Common Concerns Fragile Cosmopolitanism: Failing of the Engineered Life
Mar 19, 2026
Siqi Tu, a social researcher and ethnographer of transnational education, explores affluent Chinese families sending children to U.S. private high schools. She discusses fragile cosmopolitanism and contradictions in global education aspirations. Conversations cover students' racialized suburban experiences, China-centric social bubbles, emotional costs of engineered childhoods, and why parents start transnational schooling early.
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Fragile Cosmopolitanism Of Early US Schooling
- Many affluent Chinese families pursue US private high schools to craft a cosmopolitan future but encounter limits that reveal this project as fragile.
- Siqi Tu shows imagined global advantage erodes under racialization, passports, wealth and shifting geopolitics.
Students Saying They Would Return To China
- Many US high school students from China told Siqi Tu in 2015–2017 they planned to return to China despite long U.S. trajectories.
- COVID and changing US–China relations later made returning sensible: family networks, financial security and social capital in China mattered.
Transnational Friendship Bubbles Replace Local Grounding
- Chinese students in US boarding schools form dense transnational friend bubbles rather than local rooting, shaping their social world.
- Siqi Tu observed WeChat groups, regional meetups and a critical mass of peers who travel and socialize together.