Soc Indic Res

DOI 10.1007/s11205-017-1757-3

Academic Resilience in Rural Chinese Children:

Individual and Contextual Influences

Haibin Li1 · Wei-jun Jean Yeung2

Accepted: 20 September 2017

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017

Abstract Although urbanization in China is growing at a fast pace, there is still a large
section of population (45%) living in rural or remote locations. In this developing country
with the world’s largest population, the government’s strict household registration (hukou)
control policy results in less opportunity for children with rural hukou status to have access
to adequate education resources. The aim of this study is to explore the individual and
contextual factors that are conducive to rural students’ academic resilience. We use data
from the Chinese Family Panel Studies (2012 wave) that include 1729 Chinese children
aged 10–15 years (boys 53.8%; girls 46.2%) from more than 25 provinces. Among them,
70.1% are from the rural area, 25.2% are of urban hukou, 4.7% are those with no hukou or
foreigners, and 50.1% are primary school students. Through comparison between rural
non-resilient and resilient groups, this paper finds different pathways for rural Chinese
children’s academic resilience. Having high parental expectation and attending key schools
are important in the Chinese context while helping to check homework seems ineffective in
improving Chinese rural children’s academic performance. The findings provide empirical
evidence that understanding resilience needs to take contexts and culture into
consideration.

Keywords Academic resilience · Chinese · Rural children · Family · School

1 Introduction

Academic resilience refers to achieving better than expected academic outcomes or

bouncing back after encountering negative events, difficult situations or adversity (Martin
2002; Masten 1994). It has prompted interest in the community and among researchers. In

& Haibin Li
lihaibin@ipp.org.cn
1
Institute of Public Policy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
2
National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

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this paper, we investigate the factors that help Chinese children from families in rural areas
where there are substantial disadvantages to overcome institutional barriers to achieve
academic resilience. Gaining a better understanding of these factors will inform policy
solutions to reduce or even eliminate the urban–rural disparities or gaps in academic
achievement thus has significant consequences for both individuals (e.g., educational
attainment, earnings, and health) and society (e.g., the quality and quantity of human
resources, economic development and safety).
China is the most populous country in the world, home to 1.37 billion people in 2014
(source). Although the urban population has been growing at a rapid pace over the last few
decades, nearly half of the population (45.23% in 2014) still live in rural or remote
locations (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2015). It is widely known that increased
access to education is a key driving force for children’s academic success. Although
educational attainment in China has significantly improved in recent years, the urban–rural
disparities or gaps in academic achievement still exist due to regional disparities in edu-
cational development and the much lower income for families in the rural areas. In the late
1990s, China’s government announced a “universalized” (pujiu 普九) 9-year basic or
compulsory education system (years 1–9) in most parts of the country, which ensure every
school age children can receive free education regardless of their family economic con-
ditions. However, studies show that annual dropout rates in rural areas were 8% for
primary schools (years 1–6) and 23% for junior secondary schools (years 7–9) in Yunnan
province (Yunnan Education Bureau 2006), and the dropout rate in junior secondary school
in poor rural areas in Northeast China reached up to 54% (Yuan et al. 2004). An article
entitled ‘Why poor children have no spring?’ published in the newspaper The Weekend of
South on August 13, 2011 reported that, after 2000, rural students made up only one tenth
of the student population in one of the leading research universities in Beijing.
In China, children’s educational opportunities are highly differentiated by the hukou1
system which denies rural children the right to enter urban public schools. Studies also
found that, compared to the urban peers, children with rural hukou have significant lower
socio-economic status (Sheng 2009), while much research (e.g., Brotman et al. 2011) has
also shown that children from families of lower socio-economic status do worse in school
than their more advantaged peers because they have less access to material resources and
social networks.
Moreover, since the 1980s, there has been a huge discrepancy in educational resources
between urban areas and less-developed rural areas. Based on data reported in the China
Statistical Yearbook (National Bureau of Statistics of China 1999), only 20% (2721) of
China’s regular senior secondary schools (total 13,948) are available in rural areas where
70% of the Chinese student population live, and around 90% of secondary schools in rural
areas fail to meet national standards for basic facilities (e.g., chairs, desks, and safe
drinking water). And even worse, between 2000 and 2010, rural schools have been closing
their doors at an alarming rate (almost 50%) due to the removal and merge of schools (Che
dian bing xiao 撤点并校) which was implemented by the government to drive urbanization
(Wang 2014). That means that rural children will face great challenges in receiving any

1
China’s hukou system is a family registration program that serves as a domestic passport, regulating
population distribution and rural-to-urban migration. It is a tool for social and geographic control that
enforces an apartheid structure denying “peasants” (the official term designating inferior hukou status) the
same rights and benefits enjoyed by urban residents, and creates highly uneven resource distribution
between rural and urban areas and across different regions.

