在英中国留学生“受种族主义和歧视报告激增”

研究人员发现,在病毒大流行后,来自中国的海外留学生正经历高度的焦虑和不安全感

五月 7, 2020
"We're all in this together" mural. Covid-19. UK
Source: Getty

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英国和爱尔兰的研究人员发现,在新型冠状病毒暴发后,来自中国的海外留学生正在遭受种族主义和歧视。

开放大学(Open University)、都柏林圣三一大学(Trinity College Dublin)和萨里大学(University of Surrey)的学者们正在进行一项研究项目,即调查大流行开始时国际学生如何与当地学生和当地社区建立网络。

该项目在过去的8年中一直关注国际学生,最近在2019年10月至12月间追踪了萨里大学的167名学生和圣三一大学100名学生的社交互动。

随着新冠病毒的传播,针对亚洲学生的仇外攻击报告数量也有所增加,因此,研究小组决定采访这两所大学已经是该项目参与者的国际研究生,请他们谈一谈病毒暴发以来的经历。他们立即听到了有关中国学生遭受歧视和高度焦虑的报告。

“在疫情暴发时,我的学生就向我提出了担忧,因此我们决定在项目中进行研究。”萨里商学院的研究人员之一、组织行为学讲师英菲・埃利奥特(YingFei Héliot)告诉泰晤士高等教育。她说,很明显病毒全球大流行改变了爱尔兰和英国的中国留学生的经历,他们“告诉我们曾被大声呵斥、咒骂、甚至被驱赶”。

她说:“我们的研究结果表明,来自中国的国际学生在疫情时期一直在高度焦虑、受歧视和不安全感中生活。”

迄今为止,研究人员已经与22名国际学生进行了交谈,发现所有这些中国学生都受到了仇外言论攻击。

一名亚洲学生告诉研究人员,他们当时正在与一个舍友争论另一个毫不相干的问题,但随后突然被说道“是你们带来了病毒”。

其他人则在校园外面临敌视行为,例如当地人大喊“中国冠状病毒”,并咒骂一名戴着口罩的中国学生。一群中国女学生说,她们当街被本地青少年追赶,并被他们大喊“中国病毒”。

埃利奥特博士说,随着围绕新冠病毒紧张局势的加剧,这些事件的频率似乎正在增加。她说,尽管在英国戴口罩已变得越来越普遍,但该团队听说戴口罩的中国学生仍被针对。

她说,与之交谈的许多学生已经开始“采用一种被称为‘自我导航’的应对策略”,以面对外界行为。

埃利奥特博士说,在大流行之前,学生们积极参与社会互动,并热衷于与当地社区互动。她补充说,现在,有些人只会与具有相似文化背景的群体进行社交。

一名非洲学生向研究人员介绍了其中国朋友遭受种族主义的经历,那位朋友被说要“回到你的国家,诸如此类的话”。

“他(中国学生)非常难过……他流下了眼泪……他待在房间里。他不出去买菜。什么都不做。”这位非洲学生说。

该小组正在进行的研究表明,许多国际学生决定返回家乡,主要是出于父母的要求,也是由于担心针对他们的种族主义和歧视。一位学生说:“我必须回中国,留在这里对我来说可能很危险。”

埃利奥特博士说,歧视可能会对英国大学产生“持久的破坏性影响”,高等教育界必须立即采取行动打击任何反华言论。她补充说:“这些故事将会传播开来……我们现在必须做一些事情,我们需要为每个学生创造一个心理上安全的环境。”

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com

本文由张万琪为泰晤士高等教育翻译。

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Reader's comments (11)

