2021/01/07 by Gil Hizi · 2 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Aesthetics #China #Epistemology #Foucault, Power, and Ethics #Gender studies #History #Interpersonal communication #Late modernity #Modernity #Performative utterance #Performativity #Psychology #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Social psychology #Social science #Socioeconomic status #Sociology #Soft skills #Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
paper · doi:10.1111/aeq.12366
openalex publication_date 2021/01/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Despite recent socioeconomic transformations, young adults in China construe local social norms as inhibiting their individualized selfhood. Based on a study of pedagogies of interpersonal “soft” skills, this article describes an apparatus of self‐improvement where self‐ and social critique play a pivotal role. Through comparison with Foucault’s “technologies of the self,” I illustrate that self‐improvement in China is largely oriented toward performative expressions that counteract the “local” rather than the habituation of virtues or skills.