Examining the after-school study burden of Chinese secondary school students following burden reduction policies: a sociological analysis

Abstract

Background

To address the significant issue of students’ heavy after-school study burden, many countries have enacted relevant policies. However, the effects of policy implementation are not always desirable. This study is informed by an analysis of how dominant social imaginaries and discourses in China—emphasizing accountability, performativity, competitiveness, and capital accrual—contribute to students’ burdens.

Methods

This case study investigated the after-school study burden of Chinese junior secondary school students following the implementation of burden reduction policies. It involved one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 15 students, 9 parents, and 3 teachers and informal individual or group discussions. Furthermore, the researchers spent nearly three months immersing themselves in the research site, during which period they observed students’ learning status and extracurricular activities. They also reviewed assignments, learning and school extracurricular records, and teachers’ reflexive journals.

Findings

This study found that burden reduction policies have brought some relief to student participants due to tailored assignments, learning support, and diversified after-school programs, although the pressure remained high. The convergence of the pragmatic social imaginary and discourses in China, along with social class dispositions, strongly intervened in the humanistic aims and practices under these policies. Student participants from families of different social classes continued to face heavy after-school study burdens, such as school assignments, private tutoring, and additional exercises, and suffered from emotional stress in their pursuit of better test performance and competitiveness, without breaks in or out of school. Compared to students from higher social class families, student participants from lower social class families focused more on thin exam-oriented learning goals and required more support due to a lack of access to various after-school resources.

Conclusion

The study suggests that all stakeholders (policymakers, school administrators, teachers, parents, and students) collaborate in pursuing humanistic objectives in education, rather than being narrowly governed by the pragmatic social imaginary and related discourses. These stakeholders must engage in meaningful conversations and work together to create a humanistic educational environment, aiming to reduce after-school workload from school and other sources, and promote students’ pressure relief, learning and well-being based on their individual interests, learning progress, and needs.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-025-03199-6.

Introduction

Students in secondary education in many countries (e.g. China, Sweden, India, Ireland, Italy, and Turkey) face heavy academic burdens and emotional stress, mainly related to academic performance in high-stakes exams that determine their future academic journeys [4, 20, 26, 32, 35, 42, 45]. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 report, in addition to the required school schedule, 15-year-old students from more than 17 countries spent more than 20 h on after-school revision (science, mathematics, language-of-instruction, foreign language, and other subjects), including ‘homework, additional instruction and private study’ [29], p. 213). In the same report, Chinese students ranked at the top for reading, mathematics, and science performance, as well as for after-school study time (more than 25 h per week). Indeed, students in basic education in numerous countries have heavy after-school study burdens assigned to them by their schools and private tutors, thereby experiencing tiredness in learning and considerable emotional pressure [8, 10, 42, 45].

To address this significant issue of students’ heavy after-school study burden, in recent decades, some countries (e.g. China and South Korea) have enacted relevant policies and made efforts to reduce students’ study burden in basic education both in and after school [1, 36, 38, 39]. However, the effect of implementing these policies requires further examination. In China, some burden-reduction policies (emphasising humanistic educational goals) have been enacted over the last two decades, including practices such as reducing test numbers and assignment lengths and considering students’ all-round development and well-being [23]. For example, in 2021, the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued Opinions on Further Reducing the Burden of Homework and Off-campus Training for Students in Compulsory Education (the ‘double reduction’ policy), which emphasizes reducing both the burden of after-school study and off-campus training. This includes humanistic goals such as reducing homework, limiting the average homework time for junior secondary school students to no more than 90 min/per day; forbidding repetitive and mechanical homework; limiting the difficulty of examinations to what students have learned in schools; and forbidding test rankings [33]. Additionally, the double reduction policy also urges schools and parents to promote students’ holistic development and offer diversified after-school activities based on their interests and physical and emotional well-being. These very ‘humanistic’ aims are oriented towards alleviating students’ and parents’ pressures and anxiety and promoting students’ holistic development and emotional well-being [39].

However, despite the enactment of relevant policies, previous studies, such as large-scale surveys (e.g. [41, 46]), have shown that there continues to be a strong pressure on junior students, parents, and teachers in different provinces in China, and students still have a heavy after-school study burden to improve their exam performance and sustain emotional stress. These pressures have been attributed to discourses in global and local educational and social fields affected by pragmatic social imaginary(e.g. global neoliberalism) emphasizing students’ performance in standardized exams, their competitiveness in exam rankings, and the accumulation of knowledge, skills, and educational qualifications as cultural capital1 [10, 27, 37–39, 45].

Indeed, conflicts arise between social and educational discourses, specifically from the tension between global neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourse and the contemporary humanistic emphasis on burden reduction in educational policies, such as reducing students’ after-school study burdens, promoting emotional well-being, and fostering more holistic development [38, 39]. However, limited studies have examined such conflicts, which deserve further investigation [18]. Additionally, as demonstrated above, studies have mainly used large-scale surveys to investigate the effects of burden reduction policies, which may fail to capture the more nuanced feelings and thoughts of students, teachers, and parents relating to their specific contexts. This study employed a qualitative research method to examine the after-school study burden of Chinese junior secondary school students following the implementation of burden reduction policies, as well as their well-being, in the context of global neoliberal social imaginary and relevant local discourses.

