Navigating multiple expectations: Chinese female university teachers’ identity performance on social media

This study investigates the intricacies of Chinese female university teachers’ identity performance on social media using a digital ethnographic approach. Data were collected through tracking 15 participants’ posts on WeChat and maintaining informal communications with them over one academic year. Altogether 691 posts were collected and analysed by using multimodal discourse analysis. Findings showed that participants presented themselves as committed and stressed teacher, well-informed and capable housewife, and self-pleasing and self-regulated intellectual. These identities revealed the complexities of female teachers’ self-authorship in relation to the sociocultural and institutional expectations. Their identity performance shed new light on the imbrication of Confucian gender heritage, post-reform ideologies and the neoliberal ethos in the unique Chinese context. The study also provided insights into how social media can create a discourse space for teachers’ active self-presentation for the purpose of personal and professional wellbeing.