The role of parent-child communication on Chinese rural left-behind children's educational expectation : a moderated mediation analysis

Abstract

Parents are the most intimate and proximal influences on a child's development. Migration-induced parental absence in rural China might pose a considerable threat to the educational development of left-behind children because of insufficient parent-child communication. Despite growing scholarly attention, we know little of the effect of parental migration on either parent-child communication or the educational expectations of rural students of different left-behind status (i.e., left behind by two parents; left behind by one parent; or living with both parents). Drawing upon the longitudinal data of the China Education Panel Survey (N = 2275), this study used a two-step path analysis to examine the interrelations among Chinese rural students' left-behind status, received parent-child communication, and educational expectations. Parental migration negatively affected parent-child communication, and parent-child communication was positively correlated with rural children's educational expectations. In addition, left-behind status moderated the association between parent-child communication and rural students' educational expectations. We conclude that rural students' left-behind status affects their educational expectations through parent-child communication. These results add to the existing understanding of how parental migration affects rural children's educational expectations and indicates the protective effect of parent-child communication.