Ambitious and Anxious

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 <i>Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China</i> 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 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 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 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 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 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 makes some prescriptions such as recommending that more efforts be made to integrate Chinese students into American university social life. * South China Morning Post * 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 * 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 * 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 * 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 * 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 *