Theoretical discussion on the governance of social imaginary and discourses and students’ study burden

While examining students’ study burden, many recent studies (e.g. [18, 42]) have referred to the critical effect of dominant social imaginary (e.g., neoliberalism) and discourses. Charles Taylor [34] explains that a social imaginary is a ‘common understanding that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy’ (p. 23). Neoliberalism is a powerful global social imaginary [30] ‘rooted in a belief that markets are the most efficient mode for decision-making’, emphasizing the supremacy of the market and demanding competition, accountability, performativity, measurement, ongoing self-improvement for capital accrual, and other pragmatic focus in everyday practices [3], p. 204). The social imaginary critically influences discourses [37] as ‘a complex set of relations’, determining systems of knowledge and belief in communication among individuals, and constructing social life—both meaning and its creation [13], p. 3). Discourses stemming from global neoliberalism oriented towards market-driven rationales require all actors in different local educational and social fields to adhere to pragmatic logic and demands [2, 21, 27, 28].

Despite its significant impact, few studies have examined the governance [15] of neoliberal social imaginary and discourse and the effect on secondary school students’ learning burden and emotional pressures. Foucault raises the notion of governmentality to point out the technologies of control through different mechanisms, shaping individuals’ behaviours, perceptions, and ways of thinking (even self-regulation, with the logic of ‘what is good/desirable’ [[12], p. 239]). Following the scholars above, global neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourses govern different stakeholders (policymakers, school educators and administrators, parents, and students themselves) to heed students’ performance in high-stakes exams, which can decide the future of students, families, and home societies [2, 22, 43].

Consequently, secondary school students in many countries sustain heavy in- and after-school study burdens, because all actors (including themselves) in educational and social fields are governed by global neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourses, and unanimously and meticulously pursue high performativity and accountability in learning, which determines how well they, their affiliated institutions, and their families thrive [10, 27, 32, 37, 45]. As they are under surveillance by different actors (including themselves) in educational and social fields, they do not dare to take breaks [9, 15, 16].

Furthermore, neoliberal social imaginary and discourse usually are continuously contextualized and shaped by local economic, social, and cultural conditions and power relations and discourses and, therefore, should be interpreted in specific contexts [37]. Specifically, in many Asian countries (e.g. China, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea), where students’ performance ranks at the top in various subjects, for example, in the PISA, academic competition is extremely fierce within large student populations, and students sustain heavy study burdens [22, 23]. For more than 2000 years in China, an examination culture has dominated educational discourse, as people who wanted to have higher social positions needed to win competitive examinations [19]. Nowadays, Chinese Zhongkao (high school entrance examination) and Gaokao (university entrance examination) have become the main talent selection mechanisms, determining the fortune of countless students and their families and national development [25, 31]. Therefore, a culture of testing and associated discourses are prevalent in China. In addition, in recent decades, given the rapid economic development, Chinese education has been affected by the market economy [42] and led by discourses emphasizing raising students’ performativity and competitiveness, academic achievement, and educational qualification accumulation [9, 31]. Despite the state’s macro control of the economic, social, and educational sectors (such as recent policy practices aimed at relieving students’ study pressure and promoting their well-being), market-oriented rationales and pressures still influence all actors in the educational field in China [17, 24].

Governed by dominant pragmatic social imaginary and relevant local social, educational and cultural discourses, societies, parents, and other actors unanimously emphasize students’ performance and competitiveness in standardized exams and their accountability in ensuring high performativity, and (Chinese) secondary school students sustain abundant study pressures both in and after school [4, 20, 26, 32, 35]. Ball [2] explained two forms of governance of global neoliberalism and relevant discourses, ‘that is both the hard disciplines of measurement and visibility, and the softer entreaties of mentoring, coaching, self-management, and self-improvement’ (p. 1050). These two tight methods of governance explain that even after recent policies aiming to reduce study burden and promote students’ well-being, schools and families in China and other countries still have to take responsibility and exert pressure on students [43]. Governed by the goals of enhancing performance in measurement and continuously mentored by dominant social imaginary and discourses in situated educational and social contexts, students must continuously bear heavy workloads from school assignments, after-school tutoring, and self-directed additional learning [18, 42, 45].

The goals of education have been debated. Scholars have criticized the narrow pragmatic goals in educational fields and the tight governance of neoliberal logic in the pursuit of performativity and competitions [2, 9, 27]. The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015, particularly regarding quality education (focusing on students’ holistic development and well-being), should be emphasized in different countries with increasingly fierce competition [22, 23]. In addition to pragmatic educational goals, educational policies and educators need to heed humanistic aspects in education involving students’ holistic development and good health and emotional well-being [18]. There is a conflict between pragmatic goals stemming from the dominant social imaginary and discourses, and more recent humanistic goals in burden-reduction educational policies [18], which have not been sufficiently explored in existing studies.

Furthermore, another significant issue is that the realization of after-school burden reduction not only requires policy support but also demands collaboration between families, schools, and societies; each party has its rights and responsibilities regarding relieving unnecessary burdens on students [18, 23, 44]. This study addresses the issues mentioned above. Hence, there were three main research questions:

1. How was the after-school study burden of Chinese junior secondary school students impacted by burden reduction policies?

