Rural left-behind children’s academic psychology in Western China and the school management countermeasures

Abstract

Left-behind children refer to those left behind by parents working away from home and taken care of by only one of the parents or relatives because one or both of the parents go out to work in the city. By using questionnaires, this study involves 8 627 rural pupils chosen from 10 provinces to examine academic psychological characteristics, containing academic self-concept, teacher-student relationship and the student attitudes towards school; and then it discusses the school management countermeasures. The results show: (1) children living with parents have the best academic performances; (2) children left behind with both parents working out show better than those living with one of the parents on academic psychological performance; and (3) children left behind with only one of the parents working out performs the worst, especially when only living with the father. Therefore, much more attention should be paid to those children.