Migrant status, social support, and bullying perpetration of children in mainland China

Children and Youth Services Review 107 (2019) 104534

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Migrant status, social support, and bullying perpetration of children in mainland China

T

⁎

Kunjie Cui , Siu-ming To Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Migrant status Social support Bullying perpetration Children China

Nowadays, both theoretical and empirical studies have generated controversial findings on the association between migration and bullying perpetration with varying social and political contexts. Whereas the association between migrant status and bullying perpetration in mainland China remains understudied, and the underlying mechanisms of how migrant status might relate to bullying perpetration remain unclear. This study made an initial effort to examine the direct effect of migrant status and the mediating effects of family support and community support on bullying perpetration among children in mainland China. The sample consisted of 1,132 migrant children (70.8%) and 468 non-migrant children (29.2%) in Grades 4 to 9 in Nanjing and Guangzhou, China. The results of structural equation modeling revealed that migrant children were more likely than nonmigrant ones to engage in bullying perpetration. In addition, compared with non-migrant children, migrant children tend to perceive less family support and community support, which consequently predicted more bullying perpetration. The findings of this study provide cross-cultural evidence for theories and pose significant implications for social work practice and social policy in mainland China.

1. Introduction

the long-term settlement of entire families, large numbers of migrant children have moved to cities to live with their parents. It is reported that there is one migrant child for every four urban children, and in 2015, the number of migrant children was approximately 34.26 million (Floating Population Services and Management Division of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, 2018). Unlike their nonmigrant counterparts, migrant children represent a vulnerable group that is likely to encounter unique challenges, not least due to China’s household registration or hukou system. Therein, Chinese citizens are categorized as either urban or rural residents; however, migrant families maintain their rural residential status even after relocating to an urban area (Ye et al., 2016). Migrant children are children who migrate with their parents from rural to urban areas and who do not have a hukou in their city of residence. As a result of migration, migrants leave behind important social ties with extended family, close friends, and neighbors, and for migrant children experiencing important developmental periods of their lives, such losses of social contact can have considerable influence (Schwartz, Unger, Zamboanga, & Szapocznik, 2010). Besides, under China’s hukou system, the migrant population do not have equal access to public schools, healthcare, housing, and other social welfare as local residents (Chan, 2010; Donzuso, 2015). China’s migrant children also tend to experience exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination (Li &

Bullying is a major social problem that affects children and adolescents all over the world. In response to its prevalence, scholars have increasingly examined the phenomenon to identify its causes and consequences, as well as interventions and prevention strategies (Chan & Wong, 2015; Kärnä et al., 2011; Takizawa, Maughan, & Arseneault, 2014). Nowadays, both theoretical and empirical studies have generated controversial findings on the association between migration and bullying perpetration, which suggest that migrants are more likely (Fandrem, Strohmeier, & Roland, 2009), less likely (Vaughn et al., 2014), or as likely (Eslea & Mukhtar, 2000) to perpetrate bullying as non-migrants. However, because most of that research has been conducted in countries with varying social and political contexts (e.g., Norway, the United States, and the United Kingdom), few researchers have investigated the association between migrant status and bullying perpetration in mainland China. China has experienced unprecedented internal migration in the past three decades, with a migrant population that rose from 6.57 million in 1982 to 244.5 million in 2017 (Floating Population Services and Management Division of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, 2018). As the pattern of rural-to-urban migration in recent years has shifted from the temporary stays of single migrant workers to ⁎

