In rural backwards areas teacher recruitment and retention remains a major problem in many countries. In order to improve the overall quality of rural teachers, the Chinese government has issued a number of important policy documents to attract, retain and encourage outstanding teachers in recent years. Among them, teacher's salary is an important policy tool, and its effect remains to be observed. In this paper, we used questionnaire survey data from five counties in Liaoning, Yunnan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Guangxi Provinces in 2016, and using investment model and compensatory wage difference theory to explore the relationship between teachers' salary and their turnover intention in rural primary and secondary schools. The results show that about 20% of the rural teachers tended to leave. The average salary of rural teachers in five counties was lower than that of urban employees in the same period. Teachers' salary level is the primary factor that affects teachers' turnover intention, and existing rural teachers' subsidies (153 yuan monthly) are too low to retain teacher. Non-monetary factors, such as students' group characteristics and teacher professional development activities, also have significant impact on teacher turnover intention. Male and unmarried teachers are more likely to leave. Also, the related policies of retaining rural teachers are discussed.
With the rapid aging population and economic globalization, cognitive capital has become critical for sustainable economic development in China. Early childhood cognitive development has a lasting impact later in life, which is vital to China's national development. The current study used the Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development Ⅲ to study a sample of children in impoverished areas of western China. We used this data to describe the status of early childhood development in China and analyze determinants of cognitive development during early childhood. The results show that cognitive developmental delays are common among rural children in underdeveloped areas. The proportion of children showing developmental delays is 40% and above. It also reveals significant rural-urban differences, with urban children tending to show higher levels of cognitive development (The proportion of children showing developmental delays is 25.53% in urban areas and 43.78% in rural areas). Our findings also show that parenting behavior and parenting knowledge of caregivers are closely related to the level of infants' cognitive development. However, when controlling for Hukou type, the relationship between parenting behavior and cognitive development becomes insignificant. We believe this may be due to the difference between urban and rural areas in both the "quality and quantity" of parenting behaviors. To bridge this gap, it's suggested that the Chinese government not only strengthen and improve public policies and service systems for the development of children aged 0-3, but also invest in education and parenting training to ensure that caregivers pay more attention to cultivating awareness, knowledge, and good behavior in their children. All this can help to effectively improve the status of children's early cognitive development in rural areas.
Language acquisition is a key component of early childhood development (ECD) during the first three years of a child's life, when most brain development occurs. Speech and language development are good indicators of overall cognitive development, academic performance, education level, work performance and physical, mental health, and non-cognitive ability in the future. The current study selected a sample of children in impoverished areas of Northwest China and used the Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development Ⅲ to measure the level of early childhood language development. It also examined the relevance of other language scales to the Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development Ⅲ in order to find a cost-effective scale to measure early childhood language development. The early language development delay risks were common among 6-36 months sample children, and 57% of the sample infants had language development delay. Moreover, there was a significant gap between the rural and urban area. Gender, premature birth, economic conditions and Hukou type were the risk factors which were related to early childhood language development. Besides, parenting knowledge and parenting behavior were significantly positively correlated with early childhood language development.We also found that both Putonghua Communicative Development Inventory-Short Form and Age & stage Questionnaires-3 (communication) had significantly positive correlations with Bayley-Ⅲ language domain.
This study analyzed the occurrence and influencing factors of iron deficiency anemia among 4,722 infants aged 6-37 months from poor rural areas of Western China. The data show that infant anemia is still a high incidence problem in poor rural areas of Western China, with an average of 44.4% of infants suffering from anemia. For infants aged 6-12 months, the anemia rate is even as high as 49.7%, but mainly mild anemia. The anemia status of infants and young children did not improve with the age of month, yet showed a slight upward trend in different years. Research suggests that anemia at 6-12 months of age is significantly correlated with their subsequent development. All of these facts indicate that interventions are needed to improve anemia of infants and young children in poor rural areas of Western China. The analysis of influencing factors shows that the most important factor is the feeding behavior of the caregivers. We should actively seek and establish effective channels to provide nutritional and health knowledge to infant and child's caregivers, provide social support for infant and child feeding environment, and improve the feeding behavior of caregivers, so as to promote the healthy growth of infants and children.
The early years of children's life is the most critical period that determines their health and ability development, and will have lasting effects on their survival, growth, development, human capital accumulation and adulthood income levels. In this study, we used baseline and follow-up survey data of 1,802 children aged 6-30 months old and their families from rural areas of Qinba Mountain, and analyzed the status and determinants of the feeding practices of primary caregivers of the sample children by descriptive analysis and a logistic regression model. We found that rural caregivers in the Qinba mountain stopped breastfeeding too early and relied too much on formula feeding. Regarding the complementary feeding, the proportion of the children who achieved the minimum food diversity in the sample area was 36%, which is lower than the average value of rural areas in other East Asian and Pacific countries (56.7%), but much higher than the average value of rural areas in Africa and South Asia (14.1%-23.7%). One possible reason for the poor feeding practices is that the rural caregivers lacked reliable sources of knowledge and information. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between feeding practices and caregivers' education levels. It is thus a necessary and important research direction to explore the ways to provide knowledge and guidance on children's feeding practices for rural caregivers, especially those with lower education levels.
Depression is a common psychological disorder among caregivers of young children, which can adversely affect their parenting behavior and disrupt healthy early child development. In order to assess the prevalence of caregiver depression and analyze its effects on parenting behavior, we conducted a large-scale survey with 1,798 caregivers with children aged 6-24 months in China's Qinba Mountain region. Participants were asked to complete both the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) as well as household surveys describing their socioeconomic backgrounds and caregiving behaviors. We had three main findings. First, the overall depression rate of caregivers is 22.90%, with depression among grandmothers as the principal caregivers 10.11% higher than that of mothers as principal caregivers. Second, the education level and family assets of caregivers were significantly negatively correlated with depression, and the age of caregivers was significantly positively correlated with depression. Children who were male, older, or had lagging language development were also significantly more likely to have caregivers who had depression. Third, caregiver depression significantly reduced positive parenting behaviors and increased negative parenting behaviors. Our results confirm the high prevalence of caregiver depression and its effects on caregiver behaviors, which may have significant consequences on early child development in China. Thus, policies and strategies comprehensively addressing the varied socioeconomic risk factors for caregiver depression, especially age and education, are needed.
中国人文社会科学核心期刊