2. How do neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourses mediate Chinese junior secondary school students’ after-school study burden?

3. What changes can be made to support students and serve humanistic objectives in education?

Materials and methods

Case study

The case study method was used in this study. A case is ‘a bounded entity (a person, organization, behavioural condition, event, or other social phenomenon), but the boundary between the case and its contextual conditions … may be blurred’ [40], p. 36). To have a deep understanding of our specified phenomenon, following Yin [40], we conducted a case study from September 2022 to June 2023 to examine the after-school study burden on junior secondary school students in a middle-ranking secondary school in a developed city in China. Differing from large quantitative studies, we chose one school and immersed ourselves at the site for three months to interpret students’ learning practices, their situations, and especially their inner feelings and thoughts. We situated our case study within wider social and educational contexts, learning about secondary school students’ after-school burdens emerging from their families and social and educational contexts and different actors’ (students’, teachers’, parents’) thoughts, feelings, and practices.

Researchers’ positioning and data collection

In this study, we considered both insider and outsider positions. Since one of the authors had previously worked at this school, we (the research team) were able to immerse ourselves into the research site and gain an insider’s view (given the authors’ familiarity with the school context and relevant social contexts). Additionally, three other authors had children in junior secondary schools, and therefore, they also resonated with the burden and struggles of students. Both as parents and as educators, they hoped to improve the present situation. However, we also used our outsider positions (as researchers and not members of the school) to understand the situation, situatedness, and feelings of different actors (teachers, parents, and students) involved in this study and avoid possible bias based on our insider positions.

This study was approved by the university ethics committee. To triangulate the sources of the data and ensure validity and reliability, fifteen students, nine parents, and three teachers participated in this study. Informed consent to participate was obtained from all participants (student participants and their guardians, parent participants and teacher participants) in the study. Two authors posted recruitment advertisements in the school class We Chat groups and parent We Chat groups (as the students and parents were in different We Chat groups). All students, teachers, and parents involved contacted the researchers and voluntarily participated in the study. We use pseudonyms instead of their real names to ensure participant anonymity.

First, the research team recruited 15 students from different families (see Table 1). Additionally, our research team recruited three teachers and nine parents (eight mothers and one father; see Tables 2 and 3). We conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews (each lasting around 1–1.5 h) with all student, parent, and teacher participants. All the interview questions (see the supplementary file) were organized around the three research questions, with additional questions tailored for three groups of stakeholders: students, parents, and teachers.

Table 1.

Student participants

Number and pseudonym	Gender	Education level of parents
		Father	Mother
001 Huang	Male	Junior middle school	Junior middle school
002 Meng	Female	College	Senior middle school
003 Fei	Male	University	Undergraduate course
004 Mei	Female	Junior middle school	Junior middle school
005 Luo	Male	Junior middle school	Junior middle school
006 Xuan	Female	Finished undergraduate courses	Junior college education
007 Gu	Male	Not quite clear	Senior middle school
008 Qi	Male	Senior middle school	Senior middle school
009 Feng	Male	Junior middle school	Junior middle school
010 Fang	Female	Junior middle school	Junior middle school
011 Sheng	Female	College	College
012 Wang	Female	College	College
013 Bei	Female	Senior middle school	Senior middle school
014 Ding	Female	Undergraduate	Not quite clear
015 Kun	Male	Junior middle school	Senior middle school

Only Students 4 and 8 had one sibling in their families. The remaining students were only children

Table 2.

Teacher participants

Number	Gender	Teaching subject	Years of teaching
Teacher A	Female	Chinese	Nearly 15 years
Teacher B	Female	Mathematics	Nearly 2 years
Teacher C	Female	English	Nearly 3 years

Table 3.

Parent participants

Number pseudonym	Highest education	Job
001 Xiao	University (master’s)	Senior administrator
002 Yin	University (bachelor’s)	Staff
003 Jing	College	Senior administrator
004 Dian	College	Self-employed
005 Shao	College	Self-employed
006 Bao	College	Staff
007 Chun	University (bachelor’s)	Staff
008 Yao	College	Self-employed
009 Jing	College	Staff

The first set of questions focused on the following information: For students and parents, we inquired about basic demographic information (including family socioeconomic status and students’ and parents’ personal information and educational backgrounds), the impact of burden reduction policies on students’ after-school study load (covering the amount of after-school work—such as school assignments, private tutoring, and self-assigned tasks), the necessity of different types of after-school work, and students’ participation in after-school programs. For teachers, we asked about their basic demographic information (teaching subjects, years of teaching and work experience, and responsibilities within the school, etc.), the impact of burden reduction policies on the after-school study load of Chinese junior secondary school students, how they designed and assigned homework based on varying students’ learning progress, the necessity of different types of after-school work, and the operation of after-school programs.

The second set of questions explored the mediating effect of neoliberal social imaginaries and relevant discourses on Chinese junior secondary school students’ after-school study burden. This included students’, parents’, and teachers’ views on assessment scores, rankings, and competitions, as well as their sense of self-accountability and how familiar social discourses influenced these views. It also explored the views of student and parent participants on how different family situations affected their perspectives on the pragmatic versus humanistic aspects of education.

