Over the last 25 years, the realm of education has undergone enormous transformations around the globe, and especially in China. Indeed, while many have acknowledged the country’s role in world...Show moreOver the last 25 years, the realm of education has undergone enormous transformations around the globe, and especially in China. Indeed, while many have acknowledged the country’s role in world economy, few have stressed its parallel achievements in the field of internationalization of Higher Education. Nonetheless, researchers debating the issue have often adopted top-down approaches or focused on similar sets of examples, overlooking the complexities of each case. Moreover, international students' own viewpoint and their importance as the main actors shaping and undergoing the process as has often been neglected. The main aim of this thesis then, which is based on a mixture of interviews with international students, ethnographic observations conducted by the author at Shandong University, PRC in 2019, together with the study of secondary sources, is to shed light and highlight the importance of under-analysed themes and actors in the field of Internationalization of Higher Education in China. The findings of my research show that: international students form different background seemed to hold a positive evaluation of their experience in China; cultural-specific notions like Mianzi play an important role in the trajectory of internationalization of Shandong University; in turn, this last consideration seem to pose a challenge to the mainstream, linear view of the field which considers Internationalization as a global, active force passively employed by Chinese universities to reach specific - and mainly national - goals.Show less
