Social Avoidance and Social Adjustment in Chinese Preschool Migrant Children: The Moderating Role of Household Chaos and Gender

Jingjing Zhu, Xiaoqi Yin, Guangheng Wang, Yaoqin Jiang and Yan Li ()
Additional contact information
Jingjing Zhu: Shanghai Institute of Early Childhood Education, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China
Xiaoqi Yin: Shanghai Institute of Early Childhood Education, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China
Guangheng Wang: Changning Institute of Education, Shanghai 200050, China
Yaoqin Jiang: Punan Kindergarten, Shanghai 200126, China
Yan Li: Shanghai Institute of Early Childhood Education, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: The present study explored the moderating role of household chaos and gender in the relation between social avoidance and social adjustment among Chinese preschool migrant children. Participants were 148 children (82 boys, M age = 62.63 months, SD = 0.05) from two kindergartens, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. Multi-source assessments included: (1) mother ratings of children’s social avoidance; (2) mother ratings of families’ household chaos; (3) teacher ratings of children’s prosocial behavior, peer exclusion, interpersonal skills, and internalizing problems. Results showed that social avoidance significantly predicted peer exclusion among Chinese migrant preschoolers. Moreover, household chaos moderated the relationship between social avoidance and social adjustment. Specifically, at higher levels of household chaos, social avoidance was negatively associated with interpersonal skills. In contrast, social avoidance was not associated with interpersonal skills at a lower level of household chaos. In addition, social avoidance was positively associated with peer exclusion among boys but not girls. The current findings inform us of the importance of reducing household chaos to buffer the negative adjustment among socially avoidant young children who migrated from rural to urban China. The findings also highlight the need to pay particular attention to migrant socially avoidant boys’ development in early childhood and the importance of considering the meaning and implication of social avoidance for migrant preschoolers in Chinese culture.

Keywords: social avoidance; household chaos; social adjustment; migrant preschoolers; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16769/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16769/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:24:p:16769-:d:1002784

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().