How are ‘Chinese doctoral supervisors’ working in Western academia portrayed in the online community of Zhihu?

• In Event: Globalization and Education: Practices, Insights and Varied Analyses

Proposal

Research focus and research questions
The image of Chinese doctoral supervisors (huaren daoshi 华人导师) working in Western academia is riddled with stereotypes in urban myths but little research to date has been conducted on these portrayals of Chinese supervisors. This paper contends that online discussions about ‘Chinese doctoral supervisors’ working in Western academia on social media platforms such as Zhihu can be likened to a process where the electronic Word of Mouth of these supervisors is constructed. Considering how social media can reinforce, perpetuate, or challenge stereotypes, and noting the instrumental roles that social media play in informing international postgraduate students’ higher education decision-making process, this paper seeks to (1) investigate how the ‘Chinese doctoral supervisors’ working in Western academia are portrayed and debated over on such digital spaces as well as (2) uncover what shapes such perceptions and portrayals. As such, this paper’s focus on the digital and online representations of ‘Chinese doctoral supervisors’ links closely to the CIES 2025’s topic of ‘envisioning education in a digital society’.
Theoretical framework: neo-racism and epistemic injustice through post-colonial lenses
The Zhihu comments examined in this study are particularly situated in ‘historically White institutions (HWIs hereafter)’ (Ford, 2011, p. 445) located in the West, especially countries that attract many Chinese international students, and an increasing proportion of Chinese academics, such as the UK, the US, and Australia. There are four characteristics of such HWIs.
Firstly, even though such institutions may be in cities and communities that are culturally and linguistically diverse, they have ‘institutional leanings towards English and [] Anglocentricity’ (Fay et al., 2021, p. 105). Such leanings are deeply enmeshed in a global scholarly environment where academic research, publication, and dissemination have been overwhelmingly dominated by English (Erdocia & Soler, 2023).
Secondly, these HWIs’ practices often uphold and reinforce what postcolonial scholars identify as Eurocentric and Western domination of former colonial subjects (Said, 2003 [1978]). In the context of HWIs, the ‘enlightened’ coloniser is usually embodied through the persona of a White academic having English as their native tongue. Especially for personnels holding positions of authority, such as being a doctoral supervisor, there is the image of an ‘ideal professor’ (Ford, 2011, p.453) that contradicts with any non-White bodies.
A third characteristic of such HWIs is the practice of ‘neo-racism’ (Lee, 2020; Lee & Li, 2023). Neo-racism is ‘a new racism that is not based on the color of one’s skin alone but includes stereotypes about cultures in a globalizing world’ (Lee, 2020, pp. i-ii). Such stereotypes conveniently establish ‘a hierarchy of cultural preferences’ or ‘national ordering’ of immigrants or ‘internationals’. Concomitantly, certain immigrants are more welcomed, readily accepted than others. ‘Ultimately, neo-racism is rooted in White supremacy’ (Lee, 2020, pp. i-ii).
A final characteristic is that, within such Western HWIs, ‘epistemic injustice’ (Fricker, 2007) is often exercised against the ‘subaltern’ subjects (Spivak, 2015 [1988]). Fricker (2007) defines epistemic injustice as ‘a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower’ (Introduction, para. 1). Of the two forms of epistemic injustice (including testimonial and hermeneutical injustice) she identifies, testimonial injustice appears particularly relevant in this study. ‘Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word’ (Fricker, 2007, Introduction, para. 1).
A brief note on Zhihu and methods
To address the research questions, this article engages with qualitative data collected from Zhihu, which is China’s biggest question-and-answer knowledge-sharing website used by around 15% of the country’s Internet users (CNNIC, 2018), exceeding 220 million by the end of 2018. Importantly, Zhihu boasts as a platform where professional and trustworthy answers are provided to question posers as the platform enables its users to provide ‘quality, argumentative and information-rich postings’ (Zhang, 2020, p. 96).
I searched and identified Zhihu posts using a range of keywords and different combinations of these keywords, including but not limited to: 华人导师 (huaren daoshi, Chinese supervisors)，海外 (haiwai, overseas)，留学 (liuxue, studying abroad)，美国 (the USA)，英国 (the UK)，澳大利亚 (Australia)，中国人 (zhongguoren, Chinese)，亚洲 (Asia), and 亚裔 (yayi, Asian). In total I collected 9 Q and A posts, among which the top five questions had attracted more than 10 responses each, with 368, 43, 19, 16, and 14 responses respectively. The latest comments were made in January 2024. The analysis focused on these top five Q and A posts and their comments, composing around 450 postings which are answers to questions on topics about how Chinese supervisors are perceived.
Findings and contributions
This paper identifies three images depicted of the Chinese supervisors as (1) ambitious and supportive, (2) sneaky and exploitative, and (3) colonised. While the second and third images are more negative, the first image is overwhelmingly positive. In examining these portrayals, this article further highlights two key underlying structural forces that shaped such portrayals and debates. It pinpoints how this Zhihu community displayed profound yet only partial recognition of the steep ethnic/racial hierarchy in Western academia and perpetuates epistemic injustice over supervisors and PGR researchers from working-class and rural backgrounds.
This article makes contributions to the literature in three ways. Firstly, this article is among the first to demonstrate empirically how Chinese doctoral supervisors working in historically White Western academia are portrayed and understood by users of China’s largest CQA site, Zhihu. The range of images depicted of these Chinese supervisors are helpful for prospective PGR students from China, and can also be illuminating for university administrators and PGR admission professionals in Western HEIs. Secondly, the profound yet partial recognition of the ethnic/racial hierarchy in Western doctoral education sphere conveyed in this Zhihu community points to future directions for Equality and Diversity as well as decolonising work with an aim to fostering greater racial and ethnic. Thirdly, this article makes conceptual contributions by evidencing how neo-racism and epistemic injustice can be exercised by an oppressed group on themselves.

Author

• Cora Lingling Xu, Durham University UK