Home away from home? Campus-based social capital for Hong Kong students in a Mainland university

This research examined cross-border Hong Kong students’ access to and accumulation of campus-based social capital (CBSC), and its influences upon their university navigation and persistence. The data of interviews and network maps, collected from ten Hong Kong students in a Mainland university located in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) suggested that their distinct peer networks were based on the complex mixture of Cantonese speaker identity and origin of place. Associated with the friendship ties was the pastoral care received from university counsellors, who sometimes also assumed an intermediary role in steering the participants toward valued resources. These campus-based social networks complemented existing home-based relations and together created a home away from home. However, a lack of networking with wider university faculty and domestic students negatively impacted their border-crossing learning and socialising experiences, contrary to the Chinese government’s policy and efforts to integrate Hong Kong youth into Mainland China. Copyright © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.