The third set of questions focused on the changes made to support students and promote humanistic objectives in education, as viewed from the perspectives of students (the humanistic changes they aspired to in order to support themselves and their peers), teachers (the humanistic changes they aspired to in teaching and learning, extracurricular programs, and other ways of supporting their current and future students), and parents (the humanistic changes they aspired to in supporting their children and all other children).

Further, through a team member’s immersion in the research site for almost three months, we also made observations of students’ learning status and extracurricular activities and obtained access to a number of internal documents (e.g. assignments, learning and school extracurricular documents [see Fig. 1], as well as teachers’ reflexive journals). These internal documents helped us contextualize the research phenomenon and provided us with insider perspectives to interpret students’ learning status, progress, challenges, and pressures. Additionally, during the period of onsite observation and after the initial round of data analysis, we organized more than 50 informal individual or group discussions (including onsite conversations and online discussions via WeChat), all with written records, to provide supplementary information or follow-up clarifications.

Fig. 1.

The case school’s after-school program examples

The 15 student participants (see Table 1) provided their parents’ (as their guardians) permission to participate in the study. Unfortunately, none of the student participants’ parents took the initiative to contact the research team or participate in this study. Ten student participants were from relatively lower social-class families (in terms of parents’ education levels [no access to higher education] or family income [lower than 10,0000 RMB per year]). It is interesting to note that all parents (see Table 3) who voluntarily participated in this study had higher educational levels, of at least college degrees; only three (parents 004, 005, and 008) did not have stable jobs and their family income was relatively low (lower than 10,0000 RMB per year). Given that Chinese was the participants’ mother tongue, all interviews were conducted in Mandarin. The second author, a fluent bilingual, translated a large portion of interview scripts (relating to the key findings) into English. To ensure the trustworthiness of the data, the meanings and interpretations were verified with some participants.

Data analysis

The research team conducted a thematic data analysis. Informed by social constructivist epistemology, the research team ‘develop[ed], analyz[ed] and interpret[ed] patterns across a qualitative dataset, which involves systematic processes of data coding to develop themes …’ [7], pp. 4, 6). With the aid of NVivo 12, we familiarized ourselves with all the data (from interviews, informal conversations, observations, reflexive journals, and internal documents), coded the data, formed initial themes, and continuously developed, reviewed, refined, defined, and redefined themes. After the themes and categories had been formed, we referred to theories (social imaginary, discourses and governmentality) and the literature to reflect on themes, categories, and the issues to be examined (Table 4).

Table 4.

Categories and codes

Categories	Codes	Examples
Effect of burden reduction policies	burden reduction practices	• The number of meaningless repetitive assignments decreased • I give tailored assignments and support to students
	study burden	I still need to work 3–4 h after-school.
	the necessity of school assignment burden	I feel present after-school assignment amount is reasonable …
	private tutoring and other sources	I attend online math tutoring classes (my weak subject).
	additional exercises assigned by their parents, tutoring companies, or themselves	I need to do extra homework to avoid being left behind
Social imaginary and discourses and the governance	the contextualization of neoliberal social imaginary and discourses	• …given the large student population in China and the social expectation… • I need to work harder to be more competitive…
	the convergence of neoliberal social imaginary and discourses, and social class disposition	• Only by working hard and getting good scores can I change my family’s inferior economic and social conditions (a student from a lower social class family remarked) • Education is not only about obtaining high degrees or attending good schools but also about helping students do their best in their education and realize their dreams…(a higher social class parent remarked)
Humanistic changes	humanistic care	• I want to have fewer repetitive assignments • I desire individualized learning support… • I want more after-school club activities based on my interest… • teacher–parent talks can focus on how to support students’ learning needs, interests, holistic development, and well-being…
	difficulties	• Competition in education remains fierce in China… • Schoolwork is too heavy; therefore, we do not have enough teacher–parent talk time • Teacher-parent conversations still center on students’ academic performance (such as homework accuracy, test scores, and rankings)

Therefore, guided by the theoretical concepts, we analyzed categories and themes relevant to the effect of burden reduction policies, followed by those of the governance of dominant social imaginary and discourses. Finally, we examined themes concerning changes for humanistic goals. To avoid discrepancies in data and themes, we conducted member checks with all participants through We Chat messages in Chinese to ensure data reliability [11].

Results

Effect of burden reduction policies

Consistent with large-scale surveys conducted by other scholars (e.g. [41, 46]), after recent burden reduction policies, particularly the recent double reduction policy, our participants had a lower school assignment burden compared to before the policies took effect, although the pressure was still high. To relieve burden and support students’ learning, the school and the teachers focused on providing tailored assignments and organized after-school programs (ending around 6 pm) where students completed their homework, received study support from their teachers, and participated in interest-based club activities once per week. In the words of Huang and Teacher C:

After the ‘double reduction policy’ and other recent burden reduction policies, the number of meaningless repetitive assignments decreased. We had more tailored assignments with teacher guidance. (Huang, an interview excerpt)

I strive to improve my work efficiency, reduce burden, and increase effectiveness for both students and myself. I cut many repetitive assignments. I make efforts to consider the students’ perspectives and give tailored assignments and support. I stimulate enthusiasm for learning through fun, efficient, and diverse tasks. (Teacher C’s reflexive journal)

However, we still observed that as student participants left their classrooms on the way to the school gate, many felt exhausted and often discussed test performances or their accuracy rate in daily exercises. All student participants mentioned that after returning home, they still needed around 3–4 h to complete all school assignments or additional self-study materials (ending around 9:30 pm–10:30 pm).

