International students in China : The need for us all to unlearn

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors argue that researching the learning of international students in China requires first and foremost unlearning the ways we discuss and examine this issue. As such they are critical of the fact that scholars, educators and decision-makers tend to speak about the study abroad experience in China the same way they would speak about this experience in the West and other parts of the world, using theories, concepts and methods devised for other contexts of study. To the authors this poses both a scientific and an ethical problem. This is why they provide readers with a list of principles that could guide them to rethink this experience by unlearning imaginaries and representations about learning, travel and China, the Chinese and Chinese education. Finally, the authors support a shift from what to think to rethinking how to think. They urge scholars and educators to accept uncertainty, flexibility and the need to entertain many ways of examining an issue that is believed to be “business as usual” in the internationalization of higher education.