Le rôle des migrations dans la reproduction des avantages sociaux chez les jeunes diplômés à Hong Kong

Johanna L Waters

doi:10.4000/belgeo.6419

Abstract

This paper attempts to unpack the role of failure, and subsequent international mobility, in affecting employment outcomes for ‘overseas educated’ university graduates in Hong Kong. It draws upon extensive fieldwork in Hong Kong and Canada, to scrutinise the link between international credentials and migration, asking : do experiences of living abroad – for schooling and the whole of a university education – confer distinction and subsequent social advantage upon already privileged individuals and their families, offsetting previous academic “failure” ? If so, then why does this process of valorisation occur ? In much of the extant literature on international education, the advantages bestowed upon internationally mobile students are taken for granted. In contrast, this paper begins with the premise that a ‘local’ university degree is widely considered significantly superior to one acquired abroad. Despite this, however, graduates educated overseas are clearly advantaged in many ways when they return to Hong Kong to find work. The analysis of the data shows that the cultural capital and social capital developed through living abroad and attending an overseas higher education institution override, in various ways, the inherent value of a local university degree. The paper contributes to wider debates around the role of international education in the reproduction of privilege and the continuation of class inequalities in educational outcomes.

Highlights

“Employers generally prefer graduates who have international experience.” (British Council, 2009, Guide to UK qualifications in Hong Kong, p. 6) 1 Migrants’ personal narratives are very often marked, in one way or another, by failure
Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Hong Kong and Canada, the paper has scrutinised the link between international credentials and migration, asking : do experiences of living abroad – for schooling and the whole of a university education – confer distinction upon already privileged individuals and their families ? If so, why does this process of valorisation occur ? In much of the extant literature on international education, the advantages bestowed upon internationally mobile students are often taken for granted
This paper began with the premise that a “local” university degree is widely considered superior to one acquired abroad, and that failure to succeed in the domestic education system is often the biggest driver underpinning international student mobility

Summary

Introduction

“Employers generally prefer graduates who have international experience.” (British Council, 2009, Guide to UK qualifications in Hong Kong, p. 6) 1 Migrants’ personal narratives are very often marked, in one way or another, by failure. Raikou and Karalis (2007), in their work on international students from Greece, argue that severe competition for university places at home often motivates young people to seek degree-level study abroad ; whilst Wiers-Jenssen (2008) has shown that individuals who fail to be admitted on to highly competitive medical courses in Norway frequently choose to pursue a medical degree in another part of Europe. 217) has made parallel observations in relation to the emergence of new institutes of management in France from the 1950s onwards and especially during the 1970s and 1980s, providing “a second chance, as it were, to students who have not received from the academic world the recognition they had been anticipating” In this context, new institutes of management are seen, by some sections of the middle-class, as “honourable substitutes” for the highly prestigious Grandes Ecoles. The association between academic failure and migration has historical precedents, . Kurtz (2010), for example, has shown how the founders of modern philosophy in China and Japan (between 1850 and 1911) originally migrated to Europe because they failed competitive national examinations within their respective countries, and migration allowed them to continue studying (albeit overseas)

Research Methods

12 Interviewer : You left Hong Kong before you sat the exams right ?

Conclusions