Rural Left-behind Children Research Articles

The Dilemma of Socialization of Children Left Behind in Rural Areas of Ethnic Minority Areas and its Solution

Due to our rapid socio-economic development, this wave has ushered in a massive exodus of surplus rural labor to work. It has contributed significantly to China's social and economic development. However, due to problems such as China's historical dualistic urban-rural institutional structure, migrant workers who go out to work wander between urban and rural areas. Leaving their children behind in the countryside has created a social problem in the form of children left behind. To a large extent, children left behind in rural areas are prone to socialization difficulties such as psychological isolation and anxiety, quality of thought, and poor academic performance. This paper is based on six ethnic minority counties in Guizhou and investigates the problems of left-behind children in rural areas, interviewing them carefully. Based on the situation of rural left-behind children, this research analyzes their socialization problems, from learning to making suggestions to solve their growth problems, hoping to provide countermeasures to solve the growth problems of rural left-behind children in the best way.

The Effects of Organizational Social Support on Left-behind Children’s Resilience in China

Left-behind children are one of the main issues in China’s child welfare services. The change in the family environment has destroyed these children’s original levels of resilience. Hence social service and support from social organizations are needed. The study examines the impact of different types of social support social organizations provide to enhance the resilience of left-behind children in rural China. Types of social support analyzed include material, mental, informational, behavioral, and social interaction support. Data was collected from 384 rural left-behind children using a pre-coded questionnaire. Respondents were randomly selected from Guangxi, China in 2022. They had an average age of 12.781 years, with 45.83% male and 54.17% female. Multiple linear regression was used to conduct an empirical analysis of the different types of social support provided by social organizations. The results found that material, mental, informational, and behavioral support provided by social organizations had significant effects on the resilience of rural left-behind children in China. Further research should be conducted on the importance of providing material, mental, informational, and behavioral support to left-behind children to better help improve their resilience.

Study on Psychological Capital and School Adaptation of Urban Left-behind Children in China

Objective: This study explores the current status and relationship between psychological capital and school adaptation of urban left-behind children. Methods: The Adolescent Psychological Capital Questionnaire and the School Adaptation Questionnaire were used to investigate students in 10 primary and secondary schools in Hubei Province, China. Results: Urban left-behind children’s psychological capital and the average score of each dimension, school adaptation and the average score of each dimension were significantly higher than the median value. The psychological capital and school adaptation level of urban left-behind children are significantly lower than those of urban non-left-behind children, and at the same time significantly higher than those of rural left-behind children. There is a significant positive correlation between psychological capital and school adaptation of urban left-behind children. The psychological capital of urban left-behind children has a predictive effect on school adaptation and can explain 49% of the variation in school adaptation. Conclusion: The overall level of psychological capital and school adaptation of urban left-behind children is good. The school adaptation of urban left-behind children can be improved by raising the level of their psychological capital.

Relationship Between Empathy and Interpersonal Distress of Chinese Left-Behind Children: The Role of Emotion Regulation and Gender.

Interpersonal relationship serve as crucial of social support and a sense of security for left-behind children, playing a compensatory role in mitigating the absence of familial affection. Interpersonal distress can significantly impact their mental well-being. Although previous research has established a connection between empathy and interpersonal distress, the mechanisms by which empathy triggers interpersonal distress, as well as potential gender-based variations in this relationship, remain elusive. To bridge this gap in knowledge, this study investigates the mediating influence of emotion regulation and the moderating impact of gender in the relationship between empathy and interpersonal distress. A total of 713 rural left-behind children completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index scale, Emotion Regulation Competence Scale, and Interpersonal Relationship Assessment Scale. Pearson correlation analyses suggested strong significant correlations among empathy, emotion regulation ability, and interpersonal distress. Path analyses indicated that emotion regulation ability mediated the relationship between empathy and interpersonal distress. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analyses suggest a moderating effect of gender in the relationship between empathy and emotion regulation ability. The present study reveals the role of emotion regulation ability and gender in the relationship between empathy and interpersonal distress, which has important theoretical and practical implications for the prevention and intervention of interpersonal distress in left-behind children. Moreover, it may strengthen the relationship between peer and teacher at school, and improve the quality of parent-child communication at home.

The Relationship between Family Functioning and Reverse Psychology in Rural Left-behind Children: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital

The Relationship between Family Functioning and Reverse Psychology in Rural Left-behind Children: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital

Retraction: Physical exercise and psychological health of rural left-behind children: an experiment from China.

