The influence of preschool rural migrant composition on rural migrant children’s early development in China |
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| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China;2. National Innovation Center for Assessment of Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China;3. Department of Literacy Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA;1. Hangzhou College of Preschool Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China;2. Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA;3. Faculty of Education, University of Macau, China;1. School of Economics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;2. China Center for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China |
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| Abstract: | A multilevel modeling approach was employed to investigate the relationship between preschool rural migrant composition and the pre-academic and behavioral outcomes of young rural migrant children with different durations of residence in urban China. This study represents a unique contribution because (1) few studies have focused on young Chinese rural migrant children and examined the influence of preschool rural migrant composition on their academic skills and behaviors, (2) few researchers in China have used a continuous (i.e., percentage of rural migrants in school) as opposed to a binary (i.e., mixed school versus rural migrant school) indicator for school rural migrant composition, and (3) few investigations have distinguished groups of rural migrant children by the duration of urban residence (i.e., short-duration (SD) rural migrant children versus long-duration (LD) rural migrant children). Based on data of 1213 Chinese children (2.7–6.17 years of age) and their parents and teachers from 81 urban preschools in Beijing, we found that SD rural migrants (≦2.5 years) were rated significantly lower in oral language and numeracy skills and that LD rural migrants (>2.5 years) were rated as having significantly more behavioral problems than their urban counterparts after controlling for the children’s gender, age, family socioeconomic status (SES) and preschool SES. Cross-level interactions indicated that SD rural migrant children in preschools with proportionally more rural migrant peers fared better in terms of oral language skills, and LD rural migrant children had fewer behavioral problems when there were more rural migrant peers in their preschools, whereas urban children performed worse in terms of oral language skills and displayed more behavioral problems in preschools with a high rural migrant composition. These findings provide insights into improving the early development and adaptations of rural migrant children. |
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| Keywords: | Preschool rural migrant composition Duration of residence Oral language skills Numeracy skills Behavioral problems Chinese children |
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