Challenging the Elite Imaginary: Chinese Students’ Precarious Labour, Symbolic Agency, and Identity Negotiation in UK Higher Education

• In Event: Navigating Identity and Political Context in Higher Education Settings

Abstract

Chinese international students are often portrayed as globally privileged, yet many undertake low‑skilled part‑time work in the UK. This mixed‑methods study (survey n=253; interviews n=25) interrogates this paradox, conceptualising such employment as symbolic participation shaped by limited convertibility of cultural capital and racialised exclusions. Rather than solely economic necessity, these jobs become sites of identity negotiation, emotional anchoring, and strategic social presence within exclusionary institutional fields. Findings unsettle the “elite international student” narrative and highlight overlooked social class stratifications within global higher education. This research contributes an intersectional understanding of migration, labour, and educational inequality, while calling for institutional attention to students’ lived experiences and the hidden precarity embedded within transnational education systems.

Author

• Junzhe Gu, University of Cambridge