An Exploration of the Individualization of Post-1980s Young Adults in China: Contradictory Modernity and Ensemble Individualism

摘要

This study examined the various ways in which young Chinese adults who come from families of different social strata embody individualization. Twenty-four participants, ranging in age between 22 to 37 and originating from 13 different provinces, nearly half of 28 in China, were interviewed. The 24 were evenly divided into rural and urban groups according to their original home before entering university. Participants shared their life stories and described how they made critical educational and employment decisions. They also discussed contexts, explained the reasons behind their decisions, and discussed ramifications related to various aspects of their lives.;The individualization experiences revealed by the participants were analyzed and interpreted through the lenses of individualization theory, social learning theory, and social cognition theory and in the context of traditional Chinese philosophy and culture and the landscape of post-1980s cultural, socio-political, and economic developments. The primary findings indicate that the notion of individual identity is an important theme related to how the participants made decisions regarding their education and employment and how they began to see themselves. The question, "who am I?" was reported most frequently in their reflections on every choice experience. The ways the participants defined their individual identity demonstrated a more complicated and nuanced relationship between individual and group than the two extremes of autonomous personal lifestyle and relationship to collectivity that typically characterize Western notions of individualization.;The findings highlighted two overarching themes, expressed in participants' own words as, "the generation which is so true to ourselves" and "constantly making self-discovery in uncertainty." The findings also suggest that the contradictory modernity and evolving patterns of self-construal were essential factors in fostering the individualization experiences of the young adults in this study and that the influence of parents in fostering willingness and self-efficacy to dissembled from the traditional collectivity played an important part, but family ultimately turned out to be a place for the individual to re-embed himself or herself.