Dr Yan Zhu

Profile

Yan Zhu is a Lecturer in Education Studies, with a focus on Sociology of Childhood, at IOE, UCL. Yan’s research focuses on children’s rights and welfare, children’s personal lives, relationships and emotional wellbeing, and the methods and ethics of working with children. Yan is the BERA Early Career Research Network Regional Rep for the South East. Her latest project explored the complexity and diversity of Chinese children’s understandings and practices of peer friendships in the context of a rural primary boarding school.

Research

Publications

Zhu, Y. (2022). Same-gender intimate friends in Chinese girls’ romantic adventures in a boarding school context. Childhood, https://doi.org/10.1177/09075682221122967.

Zhu, Y. (2021) 'Being student leaders or ‘ordinary’ students: Children’s emotional experiences of relationships with others in a Chinese school'. Emotion, Space and Society. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1dCdI6F9IFXSid

Zhu, Y. (2021) ‘Self’ (ziji), ‘others’ (taren) and ‘collective’ (jiti): Friendships at school embedded with China's Confucian– collectivist sociocultural values. Children & Society. 00:1– 14. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12473

Zhu, Y., Liu, C. and Elley, S. (2021) Cross-gender relationships and heterosexuality in a Chinese rural primary school: the ‘fine line’ between the acceptable and the unacceptable ‘liking’, Children’s Geographies. 1-14 https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.1970717

Zhu, Y. (2020) "Who are ‘Good’ Friends? Chinese Parents’ Influences on Children’s Friend Selection", Frankel, S. and McNamee, S. (Ed.) Bringing Children Back into the Family: Relationality, Connectedness and Home (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 27), Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 113-129.

Zhu, Y. (2020) Displaying intimate friendships: Chinese children’s practices of friendships at school, Families, Relationships and Societies, 00, 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1332/204674320X16047229586741 

Expertise