“Counterattack” as a Belief? A Structural Analysis of the Postgraduate Entrance Exam Publicity in Vocational Undergraduate Education

Abstract

 In the publicity of the first batch of vocational undergraduate pilot institutions, the “counterattack narrative” occupies a central position: students start from the “low starting point” of secondary vocational or higher vocational education and finally “land ashore” to pursue a master's degree through personal struggle. Based on publicly available publicity materials from 15 national pilot vocational undergraduate institutions, this paper systematically analyzes the generation mechanism of this narrative. The study finds that the “counterattack narrative” is not a simple publicity strategy, but a phenomenon of “legitimacy compensation” jointly formed by institutions and students in the institutional gap between the orientation of “type education” and the disconnection of the social evaluation system. When “landing ashore” becomes the mainstream narrative, the “type” orientation of vocational education faces the risk of being hollowed out. The article analyzes the underlying reasons for this phenomenon from three levels: student choice, institutional strategy, and institutional environment, and puts forward corresponding institutional improvement suggestions.