After understanding students’ learning status, we invited them to express their perspectives on the necessity of after-school study pressure from the school. Given the local discourses underscoring test performativity, many students (N = 5) believe that the current learning pressure is reasonable. For example, as Sheng and Luo stated in their interviews:

I believe that present after-school assignment amount is reasonable as school exercises help me solidify my knowledge foundation and perform well in exams. (Sheng)

Students who ranked high or low in the class received more assignments. Students ranking high need to perform more difficult tasks to acquire admission to the best high schools. Students with low rankings need to perform more repetitive exercises to solidify their foundations, otherwise they cannot go to high school. (Luo)

The two students’ words reflected that they ‘rationalized’ the ‘necessity’ of large amounts of homework, believing that it raises students’ performance in exams. Nevertheless, homework is only a part of their after-school study burden, as they also face pressure from private tutoring and other sources of work from their parents and even themselves.

Among the 15 students, ten were tutored on weekdays or weekends, which mainly focused on enhancing their exam scores, especially in their weak subjects. For example, Fang and Wang stated in their interviews:

I attend online math tutoring classes on weekends. Under the new double reduction policy, those private institutions are only allowed to provide courses during weekdays. However, online courses are not restricted (because they are available throughout the week). (Fang)

I have private tutoring (given by university students), which mainly helps me improve scores on weak subjects. (Wang)

Considering students’ heavy after-school study burden during weekends, burden reduction policies demand that business institutions do not offer onsite courses on Saturdays and Sundays. However, the pressure from high-stakes standardized exams made student participants and their families take the initiative to find private tutoring or online courses in the hope that these courses could raise students’ test performance.

Furthermore, in addition to tutoring, all student participants performed a large number of additional exercises assigned by their parents, tutoring companies, or themselves. As Qi and Kun stated in their interviews:

Education competition is fierce, so I need to do extra homework to avoid being left behind. Also, if I do extra work and perform well, teachers, my parents, and friends all praise me and give me a sense of recognition. (Qi)

As I have fewer assignments, I have time to perform additional exercises. My parents and I buy exercise books and sometimes find learning materials online. (Kun)

Also, during our onsite observation, we found that student participants had to do more extra work before monthly, mid-term, and final exams and sustained abundant emotional pressures. The data above showed that student participants were governed by dominant social imaginary and discourses in their situated educational and social fields (e.g. families and social circles) to have the enthusiasm to complete school assignments, use extracurricular tutoring, and finish additional assignments based on their weak subjects or areas for demonstrating their accountability in learning and determination and effort in chasing performativity and competitiveness.

Social imaginary and discourses and the governance on students’ after-school study burden

As noted above, in line with many other empirical studies (e.g. [23, 43]), all student participants still sustained heavy pressures even after burden reduction policies. This section makes a more comprehensive analysis of how neoliberal social imaginary and discourse are contextualized and converge with local social and educational demands and discourses to govern secondary school students’ learning aspirations and after-school study practices.

First, neoliberal social imaginary and discourses are contextualized through fiercely competitive local educational contexts, particularly with the huge student population in China. Chinese market-oriented demands for talents’ educational qualifications and competitiveness in large assessments are classified as hard disciplines [2]. Additionally, there is constant mentoring of student participants regarding softer entreaties [2] to bear more study burden and work harder for the future of their families and themselves. Some students and their parents remarked during interviews:

My scores ranked high in my class. However, given the large student population in Chinese junior secondary schools, I have to fiercely compete to squeeze into higher-ranking high schools that decide my university and future value in society. (Fei)

After the double-reduction policy, students had more free time after school. However, there are always voices lingering around me, telling me to ‘work harder to be more competitive’. (Huang)

After the double reduction policy, students’ exam rankings are not provided. However, without knowing the rankings, students and parents become more anxious and do not dare to take any breaks after school as they feel uncertain about students’ educational prospects. (Yin, a parent)

The comments above reflect that students and parents are tightly governed by neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourses (through hard and soft strategies) in educational and social fields. Subsequently, the students and their families did not reduce their work output but continued to study hard, enduring the various pressures.

