Breaking open pathway programs: exploring the value and values of international students

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The research proposal is designed to explore the rise in commercial pathway programs by considering the value they create and leverage. (A pathway programme is a language school that is run by a multinational corporation, and which partners with English-speaking universities.) Specifically, the proposal seeks to track pathway student expenditures and activities that arise in transnational movements from Beijing to universities located in London. The suggested approach draws on methods used in expenditure tracking studies, including interviews with students, parents, and recruiting agents in Beijing and London. The theoretical novelty of this proposal comes from considering what role the physical movement of students-through pathway programmes-plays in the creation of value. This is a promising avenue to uncover tensions between (local) value systems and (global) markets. Applied in tandem, economic and anthropological understandings of value can help make these tensions visible, and inform our understanding of the rise of pathway programs. The aim is to capture rich expenditure and mobility data, which in turn can deepen contemporary discussions about the commercialisation and globalisation of education.