A Globalised Higher Education Hub in The Making? A Case Study of Shenzhen's Higher Education

With Yuning Fang, University of Nottingham.

Part of the Economic Worlds Seminar Series.

Abstract

In this presentation, I will discuss my research to date on the geographies of Chinese higher education at the city-level with a case study on the city of Shenzhen. Within the literature of human geography and related social sciences, the restructuring of higher education and its symptoms have been an important case study to examine the implications of neo-liberalization globally. In the case of China, given its context-specific processes in marketization and globalization since the Reform from 1980s onwards, an empirical study into the changing nature of Chinese higher education has been significant to understand the spatially differentiated processes and implications. With empirical data collected from the case of Shenzhen and its higher education, this thesis has a specific focus on the city-level scale.

The thesis as a case study is constituted by three differentiated objectives: the policy, the institutions, and the students. By the time being, I have examined the case of Shenzhen by drawing on the institutional and policy frameworks of and the narratives of students from higher education in Shenzhen. This presentation will showcase the design, the data collection and analysis of the case study, with some preliminary findings from the two of three objectives of research.