Chinese students’ perspectives on learner identity

Abstract

To gain insight into Chinese students’ perspectives on their education, this study examines how they construct their learner identities by navigating multiple subject positions both at school and in their families. Drawing on the frame of learner identity formation and the concepts of Western and Confucian ways of being, thematic analysis is applied to analyse the educational experiences of final-year students (N = 479) at a public middle school in China. The analysis shows the push and pull between various subject positions, such as the exam-oriented self, the enterprising self, the familial self and the free and happy self, around the theme of competition. It highlights the multiplicity and complexities of Chinese students’ identification. This study illustrates the value of Western and Confucian ways of being as conceptual tools in identity studies and initiates a discussion on re-defining Chinese education through students’ identity-formation experiences.