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1088509.].

Assessment of Perceived Factors of Road Safety in Rural Left-Behind Children’s Independent Travel: A Case Study in Changsha, China

The disparity between urban and rural development in China has resulted in the significant migration of rural laborers to urban areas, giving rise to a growing population of left-behind children in rural areas. The number of accidental injuries among these children traveling independently is increasing, suggesting that road safety in rural areas should be of concern. This study explored factors affecting road safety for left-behind rural children traveling independently. The data were collected from a survey conducted in four villages in Changsha, China. The study used a variety of methods, including spatial syntax, linear regression analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and stepwise regression analysis, to analyze factors affecting road safety for rural left-behind children traveling independently. The study revealed significant differences in road safety perceptions among rural left-behind children and their guardians. Road safety perceptions were significantly higher for left-behind children. Factors such as plant density, turning angle, road scale, road slope, recognizable signs, internal corner space, animal danger, enclosure type, electronic tools, monitoring facilities, strangers, and social concerns were found to be significantly related to road safety perceptions of left-behind children traveling independently. The findings suggested that left-behind children who travel independently in rural areas face a potential risk of accidental injuries. These results can be used by decision makers to improve the rural road environment and to provide useful assistance for the healthy growth of left-behind children.

Family Functioning and Interpersonal Adaptation in Rural Left-behind Children: The Serial Mediation Effect of Peer Relationships and Psychological Capital

Family Functioning and Interpersonal Adaptation in Rural Left-behind Children: The Serial Mediation Effect of Peer Relationships and Psychological Capital

Study on The Mental Health of Rural Left-behind Children in Boarding Schools

To investigate the mental health of rural left-behind children in boarding schools, the Mental Health Diagnostic Test (MHT) adapted to primary and secondary school students in China was used to compare the mental health of rural left-behind students in boarding and non-boarding schools. Results: First, there are some problems with the mental health of rural left-behind children in boarding schools. Second, there was a significant gender difference in the dimension of anxiety about people among boarding students. Second, there is a significant difference in the dimension of anxiety about people and loneliness among boarding students in terms of gender, and there is a significant difference in the grade level of anxiety about people and tendency of loneliness among boarding students. Therefore, it is suggested that schools, families and society should take joint measures to grasp and guide the psychology of rural left-behind children in boarding schools, especially those in the lower grades, in order to make them grow up healthy and strong.

Exercise identity, exercise behavior and mobile phone addiction: A cross-sectional mediation study with a sample of rural left-behind children in China

To evaluate the relationships among exercise identity, exercise behavior and mobile phone addiction in 516 left-behind children in rural China (48.06% boys; Mage = 12.13 ± 1.95, range 8–16). Specifically, cross-sectional design was carried out to test the hypothesis that the association between rural left-behind children’ exercise identity and mobile phone addition would be fully mediated by their exercise behavior. The participants filled in self-reported instruments. The data was analyzed using structural equation modeling and decomposition of direct and indirect effects. Exercise identity and exercise behavior were significantly negatively correlated with left-behind children's mobile phone addiction (r = −0.486, −0.278, P < 0.01), and exercise identity was positively correlated with their exercise behavior (r = 0.229, P < 0.01); the direct effect of exercise identity on mobile phone addiction was −0.226 (95% CI: −0.363 ∼ −0.108), accounting for 68.9% of the total effect of −0.328, and its indirect effect was 0.102 (95% CI: −0.161∼−0.005), accounting for 31.1% of the total effect. These findings suggest that exercise identity may be an effective measure to reduce left-behind children's mobile phone addiction. It is suggested that school administrators and guardians should pay attention to improving left-behind children's exercise identity level in the education process.

How to promote the social-emotional competence of rural left-behind children? An empirical study based on propensity score matching.

Social-emotional competence (SEC) played an important role in promoting the physical and mental development of children, but there exist huge gaps in SEC development between rural left-behind children. This study used propensity score matching (PSM) to investigate 578 rural children about the effects of being left behind as well as individual characteristics and teacher support on their development of SEC. The results showed that being left behind had significant negative effects on the SEC of rural children. The development of SEC varies among left-behind children of different genders and length of left-behind duration. Teacher support had a significant moderating effect on the influence path of SEC, which could effectively mitigate the negative effects of left-behind children. Therefore, this study played an implicative role in studying the development of left-behind children's SEC. The government and society should provide adequate cultural capital by completing the support system for compensating the lack of cultural capital. Schools and teachers should pay more attention to the development of left-behind children's SEC through curriculum development and performance evaluation to create a positive atmosphere. Parents should promote SEC development for left-behind children by improving their communication and family parenting styles.

