China’s Double Reduction Policy and Inclusive Educational Equity: A Critical Integrative Review of Academic Stress, Shadow Education, Socioeconomic Inequality, and Family Adaptation

Abstract

China’s Double Reduction Policy (DRP), is a major compulsory-education reform intended to reduce excessive homework, regulate private supplementary tutoring, strengthen the role of schools, and ease educational anxiety. Yet its implications for student well-being and educational equity are more complex than changes in homework hours or formal tutoring participation alone can capture. This critical integrative review synthesizes research on four interdependent domains: academic stress, socioeconomic status (SES), shadow education, and parental involvement, and interprets them through the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, Social Cognitive Theory, and Bourdieu’s theory of capital. Evidence indicates that the policy has reduced some visible burdens and is associated with improved mental-health and well-being indicators for many students. At the same time, high-stakes assessment, peer comparison, family aspirations, and uneven access to educational resources can sustain or redistribute pressure. Formal tutoring has contracted substantially, but resource-rich families may convert economic, cultural, and social capital into individualized or less visible forms of support. Family and school responsibilities have also expanded, creating unequal adaptive demands across socioeconomic groups and increasing teacher workload in some settings. From an inclusive education perspective, these patterns raise a central question: whether public schools can provide sufficiently differentiated and accessible support for learners whose families cannot purchase alternatives or whose learning requires additional assistance. Direct evidence concerning students with disabilities and special educational needs (SEN) under the DRP remains limited; this absence is itself an important research gap. The review proposes a model of unequal educational adaptation and identifies implications for school-based support, teacher capacity, family–school partnerships, and future special-education research