The impact of discrimination perception on academic burnout of junior college students: the mediating role of belief in a just world and the moderating effect of sense of family obligation

Within the context of higher education stratification, junior college students are more likely to experience unfair treatment based on their academic credentials during their studies and in societal evaluations. This social pressure may impact their academic engagement, educational quality, and long-term development. Based on the student needs-resources process framework, this study views academic burnout as a process outcome gradually formed under the dual pressures of continuous learning demands and resource depletion. Using structural equation modeling, it examines the relationships and underlying mechanisms among perceived of discrimination, belief in a just world, sense of family obligation, and academic burnout among junior college students from the perspectives of social structural pressures and their psychological mechanisms. The research results show that perception of discrimination has a significant positive predictive effect on academic burnout. Belief in a just world plays a partial mediating role between perception of discrimination and academic burnout. Among them, perception of discrimination significantly negatively predicts belief in a just world, and belief in a just world significantly negatively predicts academic burnout. Furthermore, sense of family obligation exerted a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between perceived discrimination and academic burnout, while also negatively moderating the relationship between perceived discrimination and the belief in a just world. This study, framed within the demand-resource and meaning systems perspectives, elucidates the psychological mechanisms through which perceived discrimination influences academic burnout among junior college students. It provides empirical evidence for understanding how to enhance educational quality and promote students' holistic development within stratified educational contexts.