Chen, X;
Hesketh, T;
(2021)
Educational aspirations and expectations of adolescents in rural China: Determinants, mental health and academic outcomes.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
, 18
(21)
, Article 11524. 10.3390/ijerph182111524.
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Abstract
Educational aspirations and expectations of adolescents have implications for educational and psychological outcomes. This study aimed to determine factors associated with educational aspiration–expectation discrepancies and to examine the associations between the discrepancies and psychological and academic outcomes in rural left-behind children and non-left-behind children aged 14–16 in mainland China. Cross-sectional data from a self-report survey were collected in 2020 among 606 rural students (mean age = 14.85 years) in two public middle schools in Songzi county, Hubei Province. Participants filled in questionnaires measuring their socio-demographic infor-mation, educational aspirations and expectations, academic performance, parental and friends’ as-pirations, academic self-perception, academic self-regulation, depression, and self-esteem. Results showed that more than half of the participants reported that they felt they were not likely to attain the level of education to which they aspired. Parental migration, academic performance, mother’s educational aspirations for children, and close friends’ educational aspirations were the main factors associated with students’ educational aspiration–expectation discrepancies. Both left-behind children and non-left-behind children whose aspirations exceed expectations were more likely to report lower self-esteem, higher depression, lower academic self-perception, and poorer self-regu-lation than those without a discrepancy. These findings have implications for families, schools, and policymakers through informing the development of interventions that target positive development in rural youth.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Educational aspirations and expectations of adolescents in rural China: Determinants, mental health and academic outcomes |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/ijerph182111524 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111524 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Educational aspirations; educational expectations; mental health; academic outcomes; adolescents; rural China; left behind children; cross-sectional studies |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10138054 |
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