Chen, X;
Allen, JL;
Flouri, E;
Cao, X;
Hesketh, T;
(2023)
Parent-Child Communication About Educational Aspirations: Experiences of Adolescents in Rural China.
Journal of Child and Family Studies
10.1007/s10826-023-02554-8.
(In press).
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Abstract
The importance of parents in the transmission of educational aspirations to children is well-established. However, little is known about the quality of parent-child communication about educational aspirations and how this communication relates to children’s educational aspirations in socioeconomically disadvantaged families in rural China. In this study, we sought to gain insight into parent-child communication around educational aspirations from the perspective of Chinese rural adolescents. Twenty-three grade-9 students were recruited from middle schools in Songzi, a poor rural county in central China. Participants comprised 12 boys and 11 girls aged 14 to 16 years (M = 14.65 years, SD = 0.59). Students completed one-to-one qualitative interviews about parent-child communication and their educational aspirations in June 2020. Thematic analysis revealed that adolescents’ educational aspirations were strongly influenced by their parents’ beliefs and aspirations for them, with fulfilling parental aspirations and achieving economic success being important influences on rural adolescents’ educational aspirations. However, parent-child communication quality was undermined when parents had an authoritarian communication style and when parents were absent due to rural-urban migration, in which case adolescents reported stress and perceived lack of support in achieving their goals. In addition, mothers were viewed as playing a more vital role in communication than fathers. The implications of the findings for school and community-based interventions promoting rural parents’ ability to communicate effectively with their children about academic concerns are discussed.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Parent-Child Communication About Educational Aspirations: Experiences of Adolescents in Rural China |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10826-023-02554-8 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-023-02554-8 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Educational aspirations, Parent-child communication, Rural youth, Left-behind children, Interviews |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10167074 |
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