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education (e.g., due to long distance from the school). Since 1990, tens of millions of rural
workers have moved to urban areas for work, but their rural hukou makes it difficult for
them to send their children to better-resourced and better-run middle schools in the cities.
Therefore, the migrants often have no choice but to leave their children behind to be
schooled.
We examine factors that help the children from disadvantaged rural families to over-
come institutional barriers and achieve upward mobility. Indeed, while interventions
certainly need to focus on risk reduction, understanding what enables young people not
only to avoid the detrimental consequences of childhood stress but to achieve and thrive at
school despite these difficulties should suggest additional promising directions for sup-
portive intervention.

2 Theoretical and Empirical Factors Relating to Academic Resilience

In the resilience literature, a good deal of research has been directed to investigating and
identifying the protective factors that moderate the effects of risk and support positive
outcomes, because protective factors can: alter riskiness itself and reduce involvement in
the risk situation; reduce negative chain-reactions that follow problematic events or
experiences; promote self-esteem and self-efficacy through achievements; and provide new
opportunities to individuals that further mitigate risk (Rutter 1990).
Experts in the field (e.g., Bronfenbrenner 1979; Masten and Coatsworth 1998) point out
that an individual’s life is embedded in a complicated developmental system that involves
multiple features of the individual (e.g., biological make-up, emotions, personality, and
cognition) and multiple levels of social ecology (e.g., peers, family, school and commu-
nity). According to the view, individuals do not develop and act independently; their
experiences are always connected to the lives of significant others (e.g., parents) and are
always affected by nested social systems. Resilient outcomes for school-age children, such
as academic competence (Luthar and Cushing 1999; Masten et al. 1995) are then under-
stood to result from social processes or the interaction between individuals and their social
ecologies, especially families and schools (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000; Rutter 1999; Ungar
2008). Western studies have found that these factors from family, school, and individual
levels may promote academic resilience.

2.1 Family Factors

Many western studies have found that parents’ income, expectations, involvement in
school and positive family environment play important roles in developing students’
academic resilience (Benson and Buehler 2012; Keith et al. 1998; Kiernan and Mensah
2011; Ryabov 2013). Much research (e.g., Brotman et al. 2011) has also shown that
children from higher socio-economic status families do better in school than their more
disadvantaged peers because they have more access to material resources and social net-
works. Studies also indicate that increased parent involvement in education has a direct
effect on cognitive skills (Brotman et al. 2011). Cheung and Pomerantz (2012) note that
when parents are more involved in children’s learning, children will be more motivated to
do well for parent-oriented reasons. Studies have also found that parental expectations play
a significant role in children’s academic achievement and this is positively related both to

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the individual’s current achievement and to later achievement (Glick and White 2004;
Halle et al. 1997; Phillipson 2009; Seginer 1983; Smith and Prior 1995). In the expecta-
tions-driven model, parents’ expectations are regarded as motivational factors that promote
students’ learning. Parental expectations influence children’s own expectations and atti-
tudes towards school (Hossler and Stage 1992).
In Asian countries or regions such as Taiwan, family functioning or parental expectation
also regarded as positive factors that protect youth from many adaptation problems (Hsieh
and Leung 2009; Hsieh and Shek 2008, Leung and Shek 2015a, b; Shek and Wu 2016a, b).

2.2 School Factors

School type (e.g., key vs. ordinary) is also an important determinant of educational success
(Lu and Zhou 2013). School type affects student achievement through both peer and
resource mechanisms. Generally, key schools have many students with high achievement
and motivation levels, which can help create a “culture of success” in school. The key
school culture could influence teachers’ expectations of students and curriculum
arrangements. Peers will also influence motivation, aspirations, and social behavior
through in-class and out-of-class interactions (e.g., cooperative work groups, study
groups). In addition, key schools have lots of resources (e.g., materials and books; qualified
and experienced teachers), which have a significant impact on academic attainment.

