Drawing upon the mutually constitutive notions of possible selves and agency, this study illuminates how maintaining a future orientation in doctoral education acts to supply candidates with a pivotal sense of direction and drive their experimentation with disparate pathways to realise their academic career aspirations. In-depth analysis of two…

This paper employs the notion of a "career script" as a conceptual basis to examine how age-based academic career norms are internalized, strategized, and reproduced among PhD students aspiring to become academics. It draws on interviews with 70 PhD students at leading universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau that were…

Given the intricate and competitive global academic landscape and Chinese female PhDs' critical situation of being marginalized and otherized, this study aims to examine the academic career decision-making experiences of three unmarried and childless Chinese female PhD graduates. Collaborative autoethnography is employed to delve into the three…

This small-scale exploratory qualitative study examined the career decision-making process of six talented engineering university graduates in Hong Kong. The aim was to investigate major influential factors and barriers that impact their career aspirations and their persistence in remaining in that career. Semi-structured interviews were conducted…

Research on the career trajectories of doctoral recipients often assumes that all PhD students begin in roughly the same starting position. Consequently, the impact of pre-programme experiences remains understudied. This qualitative study draws on 59 interviews with PhD students studying in mainland China and Hong Kong to explore the influence of…

This study examined the future perceptions of Israeli and Hong Kong young adults focusing on three aspects: (a) time horizon (how far into the future participants envision), (b) future life roles on which they focus, and (c) emotions towards their perceived future. Twenty students took part in semi-structured interviews. Israeli participants…

Students build up their STEM career interest based on their experiences. However, it remains unclear how students reflect on their STEM experiences in light of their understanding of STEM careers. This study aimed to explore how students relate their practices in STEM project-based learning (PBL) with their perceptions of scientists' and…

This study provides insights into how Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong interpret the concept of "meaning in life." Data were collected from nine focus groups involving 57 junior secondary school students (age range: 13 to 16 years). It was found that students tended to interpret meaning in life as equivalent to "having a plan for a…

Students' social identity is considered to have profound effects on their learning and academic performance, but there was a lack of research on whether students' social identity would also influence their aspirations to pursue STEM careers. This research studied the associations between the social identity of students and their aspirations to…

Publication pressure is perceived to be filtering down into doctoral education worldwide. We explore the causes and effects of the perceived centrality of publishing among doctoral students, emphasising the impact of publication pressure on students' identity trajectories. We draw on a qualitative analysis of 90 mainland Chinese doctoral students…

While many career development theories (e.g., Gottfredson, in: Brown SD, Lent RW (eds), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work, Wiley, Hoboken, 2005) posit that occupational perceptions are fundamental for understanding youngsters' career aspirations, research relating school students' perceptions of engineers and…

Outcome-focused career goals are concerned about studying for tangible career benefits. To what extent do these goals motivate distance learners to learn? Using a mixed-method design, Study 1 found that career-focused learners, when compared with noncareer-focused counterparts, had a propensity to endorse outcome-focused career goals, use surface…

There have been increasing concerns about the significant decline in teenagers' intentions to pursue STEM subjects or careers. This study examined how students' perceptions of parental expectations, STEM cultural capital, mathematics/science self-efficacy, gender, and parents' jobs were associated with STEM career aspirations and tested whether…

Research has shown that foreign languages can be an important driver towards better job opportunities. This is more likely to be the case if young people take foreign languages into account when developing their career and educational expectations. These expectations depend greatly on the context and the opportunities students perceive to be…

This article provides a critical sociological examination of how Hong Kong youth's relationship towards Chinese identity and China is negotiated vis-a-vis schooling, language policy, and the broader Hong Kong postcolonial condition, and how this mediates these students' aspirational imaginations regarding possibilities of studying and working in…