Ethnicity and (dis)advantage: exchanging cultural capital in UK international education and graduate employment

This article investigates the under-researched role of ethnicity in the conversion of cultural capital linked to UK international education into life chance privileges and disadvantages. It reports findings from qualitative interviews with Malaysian international students and graduates who pursued their UK education in the UK and/or in Malaysia. It moves beyond a heavy focus on class in existing literature to delayer further complexities in distinction influenced by ethnicity and made more visible by new modes of international education alongside the traditional mode. I highlight how ethnicity influenced the participants’ higher education choices, and their accumulation and activation of knowledge, skills, dispositions and networks. I show how ethnicity shaped their sense of appropriate graduate work and their perceived value of a UK education in relation to economic opportunities and constraints. The participants tended to study, interact and work most with members of their ethnic group, reflecting Malaysia's distinctive majority-minority divide across higher education and employment. While linked to ethnicity, relevant participants regarded nationality as a more significant factor for exclusion in the UK labour market. The findings have implications for the development of Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, and the advancement of equity and inclusiveness within and beyond international education. I conclude that more recognition is needed of the heterogeneity of the foreign student and graduate middle-class to explore the exchangeability of cultural capital across stratified geographical and socio-relational contexts.