This paper employs the notion of a "career script" as a conceptual basis to examine how age-based academic career norms are internalized, strategized, and reproduced among PhD students aspiring to become academics. It draws on interviews with 70 PhD students at leading universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau that were…

This study aimed to 1) study the current situation of students' career values in the higher vocational college in Hunan province, 2) study strategies for sustainable development of students' career values in the higher vocational college in Hunan province, and 3) evaluate the feasibility of the strategies for sustainable development students'…

Following Bourdieu's classic work on habitus and field, scholars use habitus fit/misfit to distinguish students' college experience but how students' experiences habitus misfit and transformation in relation to their career preparation process remains understudied. This study conducted longitudinal in-depth interviews with 32 students at an elite…

The sustainable development of higher education in China has been a key priority for the national, social, economic and political development. Responding to the severe competition in various university ranking systems, most universities in China have set aims to enhance their sustainability in research and publication. There has been a prominent…

Academic identity formation is strongly influenced by higher education contexts. In the past decades, the Chinese higher education sector has attempted to integrate academic internationalization at the local level. In this context, international returnees and locally trained scholars may encounter different issues in the process of constructing…

The vast majority of Chinese universities have embraced higher education reform that emphasizes a "publish or perish" ideology. This brings challenges to the early-career academics, especially those working in language-related fields. This paper employs a multiple case study to explore the identity tension of early career academics in…

The post-pandemic era might witness a shifting landscape of international higher education, partially reflected by a restructuring of international student mobility (ISM) patterns. Notably, there is a nascent trend of Chinese returnees with degrees from Anglo-American universities pursuing doctoral studies at home. Previous research concentrates…

This paper proposes a unique framework for comparative analysis of different Adult Higher Education (AHE) systems. The framework combines, a conceptualisation of how students' outcomes are shaped by the way that they and their degree courses are positioned in stratified higher education systems with, insights about the effects of institutional…

This doctoral study explores how early career academics experience their sense of belonging to the academic profession and how they experience the teaching research nexus during the transition of their institution from a teaching- to a research-led environment with an ethnography-informed phenomenology approach. Moreover, it examines the…

A significant increase in internationally mobile students has been observed in the past decades. With the strong intention of enhancing their competitiveness in the global labour market, a growing number of students have embarked on their learning journeys through studying abroad or enrolling in transnational Higher Education programmes. These…

The purpose of this study is to explore the employment opportunities and challenges facing Lao graduates who studied abroad in China and returned home after graduation. A qualitative method was employed by utilizing semi-structured interviews with 17 Chinese-educated Lao graduates who now live in Laos. The findings revealed that although returning…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the push-pull factors and motivations of African and Asian international students in Chinese universities. Design/methodology/approach: Concurrent mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) design was used. The quantitative component included 537 Africans and Asians from five notable universities,…

This study investigates changes to academic work life under recent employment reform in the Chinese Mainland. It employs a mixed-methods research approach, first conducting a survey of 1,770 teachers at nine universities in Mainland China. These nine universities consist of first-tier, second-tier, and ordinary universities. Next, through a…

This paper reports the quantitative findings of a study on conceptions of positive career outcomes held by Chinese students who returned home to work after gaining higher education qualifications in Australia. The study explores what positive career outcomes mean to Chinese returnees, the actual positive career outcomes Chinese returnees have…

Over the past decade or so, Chinese government has been strategically luring back overseas Chinese high-fliers to strengthen science, technology, and higher education. One of the major initiatives is the Thousand Youth Talents Scheme (TYTS) launched in 2011. By 2017, 2980 Thousand Youth Talents Scheme scholars (TYTSs) had been recruited into…