Ambitious and Anxious - by Yingyi Ma

About the Book

Yingyi Ma offers a multifaceted analysis of the wave of Chinese students across American higher-education based on research in both Chinese high schools and U.S. institutions. Ma argues that their experiences embody the duality of ambition and anxiety that arises from transformative social changes in China.

Book Synopsis

Winner, 2021 Best Book Award, Comparative and International Education Society Higher Education Special Interest Group

Winner, 2021 Best Book Award, Comparative and International Education Society Study Abroad and International Studies Special Interest Group

Honorable Mention, 2021 Pierre Bourdieu Award for the Best Book in Sociology of Education, Section on the Sociology of Education, American Sociological Association

Over the past decade, a wave of Chinese international undergraduate students--mostly self-funded--has swept across American higher education. From 2005 to 2015, undergraduate enrollment from China rose from under 10,000 to over 135,000. This privileged yet diverse group of young people from a changing China must navigate the complications and confusions of their formative years while bridging the two most powerful countries in the world. How do these students come to study in the United States? What does this experience mean to them? What does American higher education need to know and do in order to continue attracting these students and to provide sufficient support for them?

In Ambitious and Anxious, the sociologist Yingyi Ma offers a multifaceted analysis of this new wave of Chinese students based on research in both Chinese high schools and American higher-education institutions. Ma argues that these students' experiences embody the duality of ambition and anxiety that arises from transformative social changes in China. These students and their families have the ambition to navigate two very different educational systems and societies. Yet the intricacy and pressure of these systems generate a great deal of anxiety, from applying to colleges before arriving, to studying and socializing on campus, and to looking ahead upon graduation. Ambitious and Anxious also considers policy implications for American colleges and universities, including recruitment, student experiences, faculty support, and career services.

Review Quotes

Overall, Ambitious and Anxious provides a nuanced view of the experiences of Chinese international students. By highlighting the variation of backgrounds within this group, Ma challenges the homogeneous perspective that many academics and institutions have when considering the challenges and strengths of Chinese students studying in America. Moreover, she draws attention to the historical and cultural context that explains the experiences of these students.-- "Contemporary Sociology"

Ambitious and Anxious is a compelling account of international students from China attending American colleges and universities at the turn of the 21st century. Through thoughtful and sensitive analysis of multiple sources of data, Ma reveals the stressful and paradoxical educational experience of Chinese undergraduates as they navigate through simultaneously familiar and strange terrains in China and America. The book contributes significantly to the deeper understanding of complex sociocultural issues related to international education.--Min Zhou, University of California, Los Angeles

Despite their increasing presence in American colleges and universities, the experiences of Chinese students have been disappointingly ignored by the scholarly community. Ambitious and Anxious offers a much-needed corrective to this neglect by comprehensively and compassionately depicting the challenges faced by and accomplishments of these students. This impeccably documented and engagingly written book should compel its readers to reassess their assumptions regarding international students and higher education.--Brian Powell, Indiana University

From the first word to the last, Ambitious and Anxious is eye-opening, provocative, and replete with original details. Yingyi Ma has produced a trove of valuable interviews and survey results that challenge unexamined narratives about Chinese students in America and illustrate their daily lived experience in ways that will shape our understanding for years to come.--Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Ma makes some prescriptions such as recommending that more efforts be made to integrate Chinese students into American university social life.-- "South China Morning Post"

Ma's book helps document a population particularly affected by the outcomes of discussions that have recently risen to the level of newspaper headlines.-- "Asian Review of Books"

Ma's book offers a powerful account that demystifies Chinese students' experiences in American higher education and challenges existing assumptions about the Chinese student community.-- "American Journal of Sociology"

The book's findings offer important theoretical and policy implications. The text is easy to read with straightforward visualizations for general readers and students of all levels...Recommended-- "Choice"

The number of Chinese undergraduates in American universities has grown dramatically over the past two decades, but we know little about them. If you're interested in how these students make their way in what can often be a chilly American educational and social environment, you should really read this book.--Syed Ali, Long Island University-Brooklyn

This book sheds light on the realities of Chinese international students' heterogeneous community and masterfully exposes the gaps in educational opportunities for this population in US colleges.-- "College and Research Libraries"

This highly engaging book illuminates the diverse experiences of Chinese students from various backgrounds in American higher education. Sociologists of education will appreciate the connection of cultural perspectives in the field to a timely topic. Higher education professionals will welcome the thoughtful discussion of concerns expressed by international students from China, along with the closing insights about how to support meaningful connections on campus.--Emily Hannum, University of Pennsylvania

This is an engaging, richly informative, and beautifully written book that reveals many new and important insights about the motivations and experiences of Chinese students who attended college in the United States in the 2010s. Scholars, students, and educators will have much to learn from its nuanced analyses of many different kinds of data, ranging from national-level statistics from China and the United States to responses to an online survey to interviews with prospective students and their educators in China as well as with Chinese students currently attending a variety of different colleges in the United States.--Vanessa Fong, Amherst College

With a difficult era looming over the relationship between universities and this population, this book helps to humanize a group that has been so important to American higher education, yet often misunderstood or marginalized.-- "China Quarterly"

About the Author

Yingyi Ma is professor of sociology at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where she is also director of the Asian/Asian American Studies Program. She is a fellow of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.