Peer Rejection,Peer Acceptance And, School Well-being Of Left-Behind Children: The Moderating Role Of Teachers' Support

In rural China,there are over 61 million children who have been left-behind by one or both parents migrating in search of work in cities(All-China Women's Federation,2013).Along with the development of positive psychology,these left-behind children' well-being are increasingly becoming the focus of our society,and for them schools are the most vital growing up environment except the family.In this case,rural left-behind children's school well-being become an important topic of subjective well-being.For these left-behind children,in addition to family,school is the most vital environment for their growing up,but there are few studies on left-behind children's school well-being.The peer relationship is the most needed and most unique relationship for left-behind children in the middle school.Good peer relationships play an important role in children's school well-being.On the other side,teachers have great influence over left-behind children in school life,so teachers' support to left-behind children' well-being is very important.Therefore,it is necessary to discuss about the common function of peer rejection/acceptance and teachers' support on the school well-being of left-behind children.A total of 1046 rural children were recruited from a rural area in Shandong province of China,including 407 children from two-parent-migrant families and 639 children from nonmigrant families.Peer rejection and acceptance were measured by peer rating.The participants also completed self-report measures of teachers' support and children's school well-being.The present study was to the examine prediction of rejection/acceptance,teachers' support to children's school well-being,and reveale the moderate effects of teachers' support between peer rejection/acceptance and school well-being by comparing left-behind children with children from nonmigrant families.Conclusions are as follows:1.Female students' school well-being was significantly higher than that of male students;Male students' peer rejection was significantly higher than that of female students,and there were no significant gender differences on children's peer acceptance;Non-left-behind children's teacher value affirmation was significantly higher than that of left-behind children;male students' intimacy with teachers was significantly higher than that of female students and female students' teacher help was significantly higher than that of male students.2.Teachers' support could positively predict children's school well-being;peer acceptance could positively predict children's school well-being and peer rejection could negatively predict children's school well-being.3.For both left-behind children and non-left-behind children,teacher value affirmation could positively predict children's school well-being,and the predictive power is stronger for left-behind children.4.For non-left-behind children,when teachers' emotional support was high,the relation between peer rejection and children's school well-being was stronger than that of teachers' emotional support was low;and the moderate effect was not significant for left-behind children.5.For non-left-behind children,at the lower level of teachers' help,peer rejection could negatively predict childrens' school well-being,but the association was not significant at the higher level of teachers' help;and the moderate effect was not significant for left-behind children.