Figuring the Field: Understanding Academic Returnees' Challenges of Post-Return Cultural Adaptation in Chinese Elite Universities

By adopting a Bourdieuian lens, this study gathers qualitative data via in-depth interviews with 30 Chinese academic returnees from eight elite Chinese universities in Shanghai and Guangzhou to investigate the complex interplay between academic returnees and the embedding Chinese higher education system. Findings reveal that returnees have been facing various difficulties in understanding the logic of practices governing the Chinese higher education field. More importantly, such challenges could hardly be solved in the initial return period and are likely to exist in their post-return professional development continuously. Therefore, it is expected that this study's findings could offer an alternative perspective to understanding the academic returnees’ cultural maladaptation phenomenon by going beyond discussing cultural differences.