Ambivalent Perceptions of Beauty and Fashion: A Qualitative Study of Chinese Female Students Studying in British Universities

Abstract

The research explored the experiences of Chinese female students studying in the UK concerning fashion and beauty by investigating the students' definitions of beauty and exploring how social media exposure in different countries and living in a new country affect their perceptions of beauty. This research answered this question through qualitative methods, recruited participants by purposive sampling, collected data through semi-structured interviews, and drown conclusions by thematic analysis. Chinese female international students' definitions of "beauty" are diverse, and they try to achieve their ideal beauty through fitness and exercise. Chinese social media platforms affect students' beauty perception more than foreign media platforms, and these influences are negative. In addition, conservativeness and close kinship in the Chinese social and cultural background are the factors limiting the perception and expression of "beauty" by Chinese female international students. However, their beauty perception changed when they moved from the Chinese social culture to the UK, so social and cultural backgrounds may influence their beauty perception more than social media in a cross-cultural context. Because the cross-cultural and social media environments are complex and dynamic, the efforts of female international students to find appropriate methods for beauty perception and identity construction in the process of cross-cultural adaptation are far more complicated than we imagine.



Author Information
Guan Wang, The University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Paper Information
Conference: BAMC2022
Stream: Cultural Studies

This paper is part of the BAMC2022 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Wang G. (2022) Ambivalent Perceptions of Beauty and Fashion: A Qualitative Study of Chinese Female Students Studying in British Universities ISSN: 2435-9475 – The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2022: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-9475.2022.14
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-9475.2022.14


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon