‘Shi men’ as key doctoral practice: understanding international doctoral students’ learning communities and research culture in China

ABSTRACT

Research has been widely conducted to understand international student mobility, particularly from Global South to North. However, there is little attention paid to international doctoral students’ research and learning experiences in non-traditional destinations, particularly in the Chinese context. Drawing upon the concept of Communities of Practice, we administered semi-structured interviews with six international doctoral students and their supervisors at a prestigious Chinese university to understand how they experienced intercultural research and supervision in ‘shi men’, a culturally and pedagogically informed collective and semi-closed learning community. Our research findings help elucidate how the different social and academic practices have created various types of ‘shi men’. Each of these academic families reflects the unique features of doctoral learning in China and has implications for international doctoral students’ overall learning experience. This timely study offers distinct insights into cross-cultural learning, research, and supervision practices in China.

KEYWORDS:

• International student
• doctoral education
• supervision
• research experience
• Chinese higher education
• Community of Practice

Acknowledgments

We appreciate research participants’ sharing their experiences with us, and we also thank the reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. WeChat is a popular app for everyday communication in China.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kun Dai

Dr Kun Dai is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Educational Administration and Policy, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests are international student mobility, transnational education, and teaching and learning in higher education. Dr Dai serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of International Students and an Editorial Board Member of Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.

Dely Lazarte Elliot

Dr Dely Lazarte Elliot is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education, University of Glasgow. With Dely’s international and interdisciplinary background in Education (the Philippines), Counselling Psychology (Thailand) and Psychology of Education (UK), her research interests lie at the intersection of educational & cultural psychology and higher education. To date, Dely has served as Principal Investigator for several externally- and internally-funded projects, while contributing to numerous research projects in education & educational psychology.