HICCS 2025

This panel explores transnational educational and talent mobility, addressing trends in Chinese brain drain and gain, challenges faced by international students in China, Chinese community activism for immigrant children's education, and sustainable collaboration in online international language learning, with a focus on Chinese in Japan.

Shibao Guo
University of Calgary, Professor

Title:
Brain Drain, Brain Gain and Brain Circulation: Emerging Trends and Patterns of Chinese Transnational Talent Mobility in a Global World

Abstract:
This paper examines the changing nature of education in the age of transnational mobility between China and the globalized world. It maps the emerging trends and patterns of transnational talent mobilities as part of the overall world trend of increasing transnational migration and international student mobility. A rising China with its economic boom created the economic conditions for the mobility of Chinese people particularly to OECD countries. Guided by a transnationalism framework, we explore how education has to be rethought in the context of transnational mobility as a multidirectional process where diverse identities, forms of attachment and belonging inscribe the experiences of people as they move across geographical, cultural, national, and linguistic boundaries.
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Baocun Liu
Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University, Professor

Title:
International Students at Chinese Universities: Challenges, Policies and Praxis Responses at Age of Uncertainty

Abstract:
At the age of internationalization, mobility of students becomes a worldwide phenomenon of higher education. In order to implement the National Medium and Long Term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020) and promote the sustainable and healthy development of studying in China, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued the “Study in China Plan” in September 2010, which clearly stated the development goal to build China into a major destination for studying abroad. In 2019, there were over 490,000 international students studying in China, making it the third largest study abroad destination in the world after the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2023, China proposed to build itself into one of the most important world education centers with strong global influence, and to become a major destination for studying abroad in the world. However, in recent years, China’s international student education is facing great challenges. In the era of uncertainty, what are the main tensions between China’s international student education strategy and the external environment? What are the challenges facing international student education in China? What policies has the Chinese government already adopted and what policies will it adopt soon? What are the attitudes and response measures of Chinese higher education institutions?
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Yan Guo
University of Calgary, Professor

Title:
Chinese Community Activism for Equitable Educational Policy for Immigrant Children

Abstract:
Purpose: Existing language policy research puts little emphasis on parental agency, particularly immigrant parents. This study explores how immigrant parents advocated for more equitable policies and practices for English Learners (ELs) in Alberta, Canada.
Theoretical Framework: Informed by critical language policy theory, this study examined how and to what extent language policy responds to social pressures while also serving as “an officially mandated set of rules for language use and form within a nation-state” intended to shape citizens (Spolsky, 2012, p. 3). The study takes policy as discursive practice and examines how policy is experienced and constructed locally by parents (Dagenais, 2013). It focuses on eight components of ELs policy: visibility, designation of responsibility, eligibility, duration, placement, programming, assessment and reporting, and funding (Kouritzin, 2013).
Conclusion and Implications: The study analyzes how parental advocacy groups informed educational change for new Canadians in public schools. The study thus brings new voices of immigrant parents into the educational policy process and challenges the deficit perspective that educators often hold against immigrant parents. Results of this research will provide directions for ELs policies, programs and services, as well as new insights into the effectiveness of advocacy and capacity building of immigrant parents, thus of knowledge mobilization processes (Levin, 2013).
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Ming Qu
Muroran Institute of Technology, Professor

Title:
Fostering Sustainable Collaboration Through Online International Language Learning: A Case Study of Chinese Language Learning in Japan

Abstract:
The advancement of technology and the Internet has created new opportunities for foreign language learning and teaching. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) has become widely adopted in universities around the world. The Chinese language course presented in this study was created for university students from China and Japan to study Chinese language and culture together through synchronous online communication (using Zoom) and asynchronous online communication (using Moodle).
This course lasted for 15 weeks, with 75 Japanese students participating in the study. A mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the impact of this course. The results of the quantitative analysis showed a significantly greater increase in intercultural sensitivity for the experimental group compared to the control group. There were no significant differences in test scores between the two groups. The qualitative data showed a preference for this COIL course.