An ecological investigation of resilience among rural‐urban migrant adolescents of low socioeconomic status families in China

Abstract

The present study aims to explore the mechanism of resilience among rural‐urban migrant adolescents of low socioeconomic status (SES) families in China with the ecological system perspective. Selecting 946 rural‐urban migrant adolescents from the China Education Panel Survey, we used latent class analyses to distinguish different levels of resilience among migrant adolescents from low‐SES families, and logistic regressions to identify factors associated with resilience and to examine the cumulative risk and protection models. The findings show that parental expectation, teacher support and organised neighbourhood are salient resilience‐promoting factors; and resilience happens only if protective factors accumulate enough at multiple systems to compensate the negative effect of cumulative community risk. The study describes the importance of a protective environment in the domains of family, school and neighbourhood on the resilience of this group, and suggest intervention programmes should extend the paradigm from child‐centred approach to environment‐focused approach to potentiate the positive development of this population.

Family Socioeconomic Status and Learning Engagement in Chinese Adolescents: The Multiple Mediating Roles of Resilience and Future Orientation

“…It has also been found that an adolescent with inadequate family economic conditions has a lower level of resilience (Myers and Taylor, 1998 ). Some researchers believe that family SES affects resilience through the relationship between adolescents and their parents (Mackay, 2003 ; Gao et al, 2020 ; O'Gara et al, 2020 ). For example, parental confidence in the future of an adolescent may infuse them with high hopes, optimism, and a sense of direction, which further promotes their positive adaption during stressful situations (Gao et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Some researchers believe that family SES affects resilience through the relationship between adolescents and their parents (Mackay, 2003 ; Gao et al, 2020 ; O'Gara et al, 2020 ). For example, parental confidence in the future of an adolescent may infuse them with high hopes, optimism, and a sense of direction, which further promotes their positive adaption during stressful situations (Gao et al, 2020 ). However, research has found that Chinese parents with low SES are typically so busy working that they seldom communicate with their children (Huang et al, 2019 ).…”

Making Best Friends From Other Groups and Mental Health of Chinese Adolescents

“…Second, this study has found that cross-hukou-location friendship might be a resilient factor for non-local students. Therefore, a perspective of strength and resilience could be adopted to a greater degree by future studies to examine the protective factors of migrant children’s psychosocial integration (Gao et al, 2020).…”

Association between Subjective Body Image, Body Mass Index and Psychological Symptoms in Chinese Adolescents: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

“…In CEPS, the adolescents’ psychological symptoms were evaluated by 10 items about dispirited, not concentrating, unhappiness, meaningless, no energy, sadness, nervous, worried, afraid, hunching bad things, not concentrating on class, which was widely used in previous studies [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. A 5-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always) was used to grade each psychological symptom, and the total scores were ranged from 10 to 50, which the higher score indicated more severe psychological symptoms.…”