Academic stress in Singaporean secondary school students: understanding the role of culture and system

Abstract

The Singaporean education system has generally been perceived to be amongst the most stressful in the world. This paper addresses the various contributors towards the culture which perpetuates this intense academic stress using the micro-meso-macro framework and the stakeholder analysis approach. The main findings of this paper are as follows: 1) Students internalized implicit expectations that were communicated to them by their parents 2) Parents were in turn influenced by their own perception of macro-level (state) policies and prevailing cultural norms 3) The agency of teachers in stress alleviation was limited by curriculum pressures From these findings, policy recommendations were then proposed for both individual stakeholders and interventions at the macro level. Keywords: academic stress, Singapore, secondary school, micro-meso-macro framework, stakeholder analysis