The Development of Emotion Understanding among Five- and Six-Year-Old Left-Behind Children in Rural China

The left-behind children (LBC), separated from their mother/father or parents for a long period of time, have long been discussed as a subject of concern in China. Existing research has concluded that rural children who did not migrate with parents are subject to emotional risks. In the present study, the purpose is to study the impact of parental migration on early emotional understanding. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit 180 children aged five to six years in rural areas of Guangdong province, including LBC and non-left-behind children (NLBC). Their level of emotional understanding (EU) was assessed by the emotional comprehension test (TEC) adapted to the Chinese context. The results showed that, on the three levels (External, Internal, Reflective) of emotional understanding, LBC aged five- to six- years old scored significantly lower than NLBC as counterparts. On the whole, the emotional comprehension ability of preschool LBC was significantly lower than that of NLBC. However, there were no significant differences within LBC nurtured by single parents, grandparents, and other relatives. This study confirmed that parental migration in early childhood considerably impacted rural LBC's emotional understanding and affectional adjustment, which provided a significant basis for increasing parental care and early childhood companionship in rural areas.

Factors Influencing the Mental Health of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas

The problem of left-behind children in rural areas is in existence for many years. Notably, their psychological well-being is the most concerned issue. Scholars previously devoted a great deal of efforts to exploring the causes of the psychological problems of rural left-behind children from school, family and personal aspects, and developed a series of views as a result.This paper intended to summarize and analyze the factors affecting the psychological health of these children from four parts, including family, school, individual and interaction. The aim was to provide guidance for improving the psychological health of rural left-behind children, promoting the well-beings of rural families and social stability in rural areas.

What Matters on Rural Left-Behind Children's Problem Behavior: Family Socioeconomic Status or Perceived Discrimination.

With the acceleration of China's industrialization and urbanization, there is a large number of left-behind children in China who are reported with more challenges in development. The study aims to analyze the differences in family socioeconomic status (SES) and discrimination perception between left-behind children and non-left-behind children and further explore whether SES or discrimination perception has a greater impact on the problem behaviors of left-behind children. We found the family SES of left-behind children was significantly lower than that of non-left-behind children; left-behind children's perceived discrimination was significantly higher than that of non-left-behind children; perceived discrimination of left-behind children had a greater impact on their problem behavior than the family SES.

The Relationship between Rural Left-Behind Children’s Physical Activity and Hope: The Mediating Effects of Perceived Social Support

The Relationship between Rural Left-Behind Children’s Physical Activity and Hope: The Mediating Effects of Perceived Social Support

Physical exercise and psychological health of rural left-behind children: An experiment from China.

How to promote the health (especially mental health) growth of left-behind children has become a hot social issue. Physical exercise is usually considered as a positive role in improving the physical and mental health of children, which can be considered to be integrated into the living environment of left-behind children. To discuss the changes of left-behind children in psychological health before and after the exercise-based intervention, thus providing a practical approach to improve the psychological growth of this disadvantaged group. An exercise-based social intervention experiment was designed and conducted in a township middle school in China, and 200 left-behind children with relatively low psychological health participated in the experiment. Physical exercise had positive effects on rural left-behind children's sense of hope, self-esteem, self-efficiency, and self-concept, and it seems that the positive effects are durative due to the optimization of living environment. There was no significant difference in the psychological promotion effect of different programs (football and table tennis) on left-behind children. Hope, self-esteem, and self-efficiency significantly mediated the relationship between physical exercise and self-concept of left-behind children. Physical exercise contributes to promoting the development of rural left-behind children's positive psychology such as hope, self-esteem, self-efficiency, and thus relieving the negative psychology caused by long-term parental-child separation and improving self-concept.

Parental migration and self-efficacy among rural-origin adolescents in China: Patterns and mechanisms.