2.3 Individual Internal Factors

Western studies have also found that personal existential state, and the capacity for
autonomous, deliberate action are often factors that determine an individual’s academic
success, especially among children from low-middle income families (Gordon and Song
1994). We also found that confidence, effective coping and personal independence was
positively related to academic resilience in Asian adolescence (Hsieh and Leung 2009;
Hsieh and Shek 2008).

3 Chinese Culture/Context and the Present Study

However, as Ungar (2008) has argued, individual and family capacities that provide rel-
evant resources for resilience are context specific and grounded in cultural meanings and
beliefs. Therefore, understanding resilience needs to take account of contexts, cultural
understandings and their interrelatedness.
This approach has been supported by the findings of empirical studies in diverse social
contexts (e.g., Li et al. 2011; Liem et al. 2011; Ungar 2008, 2012; Shek et al. 2012). For
example, effort has been proposed as an important factor behind Chinese students’ edu-
cational and other attainments (e.g., Hau and Salili 1996; Ho et al. 1999; Lau and Chan
2001), and research has found a stronger emphasis on effort than on ability for under-
achievers in the East Asian context compared to underachievers in the Western context
(Lau and Chan 2001). The school success of Asian children in North American contexts
has been attributed to Asian parents and students holding higher expectations and valuing
education, and discipline (Okagaki and Frensch 1998; Smith and Prior 1995).

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Recently, it has been reported that Chinese students (15-year-old school pupils) despite
living in high competitive and unfavourable academic environments performed very well
in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in all subjects (e.g., mathematics,
science, and reading) (OECD 2014). Some argue that it maybe because Chinese students
have pushy parents and even pushier teachers (Ellicott 2013). An article titled ‘Why do
Chinese pupils do so well in school tests?’ published in BBC news analysed that the family
factors (e.g., family background and parental involvement), school choice and hard work
were estimated to represent about 85% of the advantage (Coughlan 2014).
While most of these studies are clearly relevant to risk and resilience in China, they only
offer a preliminary snapshot. A more comprehensive understanding of how Chinese culture
and context influence resilience remains an unmet research need. Also, whether these
factors found in the western contexts can be generated to the Chinese context, especially
for the rural groups is not known.
Chinese culture and contexts have distinct characteristics from those in many Western
societies. In traditional Chinese culture, parents always “wish that their sons would become
dragons and their daughters would become phoenixes” (Wang zi cheng long, wang nü
cheng feng 望子成龙,望女成凤). In China, the Confucian belief “to be a scholar is to be at
the top of society” (Wan ban jie xia ping, wei you du shu gao 万般皆下品,唯有读书高)
assigns importance to education as the source of individual spiritual and material rewards,
family honour and improved social status (Luo 1996; Smith and Prior 1995).
In fact, the traditional value of education and parental beliefs and behaviors are shaped
by socioeconomic and demographic policies that give rise to highly diverse challenges
across social groups and localities in China (Chen et al. 2000). For Chinese rural children,
getting into higher education is considered as the only opportunity to change their fate
(commonly known “jump into the dragon gate” Tiao long men 跳龙门) by permanently
leaving the poor countryside (Annunziata et al. 2006). In the Chinese context, Zhang’s
(2012) longitudinal study found that parents’ and children’s shared high expectations of
educational attainment and college completion predict success for poor rural students.
Since 1979, the Chinese government’s one-child policy has restricted families to having
only one child and has assigned full responsibility to parents for their children’s upbringing
and education, intensifying parents’ concern with their children’s educational success.
Zhao and Selman (2014) argue that parental anxiety concerning their child’s future is also a
driver of competitive pressure on students. This is evident in the competitive ethos around
local education, where there is pressure on students to study hard to gain entrance to better
resourced “key” schools that optimize the opportunity to enter university, and the promise
of a more prosperous future. Parents seeking this route for their children invest in books,
enroll them in after-school tuition and pay high tuition and boarding fees for preferred
schools.
Schools in China have been mainly divided into ‘key’ and ‘ordinary’ schools since the
1950s. Due to limited educational resources, the Chinese government decided to con-
centrate its limited resources in a few schools. Key schools are given priority in the
assignment of teachers, equipment, and funds. The best teachers in the area are transferred
to teach in these schools, they receive much more funding from the state or local gov-
ernment for equipment upgrade or purchase of expensive items such as computers, and
they are also allowed to recruit the best students through city-wide or region-wide
examinations. Because key schools have these advantages, they often boast 90–99%
admission rates to universities (Lin 1999). These key schools are mostly located in the
cities or towns. In China, vast numbers of children live in rural areas where they may lack
adequate access to health care, education, and other basic services compared with their