Corresponding author at: Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Cui), [email protected] (S.-m. To).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104534 Received 24 June 2019; Received in revised form 6 October 2019; Accepted 6 October 2019 0190-7409/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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scholars have observed that immigrants are less likely than their nativeborn counterparts to engage in crime and violence (Hagan & Palloni, 1999; Martinez, 2014; Vaughn et al., 2014). For example, from the perspective of immigration revitalization, researchers have argued that despite higher levels of concentrated disadvantage and residential mobility, immigrant-concentrated communities exhibit less violent crime (Ramey, 2013). Concentrated immigrants who have had similar experiences can reinforce formal and informal social institutions (e.g., churches and community centers), develop strong ties with family members and neighbors, and create structures of social support in their neighborhoods (Lee & Martinez, 2009; Vélez, 2009). In that regard, Sampson (2008) has suggested that cities of concentrated immigration are some of the safest places around. From the perspective of self-selection theory, another assumption is that immigrants who leave their homelands to seek economic or educational opportunities tend to work hard and behave themselves. For similar reasons, to promote their longterm growth in their new societies, immigrants tend to be more selfmotivated and avoid getting into trouble (Chiswick, 1978). Taken together, these perspectives form the so-called “immigration paradox”, which suggests that immigrants tend to have better health-, education-, conduct-, and crime-related outcomes despite their tendency to confront major challenges in social integration (North, 2009). The theoretical debate on the immigration-crime/violence association has also entered school environments. Nevertheless, empirical studies involving the comparison of bullying at schools between immigrant versus non-immigrant students have remained quite limited and revealed largely inconsistent results. For example, some scholars have found that immigrants are as likely to perpetrate bullying as similarly situated non-immigrants (Eslea & Mukhtar, 2000; Moran, Smith, Thompson, & Whitney, 1993). Others have suggested, by contrast, that immigrant children are generally less likely than their nativeborn counterparts to bully others despite experiencing greater disadvantages in society (Strohmeier & Spiel, 2003; Vaughn et al., 2014). Additional evidence from Norway shows that immigrant children are at a higher risk than non-immigrant children of bullying others (Fandrem et al., 2009). However, such research has often been conducted in countries with varying social and political contexts, which limits the generalizability of their findings, while studies concerning the relationship between internal migration and bullying perpetration have been few. Unlike immigration, which refers to migration from one country to another, internal migration refers to migration between cities or provinces, especially from rural to urban areas amid processes of urbanization in developing countries. Despite that difference, both types of population movement involve similarities in relocation experiences, intercultural conflicts, migration-induced stress, and assimilation that people can confront due to migration. The lack of research on the association between internal migration and violence by Western scholars might partly stem from the fact that most Western countries completed advanced stages of urbanization and rural-to-urban integration in the 20th century. By comparison, in developing countries such as China, continued large-scale internal migration has aroused researchers’ attention in those populations. In particular, ones in China have contended that increasing numbers of rural-to-urban migrant workers relate to upward trends in crime in the country (Ma, 2001; Wang, 2002). Meanwhile, others have posited that because migrant children tend to have strong ties to family, a strong commitment to academic success, and few delinquent peers, they also tend to be law-abiding individuals who exhibit less delinquent behavior than their non-migrant peers (Chen & Zhong, 2013; Lo, Cheng, Bohm, & Zhong, 2018). Despite those scholarly efforts, studies conducted to examine whether migrant children are more or less likely to bully others in China have been limited. In light of theoretical and empirical studies from Western countries, two reasonable questions to ask are whether internal migrant children are more or less likely to engage in bullying perpetration than native non-migrant children and what mechanisms underlie the effect of migrant status on