Large-scale rural-to-urban migration has shaped the socialization contexts of rural adolescents in China and can potentially impact their developmental outcomes. In this study, using data from the first wave of the China Education Panel Study collected in 2013, we focused on self-efficacy, an important but under-studied facet of noncognitive development, and assessed how it was influenced by family migration status. We also explored the mediating role of family and school resources. We compared three groups of rural-origin adolescents with different family migration statuses: rural left-behind children (LBC), rural not-left-behind children (NLBC), and rural-to-urban migrant children (MC). Structural equation modeling was performed to estimate the main effects of rural-origin groups on self-efficacy and the mediating effects of family income, family social capital, and school social capital for the significant group effects on self-efficacy. We found similar levels of self-efficacy among MC and NLBC, who in turn, exhibited greater self-efficacy than LBC. Discrepancies in family and school resources mediated the self-efficacy gaps between LBC and their MC and NLBC counterparts. Notably, when their disadvantages in family and school resources were controlled for, LBC were more efficacious than MC and NLBC, indicating LBC's resilience and the potential for promoting self-efficacy in LBC by providing adequate resources and support.

The bright side of digitization: Assessing the impact of mobile phone domestication on left-behind children in China's rural migrant families.

This study examines the mobile phone practices of rural left-behind children (LBC) whose one or both parents migrate to cities for better earnings and the impact of such practices on migrant families in China. The study has used ethnographic approach by conducting participant observations and interviews of 21 LBC, residing in Guangren village, south China's Guangxi Autonomous Region. The study uses domestication theory to analyze these LBC's adoption of mobile phones in their daily routines and spaces in and out of their households. The key findings are as follows: (a) the LBC used mobile phones primarily to engage with their distant parent(s); (b) through collaborative efforts, they tried to enhance familial connections; and (c) they overcome the separation issue by co-participating in ongoing events, thus making the domestication of mobile phone a distant solving of real-world problems faced by migrant parent(s) and their LBC. The study concludes that LBC's innovative uses of mobile phones empowered them by building shared virtual space with their migrant parent(s), via which they handled the separation issue. In such shared virtual spaces, LBC's families have developed rich expressions of familial connections in various forms based on the limited perpetuate connectedness.

The Effects of Parent Educational Expectations on the Competence Development of Rural Left-Behind Children: An Empirical Study Based on CEPS Data

Based on data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this study conducted an empirical analysis of the effect of parent educational expectations on the competence development of rural left-behind children and the underlying mediating mechanism. The research findings reveal that rural left-behind children have far less developed competencies than their non-left-behind counterparts and that parent educational expectations significantly and positively influence the competence development of left-behind children. Specifically, parent academic expectations impose the greatest impact on academic results of left-behind children; parent expectations of child education levels have the widest effects on various competencies of left-behind children; Parent involvement and teacher support exert a chain mediating effect on the relationship between parent educational expectations and the competence development of rural left-behind children. The mediation effect of teacher support or the concurrence of teacher support and parent involvement remarkably promoted the competence development of rural left-behind children, while parent involvement alone results in masking effects, which impede the improvement of their competencies to some extent.

Emotional Intervention and Education System Construction for Rural Children Based on Semantic Analysis.

Objective Under the background of the policy of caring for the healthy growth of left-behind children, the purpose of selecting the topic is to study some common negative emotional problems of left-behind children in rural areas, focusing on the guidance of negative emotions of left-behind children in rural areas. In emotional problems, we analyze and find out the reasons for these negative emotions through observation and research. Method In this paper, a platform for acquiring emotional semantic data of scene images in an open behavioral experimental environment is designed, which breaks the limitations of time and place, and thus acquires a large amount of emotional semantic data of scene images and then uses principal component analysis to evaluate the validity of the data analysis. Psychological testing was used to measure parent-child affinity, adversity beliefs, and positive/negative emotion scales, respectively, to examine children whose parents went out, children whose fathers went out, and non-left-behind children. The characteristics of parent-child affinity, adversity beliefs, and positive/negative emotions in three types of children were examined, and the direct predictive effects of parent-child affinity and adversity beliefs on the positive/negative emotions of the three types of children were examined. Results/Discussion. Adversity beliefs played a partial mediating role between children's parent-child bonding and positive emotions. The predictive effect of adversity beliefs on children's emotional adaptation differs by emotional type. The main effects of the left-behind category were significant for both positive and negative emotions. The gender main effect of negative emotion was significant, and the negative emotion level of girls was significantly higher than that of boys. The main effect of the left-behind category of adversity beliefs was significant, and the adversity belief levels of children whose parents went out to rural areas were significantly lower than those of children whose fathers went out and non-left-behind children. The negative emotions generated by left-behind children in rural areas are channeled, and to a certain extent, they are improved and alleviated. Through the emotional counseling and improvement of the rural left-behind children in the research site in the article, the service objects can have better emotions, promote mental health, make them happy and grow up healthily, and also provide a certain theory for the establishment of the local left-behind children care system.