Filling the missing gaps on research in Chinese adolescents

Abstract

It is a popular belief that Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “ When China moves, she will move the world ” . Why might China have infl uence on the world ? There are three unique attributes of China that may contribute to China ’ s infl uence on the world. In the fi rst place, China has a long history of over 5000 years. Such a long history signifi es that the Chinese culture has much to offer to the world. Actually, the inventions of gun powder, paper, printing technique and compass have greatly transformed the Western civilization and contributed to Western technological advances. Chinese philosophies including Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism have shaped many Asian ideas. Chinese medicine has also attracted much attention from Western medical practitioners and researchers in the search for complementary and alternative medicine. In short, there are many elements in the Chinese culture which contribute to our understanding of human nature and formulation of solutions to contemporary social problems. Such elements are particularly insightful for psychologists, medical practitioners, educators, and other allied professionals when they work with adolescents. Second, the huge Chinese population is a great source of infl uence. The World Population Clock showed that the population of China was 1,359,140,968 in 2010, which was roughly one-fi fth of the world ’ s population. The huge Chinese population poses one problem for researchers and practitioners working in the fi eld of adolescent health – to what extent the theories and research fi ndings developed in the West are generalizable to Chinese people ? This is a legitimate question because knowledge on adolescent development has largely been developed in Western culture. Drawing insights from the perspective of multicultural counseling that counseling knowledge and techniques developed in Western contexts may not be applicable to people in non-Western contexts, one may cast doubt on the applicability of Western concepts and techniques in the fi eld of adolescent health to Chinese contexts. Faced with the problem of cross-cultural application of Western concepts and techniques, there are three possible responses. First, for those who uphold the belief that there is not much variation in human behavior across cultures