Date of Submission

Spring 2022

Academic Program

Sociology

Project Advisor 1

Dominique Townsend

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement reports that Chinese international students have been increasing continuously for over a decade, and they are also the biggest group of international students in the U.S. Reviewing key theories and literature on social stratification such as the rational choice model, maximally maintained inequality, and effectively maintained inequality, and conducting in-depths surveys with 15 Chinese students studying in U.S. higher education institutions, I discuss micro and macro level reasons why some Chinese students choose U.S higher education. I argue at the micro level, the decision can be explained by individual disagreement with the Chinese education system. At the macro level, the phenomenon can be explained by the increasing number of Chinese families who seek to maintain and reproduce their generally high socioeconomic status through choosing higher education in the U.S. for their offspring.

Open Access Agreement

Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
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