A Study on Hong Kong-Chinese Mainland Cross-Border Students’ Perceptions of Social Identity about Their University Pursuits and Future Career Choices

Every school day at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border crossing, there is a group of students who travel to Hong Kong in the morning and return to their homes in Shenzhen from Hong Kong in the afternoon or evening, and they are called cross-border students. This article focuses on how these cross-border students perceive their social identities during this daily commute, and whether their social identities affect their future choices of university education and employment. In this study, interviews were conducted with four Grade 4 and 5 students from secondary schools with families in Shenzhen to record their perceptions of their social identities and their future choices of university education and employment.