It's 24-7!: the production, meaning and mediation of students' experiences of stress

Abstract

This study set out to explore the experiences of stress among upper level sociology students at an Atlantic Canadian University. A qualitative standpoint methodology informed the data collection which used demographic questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with sixteen students and three semi-structured interviews with key informants. The analysis illustrates how various contextual and interactional factors produce and mediate students' experiences of stress. Their stories and comments show that they experience stress physically and emotionally, that the social meanings surrounding stress mediate how they interpret and deal with it and that the social context of education can both produce and mediate stress for students. The study contributes to existing research on student stress by exploring the social context that contributes to the experience of stressors and the use of coping techniques among students transitioning out of a non-professional undergraduate university program into the labour force or further study. Further, this study recognizes that there are social discourses associated with stress that influence how students experience and respond to stress including: the normalization of stress, the individualization of stress, and the personalization of stress. Policy suggestions for universities on how to empower students and make their university experience more supportive conclude the thesis.