The Perceived Influence of Overseas Short-Term Summer School Experiences on Individual Cultural Soft Power—An Exploratory Study Based on Retrospective Self-Reports

Abstract

In elite higher education, this study investigates how short-term overseas experiences affect the small level structure of cultural soft power of each student. This study uses a variety of methods, including basic quantitative survey data, and the framework of detailed qualitative interview analysis for young students, first-line language educators and senior legal/educational scholars using Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory. Although the survey results are limited in a short time, the participants said: “Entering a high-intensity culture, or the environment has changed, so as to master the cultural capital of the body (for example, in different cultures, participants said that through such accumulation, personal preferences and ideas are updated in a small scope, alleviating the uneasiness of the domestic education system for a long time. In addition, it is also reported that, to a large extent, the idea may change from the advantages of objective capital to the future international behavior habits. It should be noted that the results of this time are all reported by the participants themselves after reviewing the past. They are only exploratory results and do not advocate causality.