Abstract
This study examined rural and urban Chinese adolescents’ (aged 13–19 years, N = 395) attitudes toward children’s self-determination and nurturance rights, and how these attitudes relate to various dimensions of socialization in their family and school environments, including perceptions of parental and teacher autonomy support and responsiveness and family and school democratic climate. Relations between these variables and psychological well-being also were examined. Perceived parent and teacher autonomy support and responsiveness and democratic climate differentially predicted attitudes toward each type of right and were positively correlated with adolescents’ psychological well-being. Our findings suggest that environments that are structured more democratically and that are responsive to children’s autonomy needs contribute to their psychological health and well-being in diverse cultural settings.References
Aiken, L. S. & West, S. G. 1991. Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. Newbury Park: Sage.
Baumrind, D. 1978. Parental Disciplinary Patterns and Social Competence in Children. Youth and Society, 9, 239–276.
Ben-Arieh, A. & Khoury-Kassabri, M. 2008. Attitudes toward and Understanding of Children’s Rights Among Middle School Students in Jerusalem: The Role of Family Values and Patterns, Nationality, and Religion. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 78, 359–368.
Bogenschneider, K. & Pallock, L. 2008. Responsiveness in Parent-child adolescent relationships: Are influences conditional? Does the reporter matter? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 70, 1015-1029.
Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. 2013. Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Cherney, I. D. & Perry, N. W. 1996. Children’s Attitudes toward Their Rights—An International Perspective. In E. Verhellen (ed.), Monitoring Children’s Rights (pp. 241–250). Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.
Cherney, I. D. & Shing, Y. L. 2008. Children’s Nurturance and Self-Determination Rights: A cross-cultural Perspective. Journal of Social Issues, 64, 835–856.
Chirkov, V. & Ryan, R. M. 2001. Parent and Teacher Autonomy Support in Russian and US Adolescents: Common Effects on Well-Being and Academic Motivation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 618–35.
Cohen, C. 1971. Democracy. New York: The Free Press. Day, D. M., Peterson-Badali, M., & Ruck, M. D. 2006. The Relationship Between Maternal Attitudes and Young People’s Attitudes toward Children’s Rights. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 193–207.
Day, K. 2014. The Right to Literacy and Cultural Change: Zulu Adolescents in Post-Apartheid Rural South Africa. Cognitive Development, 29, 81–94.
Deci, E. & Ryan, R. M. 2013. The Importance of Autonomy for Development and Well-Being. In B. W. Sokol, F. M. E. Grouzet, & U. Muller (eds) Self–Regulation and Autonomy: Social and Developmental Dimensions of Human Conduct (pp. 19–46). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Dewey, J. 1916. Democracy and Education. New York: MacMillan. Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffen, S. 1985. The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.
Erikson, E. 1968. Identity, Youth, and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton.
Greenfield, P. M. 2009. Linking Social Change and Developmental Change: Shifting Pathways of Human Development. Developmental Psychology, 45, 401–18.
Guangdong Statistical Yearbook. 2010. Beijing: China Statistics Press.
Hasebe, Y., Nucci, L., & Nucci, M. S. 2004. Parental Control of the Personal Domain and Adolescent Symptoms of Psychopathology: A Cross-National Study in the United States and Japan. Child Development, 75, 815–28.
Helwig, C. C. 1997. The Role of Agent and Social Context in Judgments of Freedom of Speech and Religion. Child Development, 68, 484–95.
Helwig, C. 2006. The Development of Personal Autonomy Throughout Cultures. Cognitive Development, 21, 458–73.
Helwig, C. C. & McNeil, J. 2011. The Development of Conceptions of Personal Autonomy, Rights, and Democracy and Their Relation to Psychological Well-Being. In V. Chirkov, R. Ryan, & K. Sheldon (eds) Personal Autonomy in Cultural Contexts: Global erspectives on the Psychology of Agency, Freedom, and People’s Well-Being (pp. 241–56). New York: Springer.
Helwig, C. C., To, S., Wang, Q., Liu, C., & Yang, S. 2014. Judgments and Reasoning About Parental Discipline Involving Induction and Psychological Control in China and Canada. Child Development, 85, 1150–67.
Howe, R. B., & Covell, K. 2005. Empowering Children: Children’s Rights Education As a Pathway to Citizenship. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Ethics in Progress (ISSN 2084-9257). Vol. 8 (2017). No. 1. 281-297.
Jia, Y., Way, N., Ling, G., Yoshikawa, H., Chen., X., Hughes, D., Ke, Xiaoyan, & Lu, Zuhong. 2009. The Influence of Student Perceptions of School Climate on Socioemotional and Academic Adjustment: A comparison of Chinese and American Adolescents. Child Development, 80, 1514–30.
Joussemet, M., Mageau, G. A., & Koestner, R. 2014. Promoting Optimal Parenting and Children’s Mental Health: A Preliminary Evaluation of the How-To Parenting Program. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23, 949–64.
Khoury-Kassabri, M., & Ben-Arieh, A. 2009. School Climate and Children’s Views of Their Rights: A multi-Cultural Perspective Among Jewish and Arab Adolescents. Children and Youth Services Review, 31, 97–103.
Kovacs, M. 2011. Children’s Depressive Inventory (2nd ed.) (CDI-2) Manual. North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems.
Kuczynski, L., & Knafo, A. 2014. Innovation and Continuity in Socialization, Internalization, and Acculturation. In M. Killen & J. G. Smetana (eds) Handbook of moral development (2nd Edition, pp. 93–112). New York: Psychology Press.
