Abstract
This paper presents how students reshaped the idea of an international university offered to them. The findings derive from participant observation ethnographic fieldwork carried out at Fudan University in China. The analysis proves that the idea of an “international university” offered to Fudan University students was double-edged in the sense that it both cultivated and screened international talent. Students reshaped their university by manipulating or “twisting” the screening process when applying for short-term study abroad programs, on the one hand, and creating cultivating “devices” within the university, namely student-initiated associations on the other hand. The findings of this paper add a new aspect to the idea of the “international university” from students’ perspective and turn the spotlight on students as active builders of their university.
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Acknowledgements
This paper derives from my PhD project funded by the China Scholarship Council and Aarhus University. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Susan Wright for her encouragement and patience. I also gratefully thank all the informants from Fudan University, especially the Nordic Center (Fudan), which provided a convenient workspace during my fieldwork. Last but not least, I would like to thank my UNIKE and DPU colleagues for their inspiration.
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Qu, M. The Idea of an International University Reshaped by Students: An Ethnographic Study in a Chinese University. Front Educ China 13, 375–400 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-018-0018-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-018-0018-9