Student Agency and Self-Formation in Higher Education

This edited volume argues for positioning students at the centre of higher education, drawing from the concepts of student agency and self-formation. The volume highlights that higher education has broader and more important purposes than what a neoliberal human capital approach would suggest, and explores how students exercise their agency and realise self-formation as inherently connected concepts throughout university education. With disciplinary, cultural, and contextual diversity, this volume will provide international perspectives to readers interested in higher education theories, policies, and practices.

1. Students at the Heart of Higher Education: An Introduction.- Part I Conceptualising Student Self-Formation in Higher Education.- 2. Antecedents of the Self-Formation in Social Theory and Educational Philosophy: What Do They Tell Us About Structure and Agency?.- 3. Agency and Student Development in Higher Education: A Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Exploration.- 4. The Mechanism of Student Agency in Self-Formation Through Knowledge Engagement in Higher Education.- Part II Depicting Student Agency in International Higher Education.- 5. Student Agency and Becoming in Internationalized Programs in Vietnamese Universities.- 6. Conceptualizing the Employability Agency of International Graduates.- 7. The Role of Higher Education Institutions In Fostering Students’ Cosmopolitan Agency and Self-Formation.- Part III Linking Student Agency In Higher Education with the Wider Society.- 8. The Civic Aspect of Student Self-Formation in International Higher Education: Apprenticeship in New Worldviews.- 9. New Spaces for Agency in Doctoral Education: An Ecological Approach.

Yusuf Ikbal Oldac is Hong Kong Research Grants Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Graduate Studies, Lingnan University.

Lili Yang is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong.

Soyoung Lee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, UK.