This article examines how social class and gender intersect to shape educational experiences and aspirations of Chinese international postgraduate students’ in the UK. Drawing on qualitative longitudinal research with 25 Chinese taught postgraduate students, the study explores how family socio-economic background structures access to financial, cultural and social resources over one academic year. Using the concepts of ‘privileged dependence’ and ‘precarious autonomy’, the findings demonstrate that middle-class students benefit from sustained parental support, whereases working-class students experience autonomy as economically constrained and risk-laden. Beyond the influence of social class, these dynamics are also shaped intersectionally by sociocultural expectations around gender. The study thus conceptualises ‘privileged dependence’ and ‘precarious autonomy’ as dynamic ‘classed’ and ‘gendered’ processes, contributing to intersectional research on international student mobility.
Hu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.