This research aims to understand why and how international students choose a particular country, and to study a specific academic subject in a specific university. Our efforts focused on reviewing the literature of international student mobilities and collecting qualitative interview data among international students. With the help of a research assistant, we have collected over 20 interviews with Chinese students who chose to study in either Japan or Germany, majoring in either humanities/social sciences or STEM. These interviews reveal the determinants for students’ decision-making, and especially the important roles the institutional channels and educational intermediaries have played in channeling students into specific regions or countries. We have also learned that, in China, it is often the children who were more concerned about the economic costs of studying abroad.

    The main publication, mosty based on literature review, is:

Liu-Farrer, Gracia. 2022. “International Students as Transnational Migrants,” in F. Collins and B.S. Yeoh (eds) Handbook of Transnationalism, Chapter 19. Edward Elgar Publishing: 294–309