Additionally, this study complements the literature by demonstrating that the neoliberal social imaginary and discourses, conversing with social class disposition [6], determine the educational focus of different social class families. In this study, ten students and five parents from relatively lower social class families, as indicated by the parents’ education levels or family income, narrowly focused on students’ test scores. These scores play a crucial role in determining the possibility of improving their family’s socio-economic conditions. For example, as Mei and Shao stated in their interviews:

My parents do not want me to play after school because they think that only by working hard and getting good scores can I get into a decent university and change my family’s inferior economic and social conditions. If I spend too much time playing, my life will end in the future as my family will not be able to offer me much help. (Mei)

After the double reduction policy was implemented, nothing changed. This may worsen as affluent families (with parents’ higher education experiences and qualifications) are more capable of providing children with resources from multiple sources. I can only count on my child’s hard work and good scores as my family does not have many resources. (Shao, a parent, self-employed without stable income)

In contrast to the families above, middle- or higher-class families (parents’ higher education qualifications [bachelor’s and above], work positions and experience, and decent income) have multiple expectations of their children, including performativity in exams, the acquisition of learning qualities (being determined, hardworking, and confident), and learning based on the students’ interests and passion. For example, as Sheng, Xiao and Jing stated in their interviews:

My parents do not push me to be top in classes but expect me to do the best in everything; they also want me to study based on my interests, go to university, chase my dream, and contribute to society. (Sheng)

In my view, education is not only about obtaining high degrees or attending good schools but also about helping students do their best in their education and realize their dreams. Along with my child’s growth, I not only focus on her academic performance but also encourage her to participate in different extracurricular after-school programs to cultivate her learning qualities (becoming hardworking, passionate about learning, positive, determined, and confident). Under burden reduction policies, rather than forcing children to learn, they should find the joy of learning on their own and cultivate persistence in learning. (Xiao, a parent, a senior administrator)

I hope that my child will grow into a person with a healthy physique, sound personality, mastery of modern knowledge and skills, and the ability to contribute to society by doing what they enjoy. (Jing, a parent, a senior administrator)

Parents with higher education experience seemed to heed the humanistic aspects of children’s education (students’ learning interests and joy relating to their well-being). However, this study also demonstrates that parents and students of a higher social class were still pressured and led by the convergence of neoliberal social imaginary and discourses (persistence and accountability in chasing cultural capital) and Chinese social discourse of valuable students’ qualities (such as working hard or doing their best to improve themselves and society, and persistence in goal chasing). As a result, they may still exert pressure on students after school.

What humanistic changes should be made and how should these be made?

As discussed in the last few sections, despite the enactment of burden reduction policies, the student and parent participants did not dare to take a break from the governance of dominant social imaginary and discourses with an emphasis on students’ performance in standardized exams, their accountability in making an effort, their hard work ethic, and their rankings and competitiveness in exams, all of which decide the prospects of their education and family social mobility. As researchers, we argue that students’ after-school burden cannot be relieved solely by the enactment of burden reduction policies. Therefore, what changes should be made, and how should these be made? To answer these questions, the views of students, parents, and teachers are presented; these views are all related to humanistic care, reflected in different dimensions.

First, despite feeling powerless in confronting the after-school burden under the present competitive Chinese talent screening social and educational mechanisms, all students still hoped that their after-school learning could be supported with humanistic care through teachers’ assignment of individualized exercises and provision of learning support. For example, Qi stated, ‘I do not like a large number of repetitive assignments, which are meaningless’. Instead, student participants aspired for more pressing humanistic care and support in terms of educational focus, moving from mechanical exercises (for the improvement of test performance) to individualized learning as well as support.

Additionally, student participants expect schools’ and families’ humanistic care by supporting and organizing more colourful activities based on their diversified interests that give them more life vitality. As a few students stated in their interviews:

Given the fierce competition, middle school students’ daily lives are nothing more than exams and homework. We should have more vitality! For example, our school has after-school club activities organized according to students’ interests, which make life more colourful and enriched. However, each week, we have only one one-hour club activity. (Meng)

After finishing my homework, I would like to learn about science and conduct scientific experiments, which is my interest. However, my family does not value my interest in science and does not believe that I can become a biologist one day. They do not think my scientific interest deserves precious after-school time. (Gu)

We also learned and observed that the school provided student participants with multiple after-school programs (see Fig. 1) that gave them happiness, joy, and vitality. Indeed, diversified after-school activities based on students’ interests should be organized by schools, which enriches their lives and helps relieve study pressure. Equally important, Gu’s words reflected that rather than narrowly focusing on exam-oriented learning, as expected from the dominant social imaginary and discourses circulating in the society, parental support for students’ interests is needed. However, as noted in the previous subsection, lower social class families seemed to consider students’ test scores above their interests, which might demand more parent–teacher conversations to change this narrow focus.

Consistent with student participants’ perspectives, teacher participants also hoped to better understand students’ interests and lives and provide individualized support accordingly. They believed that parent–teacher conversations should not be oriented towards vocabularies, such as ‘students’ academic performance’, ‘rankings and competitiveness’, ‘accountability’, or ‘ways to make improvements and the prospect of success’. In their interviews, Teachers A and B stated their worries about students’ after-school burdens and emotional pressures related to the competitive Chinese educational context:

Competition in education remains fierce in China. If competition encourages all students to work hard, it may improve their overall learning atmosphere. However, high-stakes standardised exams can also cause greater academic pressure on students, as we have always heard parents report that many students sometimes secretly stay up very late at night and study and feel physically exhausted during the daytime. Interest-based after-school activities contribute to students’ healthy growth and pressure relief, but they do not have much time owing to test pressure. (Teacher A)

I feel conflicted. Parents always discuss with us that after students return home, they are unwilling to do additional assignments. Such conversations are problematic because students are already tired of their school assignments. However, for my teaching subject, math, honestly, students need to do extra work after class to achieve high scores in exam competitions. (Teacher B)

