When Constraint Becomes Resource: Resilience and Researcher Identity Formation Among International Doctoral Students in Chinese Universities

Existing research on resilience among doctoral students largely concentrates on Western countries, despite the swift globalization of doctoral education. This study analyzes the strategies employed by international doctoral students in Chinese higher education for enduring challenging situations and forming researcher identities. This study is grounded by the resilience process frameworks of Masten (2001) and Ungar (2011). This study used semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis for the data of 10 international doctoral students across 4 Chinese universities. Empowerment, deliberate coping, network building, and systems navigation were the central components of resilience as a process. Participants experienced the intersection of numerous pressures, including research and publication-related pressures, financial and linguistic pressures and barriers, institutional pressures and barriers, and the emotional toll of family separation. The nature of the pressures and barriers resulting in the family separation and emotional distress of the participants is discussed. The study also challenges the current narratives that are based on the adjustment and survival of international students and calls for more systemic research and training within the field to integrate students within the academic community to strengthen the structures of doctoral education.