The goal of the present study is to examine differences in cognitive, psychomotor, and social-emotional development scores between only children and children with siblings aged 6-30 months in rural China using data of 1802 children across 351 villages in 174 townships, disaggregating according to child gender. The results indicate that having a…

Little attention has been paid to the role that low levels of cognitive development (or IQ) play among both left-behind children (LBCs) and children living with parents (CLPs) in the context of poor educational attainment in rural China. In this paper, we examine how general cognitive abilities contribute to the academic achievement gains of both…

Background: The educational resources that parents provide at home are crucial to their children's development. In this study, we focused on home reading environment, a key contributor to success rates regarding the mastery of reading skills. We aimed to investigate students' home reading environments and examine its effect on the reading…

In this study, we investigate the association between family environment and early childhood development among children aged 6-24 months in rural counties in China. To do this, we used cross-sectional data from a large scale survey, including 1809 child-caregiver dyads across 22 nationally designated poverty counties. We found that 53.95% of…

We aimed to evaluate the validity of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires Edition 3 (ASQ-3) and the MacArthur communicative development inventory (CDI) as a screening measure for children at risk of language development delay in western rural China, by comparing them to the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III). We administered…

This article reports on research conducted to investigate student confidence in reading by collecting data from 135 primary schools in rural China. In the survey, we adopted the PIRLS scales of confidence in reading and reading skills test items. Our analysis shows that compared to the other countries and regions, rural China ranks last with…

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to ensure universal access to primary education by 2015. However, primary school dropout remains a challenge in many developing countries. While official statistics in China report aggregated primary school dropout of only 0.2%, almost no independent, survey-based studies have sought to verify these…

This study aims to investigate the developmental status of rural Chinese children, the extent of interactive parenting they receive, and the relation between the two. A sample of 448 six to eighteen-month-old children and their caregivers were randomly selected from two rural counties in Hebei and Yunnan provinces. According the third edition of…

An alarming number of students drop out of junior high school in developing countries. In this study, we examine the impacts of providing a social-emotional learning (SEL) program on the dropout behavior and learning anxiety of students in the first two years of junior high. We do so by analyzing data from a randomized controlled trial involving…

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China's Ministry of Education embarked on an ambitious program of primary school mergers by shutting down small village schools and opening up larger centralized schools in towns and county seats. The goal of the program was to improve the teacher and building resources in an attempt to raise the human capital of…

Despite requirements of and support for universal education up to grade 9, there are concerning reports that poor rural areas in China suffer from high and maybe even rising dropout rates. Although aggregated statistics from the Ministry of Education show almost universal compliance with the 9-year compulsory education law, there have been few…

Although universities have expanded in size, it is unclear whether the poor have benefited. If there are high returns to college education, then increasing access of the poor to college has important welfare implications. The objective of this paper is to document the rates of enrollment into college of the poor and to identify the hurdles to…

The main goal of this paper is to analyse factors (accessibility, attendance rates and quality of preschools) that may be affecting the educational readiness of China's rural children before they enter the formal school system. Using data from a survey of 82 preschools and 492 households in six counties in three provinces of China, this paper…

Despite the rise in grade retention in poor areas in rural China recently, little work has been done to understand the impact of grade retention on the educational performance of students in these areas in rural China. This paper seeks to redress this shortcoming and examines the effect of grade retention on educational performance on 1649…

To sustain its economic growth in the coming years, China will have to increase the country's supply of skilled labor by enabling its workforce to attain to higher levels of formal education. Unfortunately, when children in poor, rural areas today grow up, they may not be able to enjoy China's future economic prosperity because of their low levels…