Lahat, A., Helwig, C. C., Yang, S., Tan, D., & Liu, C. 2009. Mainland Chinese Adolescents’ Judgments and Reasoning About Self-Determination and Nurturance Rights. Social Development, 18, 690–710.
Lo, C., Helwig, C. C., Chen, S. X., Ohashi, M. M., & Cheng, C. M. 2011. A Needs-Based Perspective on Cultural Differences in Identity Formation. Identity, 11, 211–30.
Mackerras, C. 2001. The New Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. 1991. Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–53.
Marsiglio, W., Amato, P., Day, R. D., & Lamb, M. E. 2000. Scholarship on Fatherhood in the 1990s and Beyond. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1173–91.
Melton, G. B. 1980. Children’s Concepts of Their Rights. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 9, 186–90.
Naftali, O. 2009. Empowering the Child: Children’s Rights, Citizenship, and the State in Contemporary China. The China Journal, 61, 79–103.
Nucci, L. 2001. Education in the Moral Domain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nucci, L. P., Camino, C., & Sapiro, C. 1996. Social Class Effects on Northeastern Brazilian Children’s Conceptions of Areas of Personal Choice and Social Regulation. Child Development, 67, 1223–42.
Nussbaum, M. 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pandey, S., & Elliot, W. 2010. Suppressor Variables in Social Work Research: Ways to Identify in Multiple Regression Models. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 1, 28–40.
Peterson-Badali, M., Morine, S., Ruck, M. D., & Slonim, N. 2004. Predictors of Maternal and Child Attitudes towards Children’s Nurturance and Self-Determination Rights. Journal of Early Adolescence, 24, 159–79.
Peterson-Badali, M., Ruck, M. D., & Ridley, E. 2003. College Students’ Attitudes toward Children’s Nurturance and Self-Determination Rights. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 730–55.
Piaget, J. 1932. The Moral Judgment of the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Qin, L., Pomerantz, E. M, & Wang, Q. 2009. Are Gains in Decision-Making Autonomy During Early Adolescence Beneficial for Emotional Functioning? The Case of the United States and China. Child Development, 80, 1705–21.
Reynolds, C. R. & Richmond, B. O. 2008. Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (2nd ed.) (RCMAS-2): Manual. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.
Richardson, H. S. 2002. Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning About the Ends of Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Robbins, R. J. 1995. An Assessment of Perceived Autonomy-Support and Control: Child and Parent Correlates. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
Rogers, C. M. & Wrightsman, L. S. 1978. Attitudes towards Children’s Rights: Nurturance or Self-Determination? Journal of Social Issues, 34, 59–68.
Ruck, M. D., Abramovitch, R., & Keating, D. P. 1998. Children’s and Adolescents’ Understanding of Rights: Balancing Nurturance and Self-Determination. Child Development, 69, 404–17.
Ruck, M. D., Tenenbaum, H., & Willenberg, I. 2011. South African Mixed-Race Children’s and Mothers’ judgments and Reasoning about Nurturance and self-determination Rights. Social Development, 20, 431–643.
Sen, A. 2009. The idea of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Smetana, J. G. 2011. Adolescents, Families, and Social Development: How Teens Construct Their Worlds. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Terry, T. & Huebner, E. S. 1995. The Relationship Between Self-Concept and Life Satisfaction in Children. Social Indicators Research, 35, 39–52.
Torney, J., Oppenheim, A., & Farnen, R. 1975. Civic Education in Ten Countries: An Empirical Study. New York: Wiley.
Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Oswald, H., & Schultz, W. 2001. Citizenship and Education in Twenty-Eight Countries: Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen. Amsterdam: IEA.
Turiel, E. 2006. The Development of Morality. In W. Damon and R. Lerner (Series eds) & N. Eisenberg (vol. ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology. Vol. 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality Development (6th ed., pp. 789–857). New York: Wiley. United Nations General Assembly. 1989. United Nations Convention on the Eights of the Child. New York: UNICEF.
Vansteenkiste, M., Soenens, B., Van Petegem, S., & Duriez, B. 2014. Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescent Perceived Degree and Style of Parental Prohibition and Internalization and Defiance. Developmental Psychology, 50, 229–36.
Vansteenkiste, M., Zhou, M., Lens, W., & Soenens, B. 2005. Experiences of Autonomy and Control Among Chinese Learners: Vitalizing or Immobilizing? Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 468–83.
Vieno, A., Perkins, D. D., Smith, T. M., & Santinello, M. 2005. Democratic School Climate and Sense of Community in School: A Multilevel Analysis. American Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 327–41.
Way, N., Reddy, R., & Rhodes, J. 2007. Students’ Perceptions of School Climate During the Middle School Years: Associations with Trajectories of Psychological and Behavioral adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 40, 194–213.
Wentzel, K. R. 1997. Student Motivation in Middle School: The Role of Perceived Pedagogical Caring. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 411–19.
Yang, B., Ollendick, T. H., Dong, Q., Xia, Y., & Lin, L. 1995. Only Children and Children with Siblings in the People’s Republic of China: Levels of Fear, Anxiety, and Depression. Child Development, 66, 1301-11.
Zhang, W. & Fuligni, A. J. 2006. Authority, Autonomy, and Family Relationships Among Adolescents in Urban and Rural China. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 16, 527–37.
Zhang, X., Zheng, X., & Wang, L. 2003. Comparative Research on Individual Modernity of Adolescents Between Town and Countryside in China. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 6, 61–73.