Staff profile
| Affiliation |
|---|
| Research Student in the School of Education |
Biography
Zhiyun Bian (Lisa) is a PhD student in the School of Education at Durham University, funded by the ESRC NINE DTP Doctoral Studentship.
Her doctoral research focuses on a group of disadvantaged higher education students who self-identify as ’98five(s)’ - trash or losers at elite ‘Project 985’ universities in China. In the policy context of the Double First-Class Project, her study examines how these students negotiate their identities and reinforce or resist dominant societal discourses in China.
Zhiyun is currently working as a Foundation Fellow for the Durham Foundation Year Programme.
She holds a BA in English Language and Translation from East China Normal University, and an Undergraduate Advanced Diploma in British and European Studies from University of Oxford (Distinction), and an MA in Education, Policy and Society from King’s College London (Distinction). Her master’s thesis employed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate the recontextualization process of the global discourse of human capital within the higher education policy discourses in China, and how conflicts were negotiated (at discourse level) when human capital are paired with a seemingly contradictory socialism ideology.
Her provisional PhD thesis title is Rebels Against What? Understanding ’98Five’ and Their Identity Construction in the Chinese Context of World-Class University Movement