Date of Award

Spring 2021

Thesis Type

Rollins Access Only

Degree Name

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Department

Asian Studies

Sponsor

Yusheng Yao

Committee Member

Li Wei

Committee Member

Mario D'Amato

Abstract

Youth is the most important group when examining a society because it typically drives the society forward by favorably adopting liberal or radical norms. Social movements are aroused in a country by those educated young people who observe issues and ambitiously initiate changes. Youth helps society renew and refresh itself by keeping the circulation running, therefore, youth plays an essential role in society. This paper is going to compare the post-90s (jiulinghou) group, the current Chinese youth, to their parent's generation, known as the post-70s (liulinghou) in order to examine changes in values and norms between the two generations in China. As the youth group is traditionally the most active and influential in a society, the research could further indicate the current political and social atmosphere in China. As the hypothesis assumed the post-90s generation would be more open-minded who has a strong preference for Westernized values than the post-70s generation, the results turned out to be unexpected. The post-90s generation appeared to be confused and unconfident in terms of their opinion on many of the current social issues. There is rising popularity of nationalism in youth groups, and it remains unknown whether the political atmosphere would shift more towards freedom and democracy, especially with President Xi's more centralized control recently.

Rights Holder

Jiayi Ding

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