Abstract:
In the context of globalization, the international activities of universities dramatically have expanded during the past three decades. The paper is to analyze the effects of socio-economic status (SES) and family capital on the student choice of international branch campus in mainland China. Based on 1349 valid questionnaires, with 714 gathered from the branch campuses and 635 gathered from the public university as reference group, the factors of family capital are extracted by principle component analyses, composed of the economic capital, cultural capital and social capital. With the regression analysis, the results suggest that the SES has direct impacts on the family capital and the international branch campus choice, respectively. When controlling for SES variables, the economic capital and social capital have significant impacts on the choice, but cultural capital have no power in predicting the international branch campus choice. Furthermore, the paper tries to explore how the socioeconomically advantaged use the transnational higher education as stepping stone to reproduce their social status and maintain inequality effectively.