International Mobility and Educational Desire

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Peidong Yang

   Pages 1-31

3. Contexts: Singapore’s Foreign Talent Programs and the Chinese Middle School as a Recruiting Ground

   • Peidong Yang

   Pages 33-52

4. Selecting Scholars for Singapore: The SM2 Program

   • Peidong Yang

   Pages 53-75

5. Singlish and the Singaporean: Cross-Cultural Encounter and Othering

   • Peidong Yang

   Pages 77-96

6. Being “Very China:” Self-Consciousness and Identity Transformation

   • Peidong Yang

   Pages 97-112

7. Desiring an Education: Scholarly Idealism and Anti-scholarly Entrepreneurialism

   • Peidong Yang

   Pages 113-133

8. Back Matter

   Pages 135-136

   PDF

This book examines the Singapore government’s controversial practice of recruiting students from China and granting them full scholarships on the condition of a service “bond”. It offers detailed ethnographic accounts of the Chinese “foreign talent” students’ educational and cross-cultural experiences in Singapore to illustrate the complex intersections between international mobility and educational desire. In doing so, the book presents contemporary Singapore society’s concerns over immigration and cross-cultural encounters from a unique perspective.

• educational desire
• Foreign talent
• educational mobility
• international students
• interculturality
• social identity
• China
• Singapore

“This book invites us to rethink the complexity of international educational mobility. The meticulous and elegantly written ethnographic account supplies a fascinating trip into the unique intercultural experience of foreign talent student immigrants in Singapore. Best of all the bold emphasis on the topics of desires, imaginaries and aspirations represents an original and fine contribution to the field. It should be mandatory reading for all those interested in study abroad and the internationalization of higher education.” (Fred Dervin, Professorof Multicultural Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland)

“Yang provides a fascinating and richly ethnographic account of the implications of Singapore’s Foreign Talent Program. It speaks to larger issues around mobilities, state strategies and educational ‘desire.’ It is a must-read for anyone interested inthe contemporary transformation of education systems beyond the ‘West’ through internationalization.” (Johanna L. Waters, Associate Professor in Human Geography, University of Oxford, UK)

• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

  Peidong Yang

Peidong Yang is Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.  He received  his doctorate from the University of Oxford, UK. His research interests include education and migration in the China-Singapore contexts as well as Internet and media in contemporary China.

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