Navigating gender and hierarchies as university leaders: a Bourdieusian analysis of women’s leadership in China’s hierarchised higher education field

In this Bourdieusian analysis, we explore the intersection of gender and leadership within China's hierarchised higher-education sector. A key contribution is our conceptualisation of ‘concentric multi-fields,' illustrating how actors navigate competing logics from the higher-education field and the overarching field of power, which, we argue, is where gendered doxic logics are primarily located. Through narrative analysis of two senior women leaders, distally positioned in the HE field, we argue first that leaders embody their hierarchised institution's habitus; second, participants' field positions are demonstrated in how they conceptualise and ‘do’ leadership; and third, gender interplays with the resulting forms of leadership to reveal the strategic and instinctive deployment of capitals from the HE field and also the field of power that concentrically encompasses it. The study advances understanding of power dynamics in higher education, calling for intersectional methodologies to critically examine leadership and social reproduction in non-Western contexts.