Glocal citizenship through graduate attributes in transnational higher education

Preparing and cultivating good citizenship for a sustainable and well-round development of students is a university-wide responsibility. How to nurture citizenship in language education is also related to both global and local talent development. Graduates of Sino-foreign cooperative universities emerge from internationalized programmes of study ideally equipped with both global and local language competencies. Several studies have explored graduate skills/attributes and where they can be developed in the EMI context. However, few studies have considered the relevance of graduate attributes such as language skills in glocal citizenship development, especially in a transnational higher education implementing EMI. This case study delves into the intricate world of Chinese graduates in a transnational higher education in China and provides a retrospective account of navigating good citizenship with acquired graduate attributes in the EMI educational setting (Zhang & Veecock, forthcoming 2026). Adopting a qualitative method, this case study utilizes in-depth semi-structured interviews to gather graduates’ insights on what skills/competencies enable them to be glocal talents who can navigate citizenship in an intercultural and cross-linguistic environment. Findings of this study will offer suggestions and practical implications for stakeholders in transnational higher education seeking how to prepare citizenship towards being Chinese glocal talent who are competent in bringing the global, the national and the local into relationship for a sustainable development.