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urban hukou counterparts (Chan 2009), and due to the large population and limited edu-
cational resources, academic competition is intense in schools.
This article contributes to understanding resilience in the Chinese context through
discussion of empirical research on students’ academic resilience. This paper drawn on
data from an existing data pool, to explore what factors might lead Chinese children,
especially rural children, to become academically resilient. Specifically, the goal of this
paper is to investigate the extent to which academic resilience among students from rural
areas are accounted for by contextual influences. This article provides robust findings to
reveal the pathways for rural children’s academic resilience. The conception model of this
paper is in Fig. 1.

4 Data and Methods

This paper utilized data from the 2012 Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS). CFPS is a
national longitudinal general social survey project with a nationally representative sample
of more than 16,000 Chinese families in 25 provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions

Factors that make disadvantaged rural children academic resilient

Family factors

Family SES
Parental Supervision
Parental Expectation
Checking homework
Family Environment
Educational Cost
Disadvantaged Academic
Chinese Rural Resilience
Children
School factors

Key School
Attending Tutorial Class

Individual Factors

Depression/ Optimism
Positive view about self

In Chinese Culture/context

Fig. 1 Conceptual framework

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in mainland China. There are 1212 Chinese children (boys 55.5%; girls 44.5%) aged 10–
15 years (mean = 12.49) from more than 25 provinces included in this analysis. Among
them, 57.2% are primary school students.

4.1 Measures

Individual’s cognitive ability in the 2012 CFPS was evaluated using a combination of verbal
(immediate word recall) and mathematical problems (number series test). All respondents
were required to complete the questionnaires by themselves. The scores for immediate
word recall and the number series test were transferred to Z-score separately according to
the different age groups and then added together to form the cognitive score.
Family factors in this paper included family SES, parenting variables, home environ-
ment, and education cost for the child. Family SES was measured by the combination of
family annual income and parental education (the highest education level of the parent).
Parental supervision was measured from parents’ reports. Five items (e.g., how often did
you ask the child to finish homework?) with responses being from 1 = very often (6–7
times a week) to 5 = never. All responses were reversed to ensure that a high score
represented high parental supervision and a low score represented low parental supervi-
sion. Parental academic expectation was assessed by the extent to which the children’s
parents expected them to do well in the overall scores of academic achievement. It was
measured by only 1 item (what is the average score out of a total of 100 that you expect
your child to achieve this/next semester?). The answer was between 60 and 100. A higher
score indicated a higher parental academic expectation.
Checking homework was assessed by 1 item from parents’ reports. How often did you
check your child’s homework? Responses were from 1 = very often (6–7 times a week) to
5 = never. The response was reversed to ensure a high score represented high frequency of
parents checking their child’s homework. Family Academic Environment (such as child’s
artwork, books, or other study materials) indicated that the parents care about the child’s
education. It was measured by the interviewer’s observation. Responses were five options
from 1 = extremely agree to 5 extremely disagree. The item was reversed to make sure that
a higher score represented a better family academic environment and lower score indicated
a worse family environment. Parents or caregivers were also asked about the total edu-
cational expenditure on the child in the past year (excluding living expenses). The amount
was in Chinese Renminbi from 0 yuan.
School variables in this paper were measured by whether the participant attended a key
school and/or a tuition class recently. Parents or care givers were asked these questions: “Is
the child currently in a key school?” and “In the most recent month when he/she was not on
vacation, did the child ever participate in any parent–child class/extracurricular tuition or
is he/she currently participating in any?”. Responses for both questions were “Yes” or
“No” answers.
Individual factors included individual’s psychological variables such as depression/
optimism, and positive view about self. Depression/Optimism scale was measured by 20
items relating to children’s mental statuses in the past week (e.g., I am worried about some
trivial things). Each item was rated on a 4-point scale: (1) never (less than one day); (2)
sometimes (1–2 days); (3) often (3–4 days); (4) most of the time (5–7 days). Some items
were reversed to make all measures represented in the same direction. Low scores indi-
cated depression while high scores indicated optimism. Positive view about self was
measured by 4 items. The example item was: “Do you think you are popular?”. Responses

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ranged from 0 (the lowest score) to 10 (the highest score) and higher scores indicated
higher positive view about self.

