Bis es im 19. Jahrhundert in die globale Peripherie abgedrängt wurde, war China selbst Zentrum eines ostasiatischen Weltsystems. Seither versucht das „Reich der Mitte“ die frühere Zentrumsposition innerhalb des modernen Weltsystems wiederzuerlangen. Hochschulbildung, ein ausländischer Import des späten 19. Jahrhunderts, dient der Modernisierung des Landes und spielt eine wichtige Rolle im Nationswerdungsprozess des Landes. In der jüngsten Vergangenheit fanden Veränderungen enormen Ausmaßes im chinesischen Hochschulsystem statt. Offizielle Forschungs- und Innovationsdaten deuten auf einen raschen Aufschluss Chinas an die Leistungen westlicher Industrienationen hin. Gemäß der Zielvorgaben der Entscheidungsträger in der Bildungspolitik hat die VR China nicht nur einen Aufholkurs, sondern einen Überholkurs eingeschlagen. China ist nicht mehr nur das wichtigste Herkunftsland für international mobile Studierende, sondern es will auch zu einem der wichtigsten Gastländer werden. Neue Stipendienprogramme (incoming wie outgoing) und Programme zur Rückgewinnung chinesischer Talente aus dem Ausland wurden eingerichtet. Zahlreiche internationale Kooperationsprogramme bieten „ausländische Bildung” innerhalb chinesischer Grenzen als Bereicherung des nationalen Bildungsangebots an. Gleichzeitig strebt China zunehmend danach eigene nationale Bildungsangebote am Weltbildungsmarkt zu etablieren. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt einen Beitrag zur Positionsbestimmung Chinas im globalen Kontext dar. Zu diesem Zweck wurden statistische Daten durch Aussagen aus semi-strukturierten narrativen Interviews mit Akademikern und Entscheidungsträgern der chinesischen Hochschulbildung ergänzt. Die meisten befragten Experten arbeiten an einer von drei strukturell sehr unterschiedlichen chinesischen Hochschule, die dieser Arbeit als Fallbeispiele dienen. Bei den Fallbeispielen handelt es sich um die Tsinghua-Universität, die Qiqihar-Universität und die Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University. / China used to be a core country within an East-Asian world-system but was forced into periphery status during the 19th century. Ever since China strives to regain its former core position within the modern world-system. University education, a foreign import of the late 19th century, has become an important tool for China’s endeavor for modernization and nation building. In recent years the Chinese higher education landscape was subject to gigantic changes. Official research and innovation data seem to indicate a rapid affiliation with the achievements of western industrialized nations. Following the agenda of decision-makers in educational policy in the People’s Republic, the suggested course of action would be to overtake, not just to catch up: By 2020 technology imports should sink to under 30 per cent; in the same year China would like to receive a half million international students and thus become not only the most important sending country for international students, but also an important host country. New scholarship programs (incoming and outgoing) as well as programs to recover Chinese talent from abroad, were established. A multitude of international cooperation programs have been created to provide “foreign education“ within Chinese borders to further enrich the Chinese landscape of higher education. At the same time China also urges to establish its own brand of higher education abroad. This dissertation represents a contribution to determine the position of Chinese higher education within its global context. Statistical data is completed by semi-structured narrative interviews with academics and decision makers in Chinese higher education. Most interviewees are working at one of three structurally quite different institutions of higher education in China that serve as case studies in the thesis: Tsinghua University, Qiqihar University and Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy.

This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy.