ABSTRACT
In this study, Chinese female Ph.D. returnees' diasporic experience when entering into the domestic academic job market (DAJM) was examined from an ecological environment perspective. This was realized through an autoethnographic narrative of the author's lived experience of entering the DAJM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a recollection of the narrative recorded through E-diaries, emails, and visual media, specifically WeChat, from April 2020 to May 2021, the findings revealed that such a diasporic experience comprised diasporic emotion because of expectational pressures in the microsystem, diasporic identity conflict that originated from gender stereotypes in the mesosystem, self-reflexive diasporic consciousness of both disadvantages and advantages related to "Guanxi" (social networks) in the exosystem, the diasporic feeling of being "exiled" in the DAJM given the academic culture in relation to degree origin bias and prioritizing publications in the macrosystem, and the self-constructed diasporic mindset that experienced uncertainties and anxieties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the chronosystem. This study facilitated a sociological exposition and understanding of the complex situation of Ph.D. returnees' experience of entering the DAJM. It calls for a shifting of "blaming the victims" risk in relation to "hard" indicators regarding Ph.D. returnees' competitiveness and employability in the DAJM. This has implications for both academic and recruiting practices in China. Furthermore, this study offers future overseas doctoral students and Ph.D. returnees a more practical sense of the potential mobility frictions embedded in transnational education mobility in relation to their job-seeking experience in homelands.
ABSTRACT
Research from various national contexts has shown that less privileged parents face various barriers when developing relationships with teachers compared to their more privileged counterparts. Chinese rural citizens have been disadvantaged within the hukou system, where existing studies have shown various and complex inequalities as regards rural parent-teacher relations. Such complexities, this article argues, might contribute to the ongoing discussions on the integration of Bourdieu's and Coleman's approaches to social capital. Informed by Bourdieu's three moments of field analysis, this study presents three core themes as regards Chinese rural parent-teacher relations: physical separation, social distance, and kinship sentiments. Through qualitatively exploring the life stories of a group of Chinese rural students before their entry to elite universities, this article bridges Bourdieu's social reproduction stance and Coleman's productive view in relation to social capital.
ABSTRACT
Digitalization provides opportunities for sustainable development. Cultivating postgraduates’ digital skills is an important task of higher education to support sustainable development (HESD). As a crucial way of cultivating digital skills, high-quality online learning processes are of great significance to achieve “Quality Education”, in line with the 2030 sustainable development agenda. Based on Biggs’s 3P (Presage-Process-Product) learning model, this study focused on the whole learning process and explored the relationship among postgraduates’ information literacy, online platforms, online knowledge-sharing processes and their innovation performance. The analysis of a questionnaire survey of 501 Chinese postgraduates showed that (1) information literacy has a positively predictive effect on postgraduates’ innovation performance;(2) different online learning processes lead to different learning results. Compared to the quantity-oriented online knowledge sharing process (Qty-KSP), the quality-oriented online knowledge sharing process (Qlty-KSP) is related to better innovation performance, which opens onto this study’s third finding: (3) Qty-KSP and Qlty-KSP play a parallel mediating effect between postgraduates’ information literacy and their innovation performance. Compared to Qty-KSP, Qlty-KSP is a more powerful intermediary variable, which leads to this study’s fourth finding;(4) an efficient online learning environment can contribute to higher-quality online learning process, thus improving postgraduates’ innovative performance. This study suggests that policy makers should develop postgraduates’ digital skills for sustainable development in the digital age. This can be achieved by (1) cultivating postgraduates’ information literacy;(2) encouraging them to practice high-quality online learning processes;and (3) providing an efficient sharing platform for sustainability, resilience, and digitalization in higher education.