International habitus, inculcation and entrepreneurial aspirations: international students learning in a Chinese VET college

While research continues to document the influence of higher education institutions on students’ identities, studies considering how these institutions inform students’ post-study aspirations and career pathways remain limited. This paper engages with a new phenomenon – international students in vocational colleges in China – where we examine how the cultural and expressive characteristics of the institution empowered them to imagine their futures. We interviewed 17 international students who hailed from eight different countries and two teachers who are native to China. The data shows that an integrated mode of learning, combining education with ties to enterprise, hands-on experiences and the accrual of social capital in the entrepreneurial field, appears to shape the students’ evaluation, perception and decision-making of the field of possibilities and the future direction of their lives after graduation. Drawing on both habitus and institutional habitus, we capture not only what occurs when an individual and institutional habitus aligns, but also where there is disjuncture. The research is of relevance to higher education policies and practices targeting institutional transformations and hence contributes to improving the quality of higher education.