Reconstructing Academic Identity in a Chinese Vocational College: A Collaborative Self-as-Data Narrative Study
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: This study examines how a doctoral graduate reconstructs academic identity after entering a Chinese vocational college, a non-traditional academic field shaped by academic drift, institutional hierarchy, and changing expectations of doctoral faculty. Using a collaborative self-as-data narrative inquiry, the study draws on the narrator-author’s self-narrative and professional records, which were critically examined through dialogue with a peer interlocutor. Framed by an integrated Sen-Bourdieu approach, the analysis traces three phases of identity reconstruction: initial disruption during field transition, negotiation through role relocation and capital conversion, and partial consolidation of a hybrid academic identity. The analysis suggests that, in this case, doctoral capital did not carry stable value across institutional fields. Rather, its meaning depends on field-specific rules of recognition and on the conversion factors that enable or constrain its transformation into valued academic practices. The study offers a case-based interpretation of academic identity reconstruction as more than role adaptation or symbolic loss, but a process of reflexive habitus adjustment and capability expansion within structural constraints.
Source: Research Square
Authors: Xueer Chen, Xiaorong Xie
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7203699113