Values Reconciliation: Constructing the Exemplary Ideal Personhood through Overseas Education

This article examines the values that Chinese middle-class families desire for their offspring to acquire, through an analysis of the families’ motivations for pursuing overseas higher education. Based on fieldwork with Chinese tertiary students in the United Kingdom, this article analyses the values – described in interviews by students and their parents and grandparents – that drive these families’ overseas higher education strategies. The results show that in contrast to the current (dominant instrumentalist) understandings of international student motivations, some Chinese middle-class families’ belief in higher education is about the development of a socialist ideal personhood and the wish to make significant social contributions. Ultimately, the author argues that some Chinese middle-class families are experiencing a transition, from egoism to altruism, and in future, fulfilling Confucian values and making social contributions is highly likely to become part of middle-class subjectivities.