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Social Support and Left-Behind Children’s Social Adaptation: The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem

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Abstract

The mechanism by which social support contributes to the social adaptation of left-behind children (LBC) in mainland China remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the direct effect of social support and the mediating role of self-esteem on LBC’s social adaptation. Data from 983 children in grades 4–9 from 6 schools were collected in a rural area of Jiangsu Province in mainland China. The study’s results indicated that LBC had significantly lower subjective support, support-seeking behavior, self-esteem, and social adaptation than non-left-behind children (NLBC). In addition, social support significantly and positively predicted LBC’s social adaptation, and self-esteem partially mediated the influence of social support on LBC’s social adaptation. These findings provide a timely and necessary understanding of the development and interventions for LBC’s social adaptation.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Funding

The present study was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (ABA210018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, 300387, Tianjin, China

    Mei Peng

  2. School of Education Science, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Big Data of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Yancheng Teachers University, 224002, Yancheng, China

    Binrong Dai

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  1. Mei Peng
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Contributions

Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Formal analysis and investigation, Writing- Original draft preparation: [Mei Peng]

Writing - review and editing, Funding acquisition, Resources, Supervision: [Binrong Dai]

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Correspondence to Binrong Dai.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Research Ethical Committee of Yancheng Teachers University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

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Peng, M., Dai, B. Social Support and Left-Behind Children’s Social Adaptation: The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem. Soc Indic Res 170, 117–135 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-023-03074-0

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