Abstract
This paper adds an organizational dimension to the body of literature on international student mobility. Existing studies examine push/pull factors and student motivations, neglecting that students’ motivations and demands are not necessarily spontaneous, but can be shaped by external forces. Drawing on interview, archival and observation data collected on four leading cram schools that prepare students for the TOEFL/GRE, IELTS and SAT in China, I argue that cram schools not only coach students on test preparation and “how to study abroad,” but they also adopt organizational framing to instill in students “why to study abroad.” Leading cram schools have played an integral role in promoting a certain organizational framing as the dominant approach of a niche market in a given era. During the 1990s, when the TOEFL/GRE niche market was rapidly expanding, the market leader in this niche promoted self-help and nationalism as dominant discourses. Self-help discourse frames overseas study and test preparation not as means, but as the ends of students’ lives: going beyond one’s limit and making one’s life complete. Nationalist discourse depicts overseas study as a detour to build a stronger China after learning from the West. After 2000, however, new organizational framing picked up momentum in the new niche markets of IELTS and SAT. Targeting urban middle-class consumers, market leaders in these new niches increasingly framed studying abroad as a springboard for immigration, a channel for becoming global elites and an opportunity for status improvement for the entire family. My article bridges literature on transnational higher education with studies on supplementary education.
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Notes
TOEFL is the Test of English as a Foreign Language, and GRE is the Graduate Record Examination. International students are often required to submit the results of the two tests as required application materials to U.S. colleges and universities. IELTS is the equivalent to TOEFL for the British Commonwealth. SAT is a standardized test used for college admission in the USA.
According to Goffman (1974) and Snow et al. (1986), the social process of framing provides meaning to events and occurrences. Although organizations adopt organizational framing, such adoption is not necessarily strategic or intentional. Instead, adopting a particular organizational framing could be due to organizations’ internalizing taken-for-granted norms (Meyer and Rowan 1977).
According to McGee (2005), self-help discourse, also known as self-improvement discourse, is a makeover culture. Claiming to have a psychological basis, self-help discourse guides oneself to improve economically, intellectually or emotionally through hard work.
In an article that is based on non-random cases and their historical events, complete anonymity is impossible. Using pseudonyms, however, creates a buffer for my informants. To make the names consistent throughout the paper, I had to change some titles in the reference when they used their real names.
Using unauthorized but authentic test-materials was partly due to the unavailability of authorized materials in China (Lu 2002). With that said, there is no doubt that such usage is a violation of intellectual property. One caveat is that there was neither legal code nor moral standard regarding intellectual property in China in the 1990s and early 2000s.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Andrew Abbott, Dingxin Zhao, Elisabeth Clemens and Kimberly Kay Hoang for their guidance and support. I also thank Hank Levin, Mark Bray and Wei Zhang who offered help in data collection and literature updates. Special thanks to Mun Tsang who introduced me to the topic of education internationalization.
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Lin, L. The visible hand behind study-abroad waves: cram schools, organizational framing and the international mobility of Chinese students. High Educ 79, 259–274 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00408-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00408-1