Title: Cultivating global citizenship in studying abroad: the International Asian Students’ Perspectives

Author: Jiaying Lin

Theme: Research-Informed Teaching

This research takes international Asian students who mobile to the UK university as subjects through which to explore the understanding and experiences of global citizenship education in studying abroad. It discusses the findings of a thematic analysis of the interviews with students in a UK university, looking at a) How do international Asian students understand global citizenship education, b) How studying in the UK fosters their global citizenship, and c) To what extent do they understand themselves as global citizens?
Drawing on both neoliberal capital and cosmopolitan identity and transformation theories, to explore the students’ perspectives, the research employs a critical comprehensive stance to build an in-depth investigation into the international Asian students’ experiences and understanding, within the context of higher education programmes. The analysis shows there is an interweaving understanding of global citizenship education from international Asian students’ perspectives. While global citizenship education is perceived as cultivating mobile talents whose cosmopolitan capital could be accumulated through studying abroad, it also cultivates global mindsets with humanity and self-reflection. Another interesting finding is that international Asian students show hesitation in the realization of global citizenship, while they also express willingness to take transformative actions, such as academic research, to realize global citizenship with an instrumentalist agenda.
By looking at international Asian students’ perspectives, whose number constitutes a large proportion of students in UK higher education, this research offers an empirical contribution to the study of global citizenship and provides support for further improvement of relevant programmes, with a focus on the analysis of understanding and practices, and the gaps between these two aspects.

Keywords: global citizenship, studying abroad, international students, Asian, competence, cosmopolitan