ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how undergraduate students from China navigate their transitions from China to Canada and from high school to university during their transition from adolescence to adulthood. Drawing on developmental perspectives, this study illuminates Chinese students’ experiences in their university life in Canada through a discussion of how these three transitions tie into each other in the institutional context by analyzing key transition issues, such as schoolwork and social life balance, peer relationships, tension around independence, and identity (re)formation. This has clear implications for higher education administrators, academics, and policymakers, concerning how Canadian institutional structures and environments shape students’ experiences during their transitions, and how to foster an institutional culture of inclusion and culturally responsive teaching praxis.