4.2 Analysis

To investigate whether these factors from different systems positively predicted rural
children’s cognitive tests, three multiple regression models were employed to analyse the
rural sample data. In order to find the detailed protective factors for rural academic resilient
children, One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized to test for mean differences
among resilient (rural children with high cognitive test scores), and non-resilient (rural
children with low cognitive test scores) groups.
In the resilience literature, in general, if disadvantaged students are below or above
certain performance thresholds of a set of cognitive measures, then disadvantaged students
will be categorized as non-resilient or resilient groups (Cheung 2017; Luthar and Cushing
1999; Masten and Coatsworth 1998). In this study, if rural students’ standardized cognitive
test scores higher than the full sample’s standard deviation (SD), they were classified into
rural resilient group (N = 163) (Luthar and Cushing 1999). If rural students had a stan-
dardized score lower than − 1SD in cognitive test score, they were classified into rural non-
resilient group (N = 220). Those who did not meet these criteria were not included in the
ANOVA analyses. Given that the three groups were not big, eleven one-way ANOVAs
were performed to test the differences on each protective factor among these groups.

5 Results

5.1 Descriptive Analyses and Intercorrelations

Table 1 displays descriptive information (mean, standard deviation and range) of the
variables in the study. On average, Chinese rural children have positive family environ-
ments and positive views about themselves. In particular, parental expectations of their
children’s academic outcomes were high (above 90 of the overall 100 score). On the
contrary, only a small part of Chinese rural children enrolled in the key schools and
attended the tutorial classes.
Intercorrelations among these independent and dependent variables are presented in
Table 1. It can be seen that the correlation coefficients among these variables ranged from
− .23 to .64. The very low to moderate correlations suggest that these variables represent
distinct constructs. In addition, all family, school and individual psychological variables
were positively related to cognitive test score.

5.2 Factors Explaining the Rural Children’s Academic Resilience

We used multiple regressions to test the extent to which family, school and individual
variables predict cognitive outcome in the Chinese context. Results showed that all school
and individual variables and some of family variables under study were protective factors
that made rural students academically resilient—family SES (β = .18), educational cost
(β = .14) and parental supervision (β = .12), positively predict rural students’ cognitive
abilities. However, family environment (β = .01, not statistically important) checking
homework (β = − .04, not statistically important), and parental expectation (β = .01, not

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 Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations among these major variables
Variables 1 2 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 M SD Range

Cognitive ability
1. Cognitive test scores – − .15 1.55 − 6.3–3.75
Family factors
2. Family SES .16** – − .42 1.16 − 3.64–7.19
3. Parental supervision .10* .05 – 16.6 3.6 5–25
4. Parental expectation .08** − .09** .05 – 90.9 9.1 60–100
5. Educational cost .15** .18** − .03 .00 – 2432 3576 0–62,800
6. Family environment .01 .03 .05 .00 − .02 – 3.5 .72 1–5
7. Checking homework .03 − .15** .64** .05 − .01 − .01 – 2.7 1.35 1–5
School factors
Academic Resilience in Rural Chinese Children: Individual…

8. Key school (0 = no; 1 = yes) .08* .04 .03 .07* .06* .01 .08* – .23 .42 0–1
9. Tutorial class (0 = no; 1 = yes) .08* .15** .06 .10** .16** .02 .07** .11** – .11 .32 0–1
Individual factors
10. Depression/optimism .17** .01 .00 .04 .09** − .02 .04 − .02 .15** – 64 5.3 33–72
11. Positive view about self .12** .09* .10** .14** .07* .00*** .11** .04 .09** .30** – 30 6.2 7–40
12. Age .01 − .13* − .10** − .10** .24** .00 − .23** .05 − .05 − .00 .00 – 12.5 1.67 10–15
** p \ .01; * p \ .05

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statistically important) had no significant influences on rural students’ cognitive abilities.

