Educational choices in China and the complex path to studying abroad: Reflection on social changes and methodological discussion

Abstract

The Chinese leadership has little doubt that achieving China’s dream of becoming the world’s largest economy in the foreseeable future needs an increase in both the quality of its human capital, understood as increasing the average educational level of the population, and improving the quality of academic training. Due to this, the Government has introduced measures in the educational system, such as educational and professional guidance to encourage individuals to choose a satisfactory and successful educational track with which they can reach the highest level of education they can possibly achieve and promote to sending student abroad. At this point, if we bring together being the top country in the world regarding out-going students, and the freedom of Chinese families to choose what, and where their children study abroad, important questions arise, such as, who actually has the chance to study abroad? For these reasons, it is useful to know what factors influence the decision-making of Chinese students in relation to their educational trajectory. Therefore, this special issue exists in the context of the rapid and contradictory social changes that are occurring in Chinese society and proposes that they can be analysed through the educational trajectories of Chinese students.