“Are you getting stronger?” a study on Chinese international doctoral students’ experience with the stigma and racism during COVID-19 outbreak

• In Event: Compararative approaches to higher education strategies of teaching and learning

Proposal

Background
The COVID-19 outbreak has a great impact on our world. Higher education institutions adopt different methods to maintain the order of universities and colleges. However during the pandemic, Chinese students studying in the United States have been experiencing racial discrimination and stigma for epidemic, political, historical, economic and geographic reasons(Tessler et al., 2020). These negative biases arise from social media, everyday life, classes, and many scenarios in higher education(Xu et al., 2021). Chinese students are under stressed and humiliation, but they also receive positive help and treatment. Doctoral students are a special part of the student group, as they have multiple identities in higher education field(Colbeck, 2008). So Chinese doctoral students’ experience deserves special attention. Therefore, the questions to be explored in this study can be classified as the following: First, whether Chinese doctoral students studying in the United State have been subjected to new acts of racism and stigma as a result of the COVID-19. Second, what kinds of explicit and implicit negative biases do Chinese doctoral students studying in the United State have experienced. Third, how Chinese doctoral students studying in the United State cope with and learn from these negative biases and help themselves achieve better academic performance afterwards.
To answer these questions, this study will begin with a brief overview of the stage of the outbreak, especially the epidemic prevention policy process in China and the United States. Secondly, I will interview and analyze the experience of Chinese doctoral students studying in the United States. Combined with the theoretical basis of stigma and the research framework of social network, the stigmatization experience of Chinese doctoral students will be defined and analyzed. Thirdly, the study will carefully examine the behaviors and initiatives of Chinese doctoral students to deal with stigma and summarize the impact of these experiences on their academic development.

Theoretical Framework
Social psychologists define stigma as individual characteristics and individual cognitive process on negative attributes(Gilbert et al., 1998), but sociologists place stigma in a broad umbrella concept and construct a theoretical framework for it. As what was stated in Link and Phelan’s stigma research, stigmatization happens when contingent social, economic and political power constructs stereotype, separations, labeling, status of loss, and discrimination (Link & Phelan, 2001). The origins of stigma can be imputed to cognitive process which is necessary but insufficient(Link et al., 1987). The power that have the upper hand in economic, political, cultural and other areas will have more influence over the labeled groups(Link & Phelan, 2001). Then Link and Phelan built up their stigma model, which includes five components: labeling, stereotyping, cognitive separation, emotional reactions status, and loss and discrimination (BG et al., 2004). The stigma model was developed in a case study in China. Patients stigma experience extended to their families and other group that has interacted with them (Lee et al., 2005). Thus researchers links structured stigma to social network and then examined and revised the stigma model.
In order to study the stigmatization experience of Chinese doctoral students in the United States during the COVID-19, this research adopts the theory of stigma and social network. The stigma model is modified on the basis of the theoretical framework of Link and Phelan. Social network theory serves as framework to identify doctoral student’s academic activities that reflecting to both negative bias and positive support.

Methodology
To facilitate a deep investigation, this study employed a qualitative methodology. The study invited 10 doctoral students who were admitted to colleges and universities in the United States by 2019 and did not return to China during the outbreak and continue their studies here today. In order to militate the limitation, recruitment is purposefully designed to meet the demographic diversity of sampling. From a geographic point of view, 10 students are from 10 different private and public universities in east-north part, middle part, west-north and north part of the United States. They are gender balanced and have different majors and research areas. To overcome physical constraints, online one-on-one semi-structured interview will be conducted, and each will be around 60 minutes. The interviews are designed to encourage them to share their experience and feeling about how they deal with stigma and discrimination since outbreak. They will be asked to summarize what approaches were used, what help was received to help them overcome negative biases, and to reflect on the impact of these experiences gathering during the outbreak on their academic careers. All transcripts will be transported into NVivo 12 for a thematic analysis informed by the data and the theoretical underpinnings adopted by the study. After the interview, a set of hierarchical themes will be refined, reviewed and defined through qualitative data analysis methods.

Expected findings and results
Because the interview are ongoing and I have not obtained the final results, I list the expected results in a hypothetical way in the research proposal. According to the theoretical basis and conceptual framework of the study, the stigmatization experience of Chinese doctoral students studying in the United States will be divided into five stages, including: labeling and stereotype, cognitive separation, emotional reflections, chaotic discrimination, clarification and neglect. According to the interview results and the social network framework, the coping strategies of Chinese doctoral students will be presented in three broad ways, including self-discipline and rigorous prevention, seeking group strength and close ties to the community, and actively resisting stigma and just behavior.
The study assumes that the higher education system as a whole provides structural protection, making the source of the stigma of Chinese doctoral students more monotonous. It IS assumed that the way Chinese doctoral students deal with stigma is diverse and powerful, because their status as students, academics and faculty ties them more closely to the academic community. But stigma still has very significant influence on Chinese doctoral students as for stress, anxiety and negative emotional effects. However these experiences also exercise the ability of doctoral students to handle their studies and lives, helping them to better develop their academic careers.

Author

• Anli Peng, UMD