‘Self’ (ziji), ‘others’ (taren) and ‘collective’ (jiti): Friendships at school embedded with China's Confucian–collectivist sociocultural values

Zhu, Yunxia

doi:10.1111/chso.12473

Cited by 8 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…With the development of perspective-taking and empathic skills, older children support each other better and solve conflicts more effectively (Rubin et al, 2015), thus allowing them to form high-quality friendships and improve friendship quality over time. In particular, Chinese society emphasizes interdependent cultural values and interpersonal harmony (Zhu, 2021); thus, Chinese children are encouraged to develop and maintain high-quality friendships. Furthermore, the improvement of friendship quality may be a result of the increasing stability of the friendships (Poulin & Chan, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, well-adjusted friends can serve as children’s positive role models for better adjustment to school (Parker et al, 2006). As human relatedness and social harmony are valued highly in Chinese Confucian culture (Wei & Li, 2013; Zhu, 2021), friendships may be particularly influential in Chinese children’s school adjustment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a collectivistic society, Chinese society is typically relationship-oriented (Zhu, 2021). Also, Chinese Confucian values emphasize human relatedness and interpersonal harmony (Wei & Li, 2013).…”

Section: Developmental Changes Of Friendship Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Chinese children’s heterogeneous friendship quality trajectories: Relations with school adjustment.

Liu¹,

Tian²

2022

School Psychology

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Friendships affect children's development and adjustment. This longitudinal study examined the possible heterogeneity and gender differences in the trajectories of children's friendship quality, as well as the relations between distinct friendship quality trajectories and school adjustment. A total of 3,779 Chinese elementary school students (45.5% girls, M age = 9.94 years, SD = 0.72 at Time 1) completed measures of relevant constructs on five occasions at 6-month intervals. Latent class growth modeling revealed four heterogeneous developmental trajectory classes of friendship quality: high-increasing (49.6%), moderatedecreasing (5.1%), moderate-increasing (31.9%), and low-stable (13.4%). Girls were more likely than boys to fall into the higher friendship quality trajectory classes in reference to the low-stable class. Children in the high-increasing class and low-stable class showed the best and the worst school adjustment, respectively. The identification of four heterogeneous developmental trajectories of friendship quality with differential school adjustment outcomes highlights the importance of intervention programs tailored to specific groups for promoting children's friendship quality and school adjustment. Impact and ImplicationsThe findings revealed four heterogeneous friendship quality trajectories classes in Chinese schoolchildren, with boys displaying higher odds of being in the low-stable class than girls. Also, friendship quality was positively related to children's subjective well-being in school and academic achievement. Friendship interventions should be tailored to members of specific groups for promoting optimal school adjustment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Chinese children’s heterogeneous friendship quality trajectories: Relations with school adjustment.

Liu¹,

Tian²

2022

School Psychology

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“…Therefore, a failure to provide paybacks to assisting person would cause damage to the stability of a relationship ( guanxi ). As children who grow up in Chinese society, the rule of giving and returning favours was followed by these Primary Year 5 children in their daily interpersonal interactions with their peers (see also Zhu, 2021a). To provide paybacks for the protection offered by ‘big brothers’ and ‘big sisters’, some children needed to do favours for these older peers.…”

Section: Kindness With Conditions? Paybacks For Protection Provided B...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In such narratives, they commonly adopted a careless and joking tone, which might suggest that they took younger children's guard ‘duty’ for granted because they did the same ‘favours’ for older peers when they were the younger ones. Although I did not have access to talk with the younger children mentioned by my participants in the field to directly explore their feelings toward the request of guarding older children's play at night, it might be surmised that these younger children were probably under significant stress because of the negative consequences of being accused as rulebreakers in a school context that was fulfilled by the norms of ‘collective good’, ‘shame’ and ‘face’ (Schoenhals, 2016) and managed by the points‐earning/ranking system (Zhu, 2021a).…”

Section: Kindness With Conditions? Paybacks For Protection Provided B...mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Big brothers and sisters have my back’: Benefits and risks of befriending older peers as a strategy to deal with school bullying

Zhu

2023

Child Abuse Review

Self Cite

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Befriending 'brothers' and 'sisters' from older year groups was a strategy used by children to gain protection against being bullied by same-age peers at school, especially in contexts, such as Chinese rural boarding schools, where children spend a long time with peers under limited adult supervision. However, it is alarming that such close connections with older children, in some cases, could give children a feeling of having power over their same-age peers, leading them to engage in bullying. In addition, since the roles as the provider and receiver of protection could cause an unbalanced power between the older ones and younger ones, younger children might have to experience a 'dark' side of such cross-age peer relationships, such as exploitation, in some cases. Such experiences could be further strengthened by the Chinese values of 'giving' and 'gaining' in relationships. Therefore, based on an ethnographic study in a rural primary boarding school in China, this article argues that befriending older peers could contribute to increasing the safety of children at school. However, it is also necessary to be aware of potential risks associated with such peer relationships, because of the unbalanced power relation amongst children caused by age. K E Y W O R D Sbullying, cross-age peer relationship, power, protection Key Practitioner Messages • Peers have strong power in terms of shaping children's school life.• Cross-age friendship could contribute to children's positive school experience. • Practitioners need to support children to build up a good understanding of the rules to deal with relationships with peers because power hierarchies commonly exist in such relationships. • There is a risk of abusing power amongst children's peer groups in the practice of using peer power to influence children's school life.

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The effect of academic performance, individualistic and collectivistic orientation on Chinese youth’s adjustment

Tan

Camras

et al. 2021

Soc Psychol Educ

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‘Self’ (ziji), ‘others’ (taren) and ‘collective’ (jiti): Friendships at school embedded with China's Confucian–collectivist sociocultural values

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 8 publications

References 28 publications

Chinese children’s heterogeneous friendship quality trajectories: Relations with school adjustment.

Chinese children’s heterogeneous friendship quality trajectories: Relations with school adjustment.

‘Big brothers and sisters have my back’: Benefits and risks of befriending older peers as a strategy to deal with school bullying

The effect of academic performance, individualistic and collectivistic orientation on Chinese youth’s adjustment

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