The Influence Of Adolescent Social Capital On Mental Health

With the continuous development of Chinese society and economy,adolescents' mental health has gradually become a key concern in our society and academic circles in recent years.Research shows that mental health problems have many negative effects on adolescents.Mental health problems can lead to poor school performance,poor sleep quality and bullying behaviors,etc.In order to ensure the healthy growth of teenagers,it is necessary to do research on adolescent mental health problems and understand the causes of adolescents' mental health problems.Adolescents' mental health is not only influenced by individual factors and life experience,but is also closely related to their living environment.Based on the literature review,with the perspective of ecosystem theory,this study analyzed the association between adolescents' social capital and mental health.Family,school,peers and community are the main growing environment for adolescents.Adolescents' social capital is embedded in their daily living environment,which is a part of environment systems of adolescents.Therefore,the influence of adolescents' social capital on mental health can be interpreted with ecological system theory.Adolescents' learning and living environment mainly includes family environment,school environment,peer environment and community environment.The construction of adolescents' social capital mainly takes place in these four types of environment as well.Therefore,Adolescents' social capital mainly includes family social capital,school social capital,peer social capital and community social capital.This study mainly do research on the influence of family social capital,school social capital,peer social capital and community social capital on adolescent mental health.This study mainly discusses the impact of adolescents' social capital on mental health on micro level.Also,this study tries to discuss the influence of social capital on mental health on group level.This study adopts quantitative research method.Two sets of national representative data were use in the current study.One is China Education Panel Survey(CEPS),another is China Family Panel Studies(CFPS).This study mainly used the baseline data of China Education Panel Survey(CEPS)2013-2014 to construct the model,and used the tracking data CEPS 2014-2015 for robustness test.In the research dimension of community social capital,since there are not enough variables of community data,we used the data in China Family Panel Studies 2014 for the research.In the current study,CEPS 2013-2014 and the tracking data CEPS 2014-2015 were used to explore the association between family social capital and adolescent mental health,the association between school social capital and adolescent mental health,and the association between peer social capital and adolescent mental health.Data form the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)2014 were used to explore the association between community social capital and adolescent mental health.With the empirical analysis of CEPS data,the data of CFPS supplemented and enhanced the integrity of the current study.This study mainly used two types of statistical models: multiple regression(OLS)model and hierarchical linear model.The research approach of this study are as follows:firstly,descriptive analysis is carried out on mental health with different adolescent characters;Secondly,with four dimensions of adolescent living environment,the effect of family social capital,school social capital,peer social capital and community social capital on adolescent mental health are analyzed.The research approach of these four chapters and basically similar.(1)To build a stepwise regression model to discuss the effect of social capital on adolescent mental health.(2)In the dimension of family social capital,school social capital and peer social capital,the robustness test was conducted with the first round follow-up of China Education Panel Survey(CEPS)2014-2015.(3)To explore the association between social capital and adolescent mental health,and to explore whether the influence of social capital on adolescent mental heath is moderated by other adolescent individual characters.(4)In the research on school social capital,peer social capital and community social capital,the hierarchical linear model is constructed to explore whether the differences of social capital at group level has an impact on adolescent mental health.The conclusion of the current study are as follows:Firstly,family social capital has positive influence on adolescents' mental health;School social capital has positive influence on adolescents' mental health;Peer social capital has positive influence on adolescent mental health;Community social capital has positive effect on adolescent mental health.Secondly,there exists a moderating effect of family socioeconomic status on the association between some types of adolescent social capital and mental health.It means that the higher the family socioeconomic status was,the stronger the positive influence of social capital was on adolescents' mental health.This kind of moderation effects mainly occurs in the influence of part of the family social capital index and school social capital on adolescent mental health.Thirdly,adolescent characters and other related variables affect the influence of social capital on adolescents' mental health.The moderation mechanism of gender,place of residence,academic performance and academic pressure on the association between adolescent social capital and mental health are various,which need to be discussed according to the types of adolescents' social capital.Fourthly,the differences of school social capital on class level and school level affects adolescents' mental health;the differences of peer social capital on class level and school level affects adolescents' mental health;the differences of community social capital on community level affects adolescents' mental health.The current study found that adolescent social capital has positive influence on adolescent mental health.Family social capital,school social capital,peer social capital and community social capital all have positive effects on adolescent mental health.Adolescents' ' sex,academic performance,academic stress,place of residence and family socioeconomic status have different influence on the association between adolescents' social capital and mental health.To improve adolescents' mental health and promote adolescents' development,we need to improve adolescents' living environment and improve adolescents' mental health.Firstly,to begin with adolescents themselves,we should improve the education on mental health improvement;Secondly,we need to improve adolescents' family environment and parent-child relationship and improve the interaction between family members.Parents should try to create a good family environment for adolescents and invest more time and energy in communicating with their children and try to cultivate a better parent-child relationship.When adolescents have psychological problems,parents should provide help and support in time.Thirdly,teachers should pay more attention to adolescents' extracurricular life.Teachers should give more guidance and encouragement to adolescents in their spare time and give adolescents support when they encounter problems.Fourthly,a good school environment should be sustained to promote communication among peer groups.Fifthly,good neighborhood relationship and high level of neighborhood trust should be maintained and the community environment should be improved.