Abstract：China is emerging as a destination country for international students. Yet relatively little research has been done on the experience and cultural shock of "reverse educational migration" - the second- generation Chinese
students overseas who returned to China for education. We draw on detailed
case studies of successful students in elite universities to show how their social and cultural adaptation challenges have enduring negative impacts on their socialization in China. We analyze how their experience is often defined by social rather than academic challenges through an educational anthropological perspective. We explained how conflicting education values, early separation from family, and lack of social support contribute to their difficulties in social adaptation.Different from previous research mostly focusing on cultural identity and socialintegration of the young migrants, this paper points out that the predominant educational culture of“prioritizing academic success”in China has generated long-lasting difficulties for the reverse educational migrants, or returned second-generation Chinese students, to re-adapt to their motherland.
