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The Mediational Role of Parenting in the Relationship between Family Poverty and Social-Emotional Competence in Chinese Adolescents

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Abstract

Parents play irreplaceable roles in the sha** of social-emotional competence in adolescents, particularly in economically disadvantaged families. By surveying a sample of 965 adolescents from Hong Kong, China, we found that the associations between parenting behaviors and the social-emotional competence of their children varied by gender; that is, the associations between parenting behaviors and the social-emotional competence of female were much stronger as opposed to male students. Specifically, the magnitude of the positive association between positive parenting behaviors and social-emotional competence in female adolescents was larger than that in male adolescents. Similarly, the magnitude of the negative association between negative parenting behaviors and social-emotional competence among female adolescents was also larger than that of male adolescents. This difference can be explained by different interpretations of social-emotional competence, along with different opportunities for social practice across genders in communities based on traditional Chinese culture.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all adolescent participants and their affiliated schools, for their cooperation and contribution.

Funding

This study was funded by grants from the Research Grant Council Strategic Public Policy Research (HKIEd 7001-SPPR-11).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Psychology, Lingnan University (Hong Kong), Tuen Mun, Hong Kong SAR

    Alex Yue Feng Zhu

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Correspondence to Alex Yue Feng Zhu.

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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution and the national research committee and in agreement with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments, and comparable ethical standards.

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The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Zhu, A.Y.F. The Mediational Role of Parenting in the Relationship between Family Poverty and Social-Emotional Competence in Chinese Adolescents. Child Ind Res 12, 1759–1780 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9609-5

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