Self-perceived identities of female doctoral students in mobility: Empowered transformation or eroding academic commitment?

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 3:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Belonging & Identity: Diverse Doctoral Journeys

Abstract

This study explores how Chinese female doctoral students construct identities in transnational contexts. Using Kaufman and Feldman’s (2004) framework of intelligence, occupation, and cosmopolitanism alongside intersectionality theory, it analyzes interviews with 35 participants. Four identity types emerge: mobile academics, mobile non-academics, returning academics, and returning non-academics. Mobility influences academic careers by either intensifying aspirations (“heating” effect) or prompting withdrawal (“cooling” effect). Underpinning these processes is the intersection of geography and gender, where different sociocultural and institutional contexts impose distinct gendered expectations, shaping how students negotiate their identities and career paths. The study emphasizes transnational mobility as a reflexive transition across sociocultural environments, which involves reflexivity and contributes to the reproduction or transformation of existing gendered power structures.

Authors

• Jialu Wang, Peking University

• Fengyi Lin, Peking University

• Wenqin Shen, Peking University