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Association between deprivation and cognitive ability among Chinese adolescents: Examining the mechanisms of parental involvement in a rural–urban dual system

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Abstract

The negative effects of deprivation on adolescents’ psychological and behavioral adjustments have been well documented, but limited information is known about how deprivation affects adolescents’ cognitive ability via maternal and paternal involvements in the Chinese context. Furthermore, the rural–urban differences in this influencing mechanism have been rarely investigated. In this study, a nationally representative sample of 10,750 Chinese adolescents (45.1% females; mean age = 13.58) from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) was utilized to enhance the understanding on the mediating and moderating mechanisms between deprivation and adolescents’ cognitive ability. Findings revealed that deprivation predicted a poor cognitive ability of adolescents, whereas only the maternal involvement demonstrated a mediating effect. The level of deprivation among urban adolescents was lower than that among rural adolescents, and the levels of parental involvement and cognitive ability among urban adolescents were higher than those among rural counterparts. Moreover, deprivation had a greater impact on the cognitive ability among urban adolescents compared to rural adolescents. Implications for future research, policies, and interventions were discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The data used in this study were from the China Education Panel Survey, which were originally collected by the staff of the National Survey Research Center at Renmin University of China.

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  1. Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong, China

    Shan Jiang & Lei Dong

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  1. Shan Jiang
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Correspondence to Lei Dong.

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All the procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The China Education Panel Survey was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Renmin University of China.

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Jiang, S., Dong, L. Association between deprivation and cognitive ability among Chinese adolescents: Examining the mechanisms of parental involvement in a rural–urban dual system. Curr Psychol 41, 4602–4611 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00981-0

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