Do Chinese students understand plagiarism?

Last month it was reported that British universities are teetering on the edge of a financial crisis. But there are more subtle problems at hand as well. A particularly interesting article in Times Higher Education explains that many Chinese students are being disciplined over plagiarism because they do not understand the meaning of academic integrity.

Julija Jones, a teaching fellow at the University of Southampton, writes that “Chinese culture has an entirely different understanding of intellectual property and academic integrity”, saying that some students have “other perspectives”. She writes: “Harmony is one of the qualities of Chinese society that strongly underpin the belief that all parts of a community may be used by its members for a greater benefit, and this includes individual intellectual property.”

In 2021-22, 27% of non-EU students in the UK, around 151,000, were from China — an increase of 186% from 2011. That’s potentially a lot of students who don’t understand that you can’t simply copy others’ work…