The two teachers’ words reflected that, although parents were worried about their children’s physical and emotional health brought about by after-school study burden, they still could not help but push their children to perform additional exercises for good scores. After expressing their views on students’ after-school burden and the narrow focus of the parent–teacher conversations, the two teachers also expressed their perspectives on possible changes in informal group discussions:

We sincerely hope that teacher–parent talks can focus on how to support students’ learning needs, interests, holistic development, and well-being, which may be unrealistic in the present educational situation. Through such conversations, teachers might better understand how to relieve students’ after-school burdens, such as by providing individualized assignments and working with school administrators to organize more meaningful and colourful after-school activities. If so, we can support students’ learning and help them thrive based on their knowledge foundation, interests, and emotional well-being. However, schoolwork is too heavy; therefore, we do not have enough teacher–parent talk time. (Teachers A and B)

Similar to teachers’ perspectives, while asked about teacher–parent communication, all parent participants argued that conversations still centre on students’ academic performance (such as homework accuracy, test scores, and rankings) despite that they also strongly aspired to discuss other aspects with teachers, especially children’s well-being and development based on their own interests (summarized by the research team from parents’ interview excerpts and informal discussions).

The teacher and parent participants’ views demonstrate that dominant social imaginary and discourses in local social and educational fields restrict the themes of parent–teacher conversations, narrowly focusing on students’ performance in exams and their accountability in learning. Not only students but also their teachers and parents experience additional burden after school and, therefore, do not have the time to talk about themes of ‘how can students’ interest and well-being be supported?’ and ‘how can students enjoy their after-school time?’.

After the enactment of burden reduction policies, family school conversations with more humanistic goals (supporting students’ individualized learning needs, holistic development, and well-being) must be emphasized in the educational field to ensure that students enjoy a good balance between study and life, and learn based on their interests and needs. Policymakers and school administrators should strive to guarantee that teachers have the time and space to converse with parents on how to work collaboratively to support children’s learning, holistic development, and well-being rather than solely focusing on student performance [39].

Discussion

Through a case study, this study examined whether and how burden reduction policies relieved students’ after-school study burden. It also examined how global neoliberal social imaginary and discourse, local Chinese educational and social discourses, and different social class families’ expectations, converged to affect the implementation outcome of burden reduction policies (for more humanistic educational goals).

With the enactment of burden reduction policies with some humanistic measures, student participants had more individualized and tailored assignments and learning support, which improved their knowledge acquisition with fewer burdens. Additionally, given burden reduction policies, student participants had diversified after-school activities offered by their schools, which enriched their lives, gave them vitality, and served their emotional well-being and holistic development.

Despite some progress in humanistic burden reduction practices, the impact of relevant policy implementation continues to be influenced by prevailing social imaginary and discourses in educational and social spheres, acting as potent driving forces. These forces centring on neoliberal pragmatic vocabularies of competition, accountability for continuous self-improvement, competitiveness, hardworking spirit, and capital accrual [2, 3] govern all actors’ subjectivity and practices [14, 15] in educational and social fields, making teachers’, parents’, and students’ fear taking breaks. Parent and student participants internalized the pragmatic logic that students should be diligent in their learning, focus on academic performance and competitiveness for both their future and that of their families. Although interest-based after-school activities served student participants’ pressure relief, emotional well-being and holistic development, governed by dominant social imaginary and relevant discourses, schools and families did not allocate much after-school service time to non-academic programs.

This study also reported that the convergence of the pragmatic social imaginary and social discourses in China, along with social class dispositions intervened in the humanistic aims and practices under burden reduction policies. Student participants from families of different social classes continued to face heavy after-school study burdens, such as school assignments, private tutoring, and additional exercises assigned by parents or themselves, and suffered from emotional stress in their pursuit of better test performance and competitiveness. Compared to students from higher social class families, student participants from lower social class families focused more on thin score-oriented learning goals and required more support due to a lack of access to various after-school resources.

Furthermore, social imaginary critically influences discourses [37], deciding knowledge and belief in communication [13]. Although many scholars such as Li et al. [23], Jiang and Saito [18], and Zhang [44] have argued that the realization of burden reduction largely depends on the collaboration of families, schools, and societies (rather than just policy enactment), neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourses determine the focus of everyday conversation in educational, family, and social contexts. As reported in findings, ironically, tightly governed by dominant pragmatic social imaginary and relevant discourses, collaboration with the goals of chasing performativity in standardized exams and cultural capital accrual permeate everyday conversations. Given parents’ and teachers’ greater attention to students’ academic performance, they did not have the time and space to frequently converse about significant humanistic aspects in education regarding students’ holistic development, happiness in learning and life, and emotional well-being. Due to the governance of multiple sources of external forces, all student participants lacked the space to voice their needs, interests, and pressures but passively accepted heavy study pressure or even took the initiative to add to their burden.

Therefore, this study advocates that policymakers, school administrators, educators, parents, students, and other relevant actors in educational and social fields consider the governance of dominant pragmatic social imaginary and discourses. Each has a respective responsibility to collaboratively work towards understanding the sources of different students’ after-school study burdens and struggles and supporting every student’s learning based on their social and familial expectations and conditions, individualized learning challenges, and needs. Additionally, there is a need to construct more colourful after-school programs and activities to support students’ pressure relief and emotional well-being. Moreover, in school administration and family-school-society collaboration [39], efforts need to be made to ensure sufficient time and space for parents, students, teachers and other relevant stakeholders in the society to engage in meaningful conversations oriented towards humanistic goals in education (e.g., students’ holistic development and emotional well-being) rather than focusing narrowly on pragmatic goals.

