Leiden University Student Repository

Peeters, Robbie (2015)

Psychology of the Educated Mind: a multidisciplinary approach to the experience of academic stress in the People’s Republic of China and the role of psychology

Master thesis | Asian Studies (60 EC) (MA)

This thesis raises the point that incorporating bottom-up understandings of psychology in Chinese society can give us a more complete outlook on the level of development of psychology in the nation. This is done by using academic stress as the focus of research. By looking at Chinese internet sources of everyday situations of academic stress and analyzing these with the help of Foucauldian thought and the theory of “Interpretive Perspective”, these results are compared to the current state of psychology as an academic discourse in China. It is concluded that psychology is indeed much more developed in China than top-down academic discourse may give it credit for. Furthermore, a more complete account on how academic stress is experienced by students in China is given by integrating primary internet sources with secondary literature and finds that academic stress is not expressed the same by all students.

China

academic stress

psychology

top-down

bottom-up

multidisciplinary

gaokao

Asian studies

Author

Peeters, Robbie

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Politics, Society and Economy of Asia

Supervisors

Salmenkari, Taru

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en