Constructing Chinese Overseas Master’s Students’ Identities in Marketised Higher Education: A Discourse-Historical Analysis of Xiaohongshu

Abstract

Social media provide an important space in which international students narrate overseas study and construct identities. Existing research on Chinese students’ social media practices has mainly focused on doctoral students, with less attention to master’s students’ everyday textual posts. This study uses the Discourse-Historical Approach to examine 67 Xiaohongshu posts from 64 accounts. It identifies four recurring identities: the deserving study-abroad self, the rational educational investor, the entrepreneurial self and the transformative self. Posters legitimised overseas education through effort, family sacrifice, cost, risk and anticipated return, while also presenting themselves as responsible for improving their abilities and future value. Retrospective accounts of hardship further supported claims of independence and personal transformation. However, some posts also questioned established ideas about productivity and success. The findings show how Chinese master’s students negotiate market-oriented understandings of educational and personal value through everyday digital discourse.