From the three models, we found that family variables (R2 = .07) explained higher
variance of cognitive scores (Tables 2, 3).
After the multiple regressions, we categorized these rural children as two groups: non-
resilient and resilient groups. Eleven one-way between-groups analysis of variance were
conducted explore the impact of each protective factor in different groups. The differences
in educational cost between the two groups are big (effect size is .66). Post-hoc comparison
using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for rural resilient group was
significantly higher than that in rural non-resilient group, which can obviously explain why
rural students can achieve better in cognitive test despite being in unfavorable environ-
ments. Results also showed that family SES and being optimistic between the two groups
are significantly different (effect sizes are .06, and resilient group has higher scores in the
two factors).
However, we also found that, despite reaching statistical significance, the actual dif-
ference in mean scores in other protective factors between the groups was quite small. The
effect sizes were smaller than .03.

6 Discussion

6.1 Findings of Note

Through the comparison between rural non-resilient and resilient groups, this paper finds
the pathways for rural Chinese children’s academic resilience. These differences are seen
in the aspects of family SES, parental supervision, parental expectation, educational
expenditure, keeping optimistic and having positive view about self. This is consistent with
our understanding and previous findings reported in the literature review.

Table 2 Path coefficients from multiple regression analyses in rural children and full sample (standardized
betas)
Models Predictor variables Outcome variable (cognitive test score)

Model 1 1. Family SES .18**

2. Parental supervision .12*
3. Parental expectation .06
4. Educational cost .14**
5. Family environment .01
6. Checking homework − .04
Total R2 .07
Model 2 7. Key school .07*
8. Attending tuition class .06*
Total R2 .01
Model 3 9. Depression/optimism .15**
10. Positive view about self .18**
Total R2 .04

*p \ .05; ** p \ .01

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Table 3 ANOVA for differences in protective factors between rural non-resilient and rural-resilient groups
Mean (SD) Between-subjects effects

Rural non-resilient Rural resilient group F Sig. Eta

(N = 264) (N = 177) Squared

1: Family SES − .71 (1.08)** − .11 (1.27)** 24.48 .000 .06

2: Parental supervision 19.41 (4.82)** 20.71 (4.93)** 3.19 .007 .02
3: Parental expectation 89.23 (10.00)* 91.44 (8.94)* 4.82 .03 .02
4: Educational cost 1601 (2347)** 3429 (4471)** 27.10 .000 .66
5: Family environment 3.90 (10.20) 4.74 (13.27) .46 .50 .00
6: Checking 2.74 (1.51) 2.78 (1.49) .06 .81 .00
homework
7: Key school .20 (.40) .27 (.44) 2.69 .10 .01
8: Attending tuition .08 (.27) .14 (.34) 3.07 .08 .01
class
9: Depression/ 66.49 (7.57)** 69.87 (5.90)** 22.44 .000 .06
optimism
10: Positive view 28.64 (6.86)** 31.01 (6.06)** 12.34 .000 .03
about self
The significant difference was found between rural non-resilient group and rural resilient group; * p \ .05;
** p \ .01

The paper provides interesting account of what enables the academic resilience of rural
Chinese children despite being the disadvantaged environments. Overall, the findings on
resilience replicate findings of western studies on the importance of resources from indi-
vidual, family and school to children’s academic competence despite significant
adversities. Moreover, resilience factors are influenced or guided by the particular social-
cultural contexts. The paper adding empirical support from the east to Ungar’s (2012)
social ecology framing of resilience as the contextualised interrelationship of cultural,
family and school capacities.
In this paper, we found, among these familial variables, having high parental expec-
tation, increasing the educational expenditure, and having positive view about self appear
to be robust predictors of children’s cognitive ability, which is consistent with previous
findings. Parental expectations for their children’s education is notable particularly in
Asian cultures (You and Nguyen 2011). Researchers have indicated that in families from
Asian backgrounds, high educational expectations from parents is associated with higher
positive academic behaviors from students (Fuligni 1998). Similarly, a study by Mau
(1997) reported that Asian immigrant and Asian American tenth grade students, who
perceive higher parental educational expectations, are likely to put more effort into their
academic performance. Studies (e.g., Martin and Hau 2010; Mizokawa and Ryckman
1990) have indicated that Chinese students tend to regard their schoolwork as a duty
towards their parents, they often feel anxious about their exams or assignments, or have a
sense of parent-related guilt when they experience failure. It is possible that when children
understand their parent’s expectations, they may push themselves to study hard. This also
may be because getting into higher education is the only opportunity for rural students to
achieve upward social mobility and permanently leave the poor countryside (Annunziata,
et al. 2006). Therefore, their parents expect them to attain a high education standard so that

