China s investment in U.S. higher education has raised considerable debate, but little attention has been directed to the manner in which this investment unfolds and takes shape on the ground, in local settings that are globally connected and complexly constituted. "Confucius and Crisis in American Universities" fills this gap by investigating how Chinese-funded U.S. programs are understood and produced in both local and global terms. In examining Chinese education policy from the perspectives of those who encounter and sometimes work to advance it, the book demonstrates that Chinese investment as a broad form of future-oriented global policy needs to be understood conceptually in terms of culturally constituted life-worlds and power relations that are always people-instigated." " By drawing on the voices, stories, and narratives of Chinese teachers and American students involved in Chinese-funded U.

S. programs and on interviews and conversations with university administrators and community members, this book questions and reframes conventional notions of economic globalization and flexible citizenship. Stambach delves into the idea that Chinese investment in U.S. education advances the lives of the already socially, economically, and educationally privileged by creating access to overseas labor and markets but excludes U.S. middle- and working-class students the very groups providing administrative rationale for acceptance of Chinese investment. She argues that transnationality works to the advantage of those who are already well-connected, but at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, it contributes to greater hardship and economic disparity.

This book is a valuable and timely resource for scholars and students of education and anthropology, as well as anyone interested in education policy and international affairs.