City Employment Farmers' Children Mental Health Research

Since China's reform and open policy and along with the process of urbanization in our country, a large number of peasants have swamped into cities to work there. Thus, there gradually appeared a special population—children of these peasants. These children come to live and study in cities, however, they can not enjoy the same rights as the city children do, which makes them become a weak and alienated group. The unique experiences of these children have brought to them more problems in psychological development than other children of their age have to face and also they are fragile to these psychological problems. As they are in a crucial period of personality-forming, we can not neglect them and their problems; otherwise we can hardly expect them to grow into the propelling force of the progress of our society. Therefore, we focus our study on the psychological health of this special population.Utilizing Mental Health Test (MHT) revised by professor ZHOU Bucheng from East China Normal University and a self-designed questionnaire, we conducted a survey of basic facts and psychological health on 421 primary school students of grade five and six, of whom 245 comes from a primary school in Yangzhou specifically set up for children of peasants working in the city of Yangzhou and the rest comes from a public school in Yangzhou (73 students are children of peasants and 103 are city children). The analysis of the results of the survey indicates that: (1). The surveyed peasant children remarkably outscore the city children not only generally but also in the following specific items: the tendency of self-blaming, and the tendency of feeling lonely, study-caused anxious and terror. (2). The objective factors affecting the psychological health of the peasant's children include: the change of living place; the types of school they study in; their parents'occupations and income; their family relationship; the local citizen's attitude towards them; the sex; the age, and so on. (3). The subjective factors affecting the psychological health of the peasants'children include: to what degree are they satisfied with the school they study in and with their current life; how they identify themselves.Compared with that of the city children, the psychological health of the children of...