China's student burden reduction policy is a crucial initiative aligned with UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), aiming to promote quality education. The policy seeks to alleviate educational inequities, improve teaching quality in primary and secondary schools, and expand after-school services. It addresses issues such as over-reliance on grades and admissions, promoting a balanced development of morality, intelligence, physique, aesthetics, and labor. The policy's aim is to free children from excessive homework and after-school training burdens ("double reduction"), fostering holistic child development and lifelong learning. However, a significant socio-cultural context is the prevalent educational desire within Chinese communities, fueled by the expectation of children achieving significant social mobility. This high expectation often leads to excessive academic burdens, psychological pressure, and undermines education's sustainable development. This study aims to bridge the gap between macro-level policy analysis and micro-level parental perspectives to understand the implementation of student burden reduction policies more comprehensively.

Existing research primarily focuses on macro-level aspects of China's student burden reduction policies, such as policy goals, missions, and actions within the education system. However, there's a scarcity of empirical research examining stakeholders' (especially parents') individual perspectives on policy implementation. This study addresses this gap by combining macro and micro perspectives to offer a more complete understanding of the policies' impact and effectiveness.

This study employed a two-step process: First, a macro-level analysis of historical student burden reduction policies (1951-2021) was conducted. 232 policy documents (62 national, 170 local) were analyzed using word frequency analysis with Microsoft Excel and Micro World cloud software. This involved analyzing keyword frequencies, co-occurrence, and temporal changes to understand policy trends and focus areas. Second, a micro-level analysis explored parental views on student burden reduction policies through an online survey of 23,567 parents across 29 provinces. Convenience sampling was used, with the majority of respondents concentrated in Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Hebei, Jilin, and Yunnan. The survey measured parents' attitudes towards the "double reduction" policy, students' homework duration, sleep duration, and perceived burden levels using five- and six-point scales. Control variables included parents' gender, location (urban/rural), education level, and occupation. Partial correlation analysis, Harman single-factor test, binary logistic regression, Hosmer and Lemeshow test and propensity score matching were used for data analysis.

Macro-level analysis reveals a growth trend in student burden reduction policies, particularly since 2011, with a notable shift towards a two-way governance approach involving both on-campus and off-campus measures in 2021. The policy implementation pattern follows a structure of "Central leadership + Ministry of Education sovereignty + multi-department coordination." However, parents receive relatively little attention in policy documents. Word frequency analysis highlights "students," "training," and "school" as core keywords, while words related to parental involvement are less frequent. Micro-level analysis shows a significant correlation between students' burden levels and parental attitudes towards the "double reduction" policy. 84% of parents supported the policy. Female parents and parents from urban households were less likely to support the policy than male parents and those from rural households. Regression analysis further reveals the influence of parents' gender, household type, and education level on their attitudes toward the policy.

The findings highlight the tension between macro-level policy initiatives and micro-level parental experiences and expectations. The relative neglect of parental perspectives in policy formulation and implementation is a significant issue. The study underscores the need for a more balanced approach that integrates parental voices and addresses the diverse concerns of different demographic groups. The observed correlation between burden levels and parental attitudes suggests that successful policy implementation hinges on effectively addressing parental anxieties and achieving genuine burden reduction.

This study provides valuable insights into the complexities of China's student burden reduction policies by integrating macro and micro perspectives. The findings emphasize the need to develop a collaborative "family-school-society" model for sustainable education, actively involving parents and other stakeholders in policy design and implementation. Future research should focus on qualitative studies to deepen the understanding of parental experiences, involve teachers and students in the analysis, and investigate causal relationships between various factors influencing attitudes toward burden reduction policies.

The study's limitations include the use of convenience sampling in the parental survey, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. The lack of teacher survey data prevents a complete understanding of the dynamics among students, parents, and teachers under the "double reduction" policy. Further research is needed to establish clearer causal relationships between the various factors influencing stakeholders' views.