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they can break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. This is why rural children with
positive life attitudes are more motivated to study hard.
From the study, we find that educational expenditure is positively associated with an
increase in cognitive ability. This is why many parents would like to invest in books, enroll
their children in after-school tuition and pay high tuition and boarding fees for preferred
schools.
In this paper, having a positive and optimistic attitude, parental supervision, attending a
key school, attending tuition classes and providing more books and study materials are
significant and meaningful resilience factors for rural children. More interestingly, helping
to check homework seems ineffective in improving rural children’s academic cognitive
skills. It could be because many parents may not understand the subjects that the students
are studying, especially rural parents, thus checking may not help.
Having limited educational resources is an obstacle to academic success for many rural
students (e.g., Zhang et al. 2013). Therefore, resources within themselves and drawn from
their parents might help them cope with adversity or increase the odds of success. School is
a very important mechanism for rural Chinese children. Since family SES is low and many
parents have limited education and are away in the city (and grandparents have lower
education level) it is more important to have schools providing more support to children in
the rural area. Fewer rural children can afford tuition with own family expenditures, so
school is an important channel for increasing resilience in the rural area.
Compared to rural non-resilient peers, rural resilient students have multiple learning
channels and ability to seek comprehensive knowledge by keeping optimistic and having
parental involvement and support.
Overall, this paper provides evidence that factors from individual, family, and school,
play more important roles in rural children’s cognitive development. The negative effects
of rural conditions (socio-economic disadvantage or lack of educational resources) can be
buffered by a supportive family and school environments, and positive view about self etc.
These results suggest that efforts to improve rural children’s cognitive skills should not
only improve quality of education and equity for the socio-economically disadvantaged,
but also focus on efforts to improve family economic and educational abilities, give
children the opportunities to have access to better educational resources, and encourage
them to have a positive view about themselves.
The findings have the potential to make a contribution to resilience theory. As we find
that all of the factors in the paper are predictors of Chinese rural children’s academic
resilience, the study provides empirical evidence to support these factors can also be
generalized in the Chinese rural children.
Based on the findings, one important policy implication for the government to be able to
reduce the rural–urban children’s achievement gaps is to introduce family and child sup-
port programs designed to prevent socio-economic stress which has been shown to exert
negative effects on academic resilience. Moreover, because of the restrictive hukou system,
rural migrants often have no choice but to leave their children behind to be educated, which
can lead a lack of parental supervision, and this may hinder the development of academic
resilience. Therefore, the government needs to work on some new policies (e.g., the
regulations on school admission, more funding for rural schools, and training for rural
school teachers) that improve the migrant workers’ children’s education, and improve rural
education as a whole.

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Academic Resilience in Rural Chinese Children: Individual…

6.2 Limitations and Future Directions

In interpreting the results of the present paper and attempting to make applications to other
populations, some limitations need to be recognized—as well as attendant directions for
future research. Firstly, although the research includes a variety of social context variables,
only a few school level factors were explored. School factors are very complicated and
there is debate about school factors as predictors of academic achievement in the extant
literature. Therefore, an investigation that involves more school variables may achieve a
better understanding of the underlying causes of academic resilience, and also more
samples from each school should be recruited in future research to enable conducting
multilevel modelling analysis. The study only included some variables from family and
individuals themselves. If there are more variables from these levels will be more mean-
ingful in interpreting the factors in helping rural students achieve academic success.
Secondly, the study only utilized cross-sectional data to explore the pathways to rural
children’s academic resilience. Further longitudinal investigation would be very useful.
Thirdly, some variables (e.g., parental expectation, and checking homework) were mea-
sured by only 1 item, which may not be reliable. Further research should use more items to
measure these variables. Moreover in future research, assessment of cognitive ability could
be more comprehensive, obtained through multiple methods (e.g., containing teaching
ratings).

Acknowledgements Funding was provided by National Social Science Foundation in China (Grant No.
17BSH012).

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