Through our investigation and reflection, the research team identified two main limitations, also as areas of further research. First, this study may not fully reflect the after-school study burden of students in different schools, regions (e.g., the comparisons between cities and rural regions), and social class families. To deeply understand Chinese junior secondary school students’ after-school study burden, we used a case study in a middle-ranking Chinese junior secondary school in a developed city in China and immersed ourselves into the investigation. Neoliberal social imaginary and relevant discourses are continuously contextualized and shaped by local economic, social, and cultural conditions [37], affecting student individuals in different ways. To illustrate, the study burden of diverse students from different social classes and background families that emerged from this study deserves further investigation. In future studies, we aim to investigate the after-school study situations of different students in developed and less-developed cities and rural areas, different social class families, and schools with diverse characteristics. Such extensive examinations might result in more policy improvement recommendations oriented towards students’ pressure relief relating to their situated educational, social and cultural milieu. In addition, this study reported that individualized exercises, and the provision of learning support and rich after-school activities, based on each individual’s learning progress, needs and interests, represent significant humanistic strategies for relieving students’ after-school pressure. However, how to further promote such warm individualized humanistic care when discourses on ‘students’ high academic performativity in standardized exams, rankings and competitiveness, accountability’ permeates educational and social fields deserves deeper investigation.

Conclusion

This study employed a qualitative research method to examine Chinese junior secondary school students’ after-school study burden following the implementation of burden reduction policies. It illustrates the conflicts between the more humanistic goals of burden reduction policies (e.g. caring for students’ diversified learning needs, holistic development, and emotional well-being) and the demands and governance of pragmatic neoliberal social imaginary and relevant local discourses and demands.

This study makes a theoretical contribution by demonstrating how neoliberal social imaginary is contextualized and critically affects discourses in Chinese educational and social fields. It exerts tight governance on the subjectivity of school administrators, teachers, parents, and students in their everyday practices. Practically, this study contributes a deeper analysis of how the convergence of neoliberal social imaginary, relevant discourses, and social class dispositions influences the implementation of burden reduction policies aimed at fostering students’ learning, holistic development, and emotional well-being. Although the research subjects of this study are Chinese junior secondary school students, it also has implications for the situation of students in other countries facing after-school pressures due to a pragmatic social imaginary focused on performativity.

At both the policy and everyday practice levels, the study calls on all stakeholders (policymakers, school administrators, teachers, parents, and students from different socioeconomic backgrounds) to heed the governance of such pragmatic social imaginaries and discourses [2] and try to rectify. It requires continuous conversations and collaborative efforts to create a humanistic educational environment that aims to reduce students’ after-school workload from school and other sources, and promote students’ pressure relief, learning, and well-being based on their individual interests, learning progress, and needs.

Biographies

Yunfang Ran

is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Soochow University in Suzhou, China. Dr. Ran graduated from the Faculty of Education at East China Normal University, China. Her research interests and areas of expertise include education policy and management, educational economy, and management. She has published two monographs and over 30 papers in CSSCI-indexed journals.

Xi Wu

is currently serving as an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Soochow University in Suzhou, China. Dr. Wu earned her graduate degree from the Faculty of Education at Western University, Canada. Her research interests encompass comparative and international education, intercultural education, cosmopolitanism, educational sociology, and critical pedagogy. Dr. Wu has contributed to many Social Science Citation Index journals, including Teaching and Teacher Education, Educational Review, International Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Asia Pacific Education Review and Asia Pacific Journal of Education.

Yitao Wang

is a Professor in the School of Education at Soochow University, also serving as the Director of the Private Education Research Center at Soochow University. His primary research focus is on private education.

Zhiying Zhou

is a doctoral student at Department of Educational Administration and Policy, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Yuan Yin

is a teacher graduating from School of Education, Soochow University.

Authors'contributions

Yunfang Ran and Xi Wu are responsible for research design, conceptualization, methodology, investigation and supervision, data interpretation, writing- original draft preparation and article revision. Yitao Wang, Zhiying Zhou, and Yuan Yin are responsible for investigation, data analysis, data interpretation, editing.

Funding

This paper is a research outcome of the Key Project of the National Social Science Fund of China in Education for 2022, titled “A Study on the Regulation of Private Education Organizers’ Behaviour under the Perspective of Classified Management” (Project No. AFA220024).

Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author (Xi Wu, wuxi81710@sina.com) on reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All study participants provided informed consent, and the study design was approved by Ethics Committee of Soochow University (ECSU) (Approval No. SUDA20221228H05) “in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki”. We used pseudonym names to replace institution names, and participants’ names for the protection of participants’ privacy. Prior to data collection, we obtained written informed consent from all student participants and their guardians, parent participants, and participant teachers. The consent forms included the study’s purpose, voluntary participation, confidentiality, data collection measures, and participants’ right to withdraw at any time without consequences.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.