At the intersection of policy and digital tools: Boundary work and professional identity among Chinese schoolteachers and shadow-education tutors under the double reduction policy

Abstract

China's Double Reduction Policy (DRP) restricts private tutoring and expands school-based after-school services. At the same time, digital and AI-supported tools are changing how teachers organise, monitor, and justify their work. These forces are usually studied separately. Based on semi-structured interviews with 24 educators in Sichuan (12 schoolteachers and 12 shadow-education tutors), this reflexive thematic analysis examines how policy and tool-mediated work jointly reshape professional identity through boundary work. The findings show three linked processes. First, DRP makes legitimacy more visibly graded across tenured teachers, non-tenured teachers, and tutors. Second, AI-supported systems and broader digital tools generate different forms of checking, monitoring, and replaceability anxiety. Third, participants use policy language and tool talk to claim legitimacy, compliance, and human judgement under unequal risk exposure. The study contributes to international debates on regulation, digitalisation, and teacher identity.