Jiang, 2018; Zhang & Luo, 2016) as well as exhibit poor psychological and behavioral outcomes (Hu, Lu, & Huang, 2014). Amid that background, migrant children may struggle to adapt to their new home environments and, in turn, experience changes in their attitudes, behaviors, and norms. As a result of that stressful process of acculturation, they are liable to become involved in intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts (Maynard, Vaughn, Salas-Wright, & Vaughn, 2016). To date, however, only a couple of studies conducted with migrant samples have generated evidence of the rate of bullying perpetration—approximately 20% (Tan, 2010) and 40% (Cao, 2012)—among Chinese migrant children. Because such scholars have examined migrant children without appropriately comparing them to other social groups, they have not distinguished whether migrant children are more or less likely to perpetrate acts of bullying than nonmigrant ones. At the same time, research addressing the underlying mechanisms of how migrant status might relate to bullying perpetration has been limited. Drawing from a stress process model (Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan, & Mullan, 1981), this study made an initial effort to examine how migrant status has an effect on bullying perpetration, and how the effect of migrant status on bullying perpetration might be mediated by family support and community support. The stress process model can be used to explore how stressful life events become interconnected to form a process that entails three domains: sources of stress, mediators of stress, and manifestations of stress (Pearlin et al., 1981). Sources of stress often include major life events or chronic strains throughout life, mediators of stress are mostly forms of social support, and manifestations of stress encompass microbiological substrates as well as emotional and behavioral expressions (Pearlin et al., 1981). In this study, migration was regarded as a major life event and a potential source of stress. While family support and community support were regarded as mediating resources because the intensity of stress exhibited by people cannot be solely and adequately predicted from the intensity of stress sources. People typically confront stress-provoking conditions with various resources to mediate the impact. Bullying perpetration was regarded as the manifestations of stress. 1.1. Migration and bullying perpetration The immigration-crime/violence association has long been studied in criminology and the findings of which have often been controversial. Some theoretical perspectives believed that immigration was related to more crime and violence. For example, strain theory has argued that immigrants are often unskilled and poorly educated and, in turn, tend to suffer from anomie and social structural strains caused by the disjuncture between their material goals and their limited normative means to achieve them. As a result, crime and violence may become alternative means to achieve material goals when legitimate opportunities are unavailable and conventional means are useless (Merton, 1938). Social disorganization theory has posited that crime originates in a neighborhood’s social structure. Immigrant-concentrated neighborhoods are often characterized by economic deprivation or poverty, residential instability, and a lack of resources and opportunities. Such neighborhoods are unable to exercise effective social control over their residents. Immigrants in this kind of neighborhoods are prone to crime or violence because it is difficult for them to foster and maintain strong attachment and cohesion to their communities and other residents (Shaw & McKay, 1942). Culture assimilation theory has argued that acculturation to and acceptance by a host society are prerequisites for social and economic mobility. In that sense, a lack of acculturation in dimensions such as language, values, behaviors, and cultural beliefs may contribute to delinquency and crime among immigrants (Gordon, 1964). However, the historical opinion about “criminal immigrants” has been challenged and criticized as a stereotype (Lee, Martinez, & Rosenfeld, 2001). In support of such criticism, in recent decades 2

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can be exasperated by negative attitudes towards migrants maintained in local villages. At the same time, because migrants frequently change their places of work and residence, they struggle all the more to develop stable social ties in their new communities. Ultimately, migrant workers’ separation from extended family and segregation from urban social networks can result in reduced community support for them and their children.

