Urban-rural Differences In Parental Involvement And Effects On Children’s Learning Perseverance

The differences in parental involvement between rural and urban children not only translate into unequal access to education,but can also be a significant impediment to the development of learning perseverance for rural children.Learning perseverance is critical to children’s ability to face the uncertainties and challenges of their future society and to have a high quality of life.The lack of learning perseverance of rural children will not be conducive to their sustainable development.In the context of common prosperity and rural revitalization,it is of great practical significance to investigate the characteristics and causes of the differences in parental involvement between rural and urban children,and to analyze the influence of each dimension of parental involvement on learning perseverance,in order to narrow the gap in parental involvement,improve the family education ability of rural parents,promote the development of rural children’s learning perseverance,and ultimately realize the integration of urban and rural education.This paper adopts a mixed research design combining quantitative and qualitative approaches.In the first part,the HLM model is constructed to estimate the differences between urban and rural children in parent-child communication,parent-child companionship,academic supervision,parent-teacher interaction,and family-to-family interaction using baseline data and follow-up data from CEPS,and to explore the influencing factors of these differences at three micro-levels: children’s individual characteristics,family background,and school environment.Then,using qualitative interview data,the logic and strategies of rural parental involvement in their children’s education are analyzed in depth at the macro level based on the field-habitus theory and the urban-rural dual structure,and are used to supplement the quantitative findings;in the second part,the independent sample t-test was first applied to compare the magnitudes of urban and rural children’s learning perseverance.Then,OLS models are constructed for grouped subsample regressions to examine the effects and heterogeneity of the above five parental involvement activities on children’s learning perseverance in urban and rural areas.The findings show that: first,rural children’s levels of parent-child communication,parent-child companionship,academic supervision,and parent-teacher interaction are significantly lower than those of urban children,and the disadvantage is greatest in parent-child companionship;second,the gap between urban and rural children in intra-family involvement activities is largely influenced by children’s individual characteristics,and rural children’s poor academic foundation and high percentage of boarding students are the reasons for their poorer levels of parent-child communication,parent-child companionship,and academic supervision;third,differences in family background and school environment are important sources of the gap in parent-child accompaniment and parent-teacher interaction between rural and urban children.Disadvantages in family socioeconomic status,parental educational expectations,family structural integrity,family birth number,school location,and level of institutionalized home-school cooperation are important reasons why rural children receive less accompaniment and have lower levels of parent-teacher interaction;fourth,the group parenting culture of sheep management has shaped the family parenting model of "accomplishment of natural growth" in rural areas,and parents’ motivation,awareness,and sense of responsibility to involve in their children’s education are not high.The lack of cultural capital greatly limits rural parents’ supervision of their children’s schoolwork and interaction with teachers,and the consumption of economic capital in exchange for market educational resources is an important means for rural parents to compensate for this lack of participation;fifth,the average level of learning perseverance of rural children is significantly lower than that of urban children.The three intra-family involvement activities of parent-child communication,parent-child companionship and academic supervision significantly and positively affect rural children’s perseverance in learning.The effects of parent-child communication and academic supervision on rural children’s learning perseverance are 1.2 times and 2.0 times higher than those of urban children,respectively,and these two parental involvement activities not only directly affect rural children’s learning perseverance level,but also have indirect effects through teacher support and academic self-efficacy.Based on the above findings,in order to improve the level of intra-family involvement of rural children,promote the development of learning perseverance,and narrow the gap between urban and rural areas,this paper puts forward the following recommendations: first,to establish a hierarchical and classified family education guidance service system in rural areas to empower disadvantaged families;second,to increase government support to provide financial,manpower and publicity guarantees;third,to strengthen the role of schools as the main position to consolidate the institutional,professional and cultural foundation;fourth,to collaborate with social organizations to inject fresh energy;and fifth,to enhance parents’ sense of parenting responsibility to contribute the main force.