Jack Grove's comment in the editorial might hint to a source of the problem: Could it be that an industrialized tertiary education system, that needs -if not sees- international students as cash cows, is -not paradoxically at all- conducive to xenophobic behaviour? By the way, one might want to use the word racism with care. Stephan Schröder-Köhne
There have been actual physical (not just verbal) assaults on Chinese students and Chinese small businesses owing to this covid-19 outbreak. Like this: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/03/uk/coronavirus-assault-student-london-scli-intl-gbr/index.html The comments from one of the perpetrators could not make this reason for this assault any clearer - "The guy who tried to kick me then said, 'I don't want your coronavirus in my country', before swinging another sucker punch at me, which resulted in my face exploding with blood (from my nose)," wrote Mok." If this is not evidence for racism due to covid-19, I do not know what is. You would think that London, of all cities in the UK, would be more cosmopolitan... And this is espoused by the Chinese American actor John Cho in an LA Times article titled 'Coronavirus reminds Asian Americans like me that our belonging is conditional' - In good times, we promote diversity, in bad times, we do not. Hence, acceptance is conditional, get it?
A grossly impoverished attempt at painting a narrative of racism by adducing a handful of examples of what would seem like just plain impolite and rude behaviour that happens all the time between any group or people or individuals not necessarily of another family or community or nation or even race. While real racism that see people incarcerated en masses in camps for being of another religious persuasion and being forcibly re indoctrinated by the state, or Africans in china recently, or people being categorised as a lower social order and ostracized or people of other genders face while using public transport, applying for a job or shopping groceries – these are the instances that are too mundane and not enough provocative to even footnote on the canvas of these imagined instances of fabricated racism constructs. And the intent of such an approach is to try to shift the discourse and hide the fact that many students flew in knowingly to their host countries where they were pursuing education when these students clearly knew what the virus was doing in their home countries and their host countries had not locked the borders and obviously did not know the full extent of the casualties from the virus in the country of origin of some of these students. Consequently, in many countries, a majority of the covid instances has been due to people travelling from the site of origin of the virus knowingly. It is this truth that such pseudo racism narratives seek to reverse.
"Consequently, in many countries, a majority of the covid instances has been due to people travelling from the site of origin of the virus knowingly." - and the all of these are of Chinese descent? I would like to remind you that the first documented case of the import of this virus into the UK was a White British man who had got it from a conference in Singapore. Did you see a series of White British men being racially abused? Another thing - punctuation is a real thing in writing.
This article follows up earlier coverage from THE documenting physical assaults - beatings, knife attacks, pushing - against Asian students in the UK, Europe & Americas. Sadly, our first report on this issue was two months ago. Here's my story from March: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/coronavirus-sparks-rising-tide-ofxenophobia-worldwide New research, like the one in this latest story, seems to show it's not getting better.
I couldn't agree more! Actually, these pseudo narratives about racism and xenophobia against Chinese students, work for putting out of sight important questions related to the origin of this global pandemia and about the defense of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, many of these students, not only in UK, even after finishing their courses in Western universities, remain defenders of the extreme-left Chinese regime, the most powerful totalitarian dictatorship of History, the system which persecutes with no mercy, all sort of intellectuals, journalists, physicians, lawyers and who else decide to question its dogmas provided from an unique speech and its unique political party.
I couldn't agree more! Actually, these pseudo narratives about racism and xenophobia against Chinese students, work for putting out of sight important questions related to the origin of this global pandemia and about the defense of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, many of these students, not only in UK, even after finishing their courses in Western universities, remain defenders of the extreme-left Chinese regime, the most powerful totalitarian dictatorship of History, the system which persecutes with no mercy, all sort of intellectuals, journalists, physicians, lawyers and who else decide to question its dogmas provided from an unique speech and its unique political party.
response to deheuty Punctuation restricts the flow of thought and I shall not be held incarcerated by mere forms because the not so literate find it difficult to read. Do we punctuate when we talk? Or do we punctuate when we think? You obviously have not read Shakespeare else you might cast him worthless and I shall not doubt that you might because you appear to lack reason and facts. Read a little more of everything and you might get astonished at your own evolution.
In what ways they invade western uphold democracy and freedom by wearing a mask to go out? If they are exposed to such racism and aggression that they are afraid to go out, is it only plain impolite? We are running a similar study in the U.K. now and 26 out of 30 students interviewed had or know someone who were exposed to verbal abuse when they were walking on the street wearing masks. The survey study result will come out soon. There were several news reports through out U.K. that students were being attacked and being called 'Virus' or 'Go home!'. Is it really they are supporters of the Chinese regime or you are just prejudiced yourself?
What I learned from the comments: 1. Chinese being discriminated by other races is not racism, while Chinese discriminating other races is racism. 2. Whether you should have basic human rights depends on your political point of view, or what other people guess is your political standing. 3. If I don't like you, the racist discrimination you receive is just impoliteness.
It is really sad to know that. I guess the racism is growing not only to Chinese students but Asian students in general. People cannot distinghish the origin of the Asians, so that I have non-Chinese friends who were bullied at the streets. Also, we have to see that the racism is also against blacks. Afterall, now, the result of racism against blacks are exploding everywhere in the world because of the George Floyd's case. <a href="https://www.realgramas.com.br/" rel="follow">RealGramas</a>