to return to China rather than seeking employment or further study overseas. This may pose challenges for European countries trying to retain global talent to address local skill shortages and drive innovation.

China, the world’s largest and fastest-growing source of internationally mobile students (UNESCO, 2024), witnessed over 8 million overseas returnees (known in Chinese as ‘Haigui’) between 1987 and 2022, with annual figures rising from 186,200 in 2011 to approximately 1.04 million in 2021 (Ministry of Education, 2022). The surging number of Haigui increasingly face a multifaceted “reintegration crisis,” encountering complex dilemmas in economic, social, and psychological re-embedding upon return (Liao & et al., 2021; Zweig & Du, 2021). Empirical research identifies multiple re-integration challenges for these returnees: difficulties in finding jobs, reverse culture shock, cultural and professional misfit, and systemic barriers such as ageism and gendered exclusion (Chen & Du, 2023; Zhang et al., 2025). This crisis is vividly reflected on social media, where the self-mocking label, “overseas waste” (‘Haifei’) and discussion of “Guihai” (returning overseas) have emerged among the online overseas returnee community.

This trend of re-migration—where overseas-educated graduates return home and subsequently consider further migration—has become increasingly salient in global higher education and skilled migration contexts. Analysis in prior ISM research was mostly dominated by “push-pull” models focused on the initial outward migration and cross-cultural adjustment in host countries (Findlay, 2011; Cairns & Sargsyan, 2019). Although recent scholarship has expanded to include “return migration” and “brain circulation”, homecoming is often treated as a static outcome, primarily judged by returnees’ degree of success in integrating into local labour markets. However, for international students, returning home after overseas studies is often a transitional phase in a continuous, multi-staged life-journey. Migration decisions are not one-off, single-dimensional impluses; rather, they are processual and relational, evolving over time (Ahrens & King, 2023). To better understand re-migration decisions, research must explore how individuals actively negotiate their identities and career aspirations during their complex 'post-return' period.

This study examines Chinese overseas-educated returnees’ (Haigui) re-migration decision-making processes, asking:

1. Why are they increasingly contemplating re-migration, and how are these decisions linked to their career and life aspirations?
2. In what ways do experiences of international education influence international students’ mobility and long-term life trajectories?

The study integrates Margaret Archer’s (2007) Morphogenetic Approach with the “new mobilities paradigm” (Sheller & Urry, 2006) to examine re-migration intentions of Chinese returnees. Using Archer’s conceptualization of the “internal conversation,” we analyse how returnees reflexively evaluate life projects in relation to the constraints and enablements of social structures. Rather than seeing return as static or permanent, the new mobilities paradigm recognizes that “all the world seems to be on the move” (Sheller & Urry, 2006). Here, re-migration is viewed as an active exercise of “motility”—the potential for movement as a powerful social resource. The domestic labour market is conceptualized as a “mooring”—a fixed infrastructure that can support or restrict individual flows. Through reflexivity, returnees identify systemic frictions or barriers within these regimes of flow and strategically choose further mobilization to achieve their goals. This perspective views re-migration not as a failure to integrate, but as an intentional and agent-driven effort to navigate global opportunity networks.

Contemporary higher education transformation in China has been shaped by long-term reforms including massification, internationalisation, and performance-oriented governance, which have reconfigured institutional priorities and graduate transitions (Shen et al., 2022; Xiong et al., 2022). This study seeks to understand how the institutional model and geographic context of an international education shape the employability of Chinese master’s graduates. The central research question is: How do the employability outcomes and capital formations of Chinese master’s graduates differ between traditional overseas universities, their transnational joint-venture campuses in China? This investigation is operationalized through a focused comparative case study of four institutions representing distinct archetypes: University of Nottingham, UK (UNUK); University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC); New York University, USA (NYU); New York University Shanghai (NYU Shanghai). The University of Nottingham, as a UK institution, is deeply embedded in this European Higher Education Area tradition. Its joint venture, UNNC, represents a direct export and adaptation of this European model into the Chinese context, embodying the EU’s and UK’s strategic goal of deeper educational engagement with Asia. This study will critically assess how this European-derived model of transnational education (TNE) translates graduate capital into employment outcomes.

The question is deliberately designed to move beyond a simplistic "domestic versus abroad" analysis. Instead, it dissects the nuance of educational mobility by asking whether a degree earned at a transnational campus within China confers a fundamentally different employability profile than one from its overseas parent. Furthermore, it interrogates how different international pedagogical and administrative models—specifically a European joint-venture approach versus an American integrated global network—influence the perceived value and tangible outcomes of graduates within the competitive Chinese and global labour markets. Ultimately, the research aims to reveal how these educational pathways equip graduates with specific forms of capital and positional advantage, contributing to broader debates on the efficacy and equity of international higher education.

The analysis is grounded in an integrated theoretical framework that combines employability capital theory with positional conflict theory, interpreted through the lens of international higher education policy. To fully deconstruct employability, the study employs employability capital theory (Tomlinson, 2017; Fugate et al., 2004; Jackson and Tomlinson, 2020). This framework reconceptualizes employability not as a binary outcome but as a dynamic portfolio of acquired and activated capital. It will be used to map and compare how each institutional context cultivates distinct forms of capital in its graduates: human capital (specialized knowledge and skills), social capital (professional and alumni networks), cultural capital (intercultural fluency, institutional prestige, and understanding of global workplace norms), and psychological capital (resilience and career self-efficacy). This allows for a nuanced assessment of whether immersion in a UK or US environment fosters a different capital mix than a localized “Western” education in China.

To contextualize this capital within a stratified global labour market, the framework incorporates positional conflict theory (Brown, 2003). This perspective views education as a positional good, where the value of a credential is relative to its scarcity and prestige in a hierarchy. The research will examine how Chinese graduates from the overseas ‘mother’ institutions (UNUK, NYU) may leverage their foreign credential for its traditional positional advantage and symbolic power. In contrast, it will explore how graduates from the transnational campuses (UNNC, NYU Shanghai) articulate and deploy their ‘glocalized’ credential—a hybrid of international pedagogy and local immersion—and whether this creates a new, distinct positional value or is perceived as a secondary tier within the global hierarchy of degrees. This tension between capital formation and positional value is central to understanding the real-world efficacy of different internationalization models.