The Influence Of Parenting Behavior And Child Temperament On The Development Of Self-concept Of Migrant Children

This research, based on the Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model of human development, adopted a three-wave longitudinal research design to investigate 819 4th grade migrant children and their urban counterparts in same school in Nanjing and Shanghai. Through latent growth modeling and with the comparison to the urban children, this research investigated the initial level and the change of those migrant children's self-concept over time. Moreover, with the child's sex and family social-economic status (SES) being controlled for, this research examined the effects of parents' parenting behavior and children's temperament on the migrant children's self-concept, particularly how the effect patterns was similar to and different from the urban children. In this research, parents filled in the parenting behavior questionnaire and all the children completed the self-reported self-concept and temperament measures. Parenting behavior and temperament was only collected at the first wave,considering the stability of the two variables.This research consisted of two studies: the pilot study and the main study. In the pilot study, 1018 4th to 6th grade migrant children and their urban counterparts,including their parents, were recruited. The children reported the self-concept and temperament information and the parents reported their parenting behavior. The purpose of the pilot study was to examine the psychometric properties of the three questionnaires of self-concept, temperament and parenting behavior. The main study was a one-year three-wave longitudinal study conducted with 819 4th grade primary school students in Nanjing and Shanghai, Among them, 566 were migrant children and 247 were urban children. The purpose of the main study was two fold. It explored the developmental trajectory of children's self-concept and the effect of parenting behavior and children's temperament to migrant and urban children's self concept,including the moderating effect of temperament in the relationship between parenting behavior and migrant and urban children's self-concept.The pilot study found that the scales of parental warmth and corporal punishment in parents' parenting behavior and the revised scales of self-concept and temperament by exploratory factor analysis had acceptable psychometric properties. The competence and affect components within each academic self-concept domain were substantially correlated, and they were not found as separable constructs in Chinese children. Besides, academic self-concept, non-academic self-concept and general self-concept were all positively related to parental warmth and effort control of temperament and negatively related to parental corporal punishment and emotional frustration.The results of the main study go as follows: (1) in general, from the 4th grade to the 5th grade, the level of children's academic self-concept was slightly decreased, but the trend was not significant, while their non-academic and general self-concept were significantly increased. Regarding the group difference, there were similarities and differences in the developmental trajectory of self-concept between migrant children and urban children. Similarly, there were no significant difference in the initial levels of academic self-concept, non-academic self-concept and general self-concept among migrant and urban children. Differently, migrant children's academic self-concept showed a downward trend, whereas the urban children's academic self-concept showed an upward trend. The non-academic self-concept and general self-concept were relatively stable among migrant children, whereas the non-academic and general self-concept of the urban children showed a significant rising trend.(2) There were similarities and differences in the prediction of the developmental trajectories of self-concept from paternal and maternal parenting behaviors between migrant and urban children. Similarly, the effect of paternal warmth on the initial levels of academic self-concept, non-academic self-concept and general self-concept was significant among migrant and urban children. Differently, paternal warmth negatively affected the change of migrant children's non-academic self-concept and general self-concept. Maternal warmth could positively predict the change of migrant children's non-academic self-concept and urban children's academic self-concept and general self-concept. Besides, maternal corporal punishment negatively affected the initial level of general self-concept and the change of non-academic self-concept in urban children. (3) There were also similarities and differences in the direct effects of effort control of temperament on the developmental trajectories of self-concept between migrant and urban children. Regarding the similarity, effort control positively predicted the initial levels of children's academic self-concept, non-academic self-concept and general self-concept in migrant and urban children. Moreover, effort control negatively predicted the change of children's general academic self-concept in two groups. For the differences, effort control negatively predicted the change of urban children's academic self-concept, but negatively predicted the changes of migrant children's non-academic self-concept. (4) The moderating effect of temperament on the relationship between parents' parenting behavior and the initial level and change of children's self-concept was different between migrant and urban children. For the migrant children, efforts control moderated the impact of paternal warmth on the change of academic self-concept, the effect of paternal corporal punishment on the change of academic self-concept, and the effect of maternal warmth on the initial level of general self-concept. Frustration moderated the impact of maternal corporal punishment on the initial level and the change of academic self-concept, the effect of paternal and maternal corporal punishment on the initial level of non-academic self-concept. For the urban children, efforts control moderated the impact of maternal corporal punishment on the change of general self-concept.