bullying perpetration. 1.2. Migration and social support Social support refers to an individual’s perceptions of general support or specific supporting behaviors from people in a social network that can enhance their functioning and buffer them from adverse outcomes (Tardy, 1985). In the context of migration, a social support system contributes to satisfying migrants’ needs, aids their social participation, provides a reference framework for them to establish social comparisons, helps them to better adjust to their environments, promotes positive events in their lives and supports them in coping with negative ones, and enhances their capacity to adapt by encouraging their social and labor integration (Garcia-Ramirez et al., 2005). Research has indicated that migration generally entails the separation from one’s former social networks, which decreases one’s accustomed levels of support (Guruge & Humphreys, 2009). More specifically, migration experiences often involve acculturation stress, the limitation or loss of social networks, social isolation, low socioeconomic status, and barriers to or lack of access to social services (Guruge & Collins, 2015). For migrant children, in particular, a great challenge faced as a result of migration is the reduction in forms of social support. For one, migrant children tend to receive less family support than their urban or rural counterparts (Gong et al., 2012; Wu, Lu, & Kang, 2015; Wu, Tsang, & Ming, 2012), because most migrant workers lack the time, ability, or resources to provide their children with the support that they need. In some cases, migrants are physically separated from their children for long periods, work long hours in antisocial environments, or lack the education needed to help their children with their academic or social development. In parallel, most migrant workers spend far less time interacting with their children and helping with their homework than their middle-class urban counterparts and cannot afford the books and extracurricular activities that urban students take for granted (China Labor Bulletin, 2019). In a 2013 survey of 1,518 migrant workers in mainland China, respondents reported spending an average of 11 h at work every day, and about half of them (52%) identified as “unqualified parents” without sufficient time to accompany or communicate with their children (CCR CSR, 2013). According to the Annual Report on Education for China’s Migrant Children in 2016, most migrant workers in China have only a middle-school education, and, in kind, many adopt a simplistic approach towards their children’s education. In those approaches, children’s grades are prioritized over their processes of learning and growing, and parents typically punish their children for earning low grades and reward them with cash when they earn high ones. Although migrant workers, similar to all parents, tend to have high expectations for their children, they provide far less support for their children, which leaves their children at a disadvantage (Yang, 2017). Children also need support from the wider community to ensure their healthy growth and development; however, the children of migrant workers are severely disadvantaged in that regard as well. Migrant children tend to exhibit psychological barriers, barriers in social interaction, insufficient participation in their communities, and ambiguity in identity when assimilating to life in urban communities (Zhang, 2018), all of which can diminish their perception of community support. Such trends partly stem from migrant workers’ past exclusion from receiving housing benefits in urban areas due to the hukou system (Keung Wong, Li, & Song, 2007; Wang & Zuo, 1999). As a result, evidence suggests that China’s migrant workers have tended to regard cities as places to work instead of homes in which to live (Zheng, Long, Fan, & Gu, 2009). Indeed, migrant workers in China tend to rent apartments in urban villages characterized by decaying housing conditions, reduced public safety, and deteriorating social order (Song, Zenou, & Ding, 2008). Du and Li (2010) have argued that most migrants are unfamiliar with their destination cities and lack close local ties of kinship and friendship, even if they have long resided in the city, which

1.3. Social support and bullying perpetration Addressing the phenomenon of bullying, numerous researchers have indicated a significant negative association between social support and bullying perpetration (Agbaria & Daher, 2015; Demaray & Malecki, 2003; Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). Such findings suggested that if individuals receive or perceive less social support, then they are more likely to bully others. Following migration, the primary challenges faced by migrant children stem from the change in residence and the change in family or community structure. According to social disorganization theory, migrants tend to relocate to urban neighborhoods with low levels of economic resources and greater levels of anonymity, both of which reduce the private or parochial control of children and permits the formation of children social groups liable to engage in violence (Shaw & McKay, 1942; Thrasher, 1927). Because familiar and residential control stem from the allocation or withdrawal of sentiment or social support (Rose & Clear, 1998), the aim of this study was to clarify the role of family support and community support in the development of a particular kind of violence—bullying perpetration—specifically among migrant children in mainland China. Chinese culture has traditionally emphasized the importance of family harmony and parental authority (Zhai & Gao, 2009). As the earliest developmental environment for children in which they spend the most time, family is fundamental for the formation of personality and behavioral patterns. Following that conceptualization, family support in this study was defined as the bonds between parents and their children as a reflection of the instrumental, informational, appraisal, and emotional support provided by parents to their children during parent–child interactions. According to attachment theory, children form emotional bonds with their parents in the early years of life, and children with insecure and negative attachment to their parents may develop interpersonal problems outside the home (Muuss, 1988). Findings from international research have consistently indicated that a lack of parent–child communication and interaction (Hong & Espelage, 2012), lack of parental involvement (Barboza et al., 2009), and lack of parental support (Demaray & Malecki, 2003; Wang et al., 2009) are associated with higher levels of bullying perpetration among children. Among the handful of scholars in China who have detected a similar association between family support and bullying, Wang et al. (2012) found in their sample of 8,342 middle-school students from four cities in Guangdong Province that less communication in the family and less parental care correlated with more bullying perpetration. Studies of school-aged participants in Hong Kong and Macau have also demonstrated that bullying perpetration was negatively correlated with family harmony and parental bonding (Chan & Chui, 2013; Chan & Wong, 2019). However, other findings on the topic have remained limited, particularly regarding the association between migrant children’s lack of family support and their higher tendency to bully others. As a microcosm of urban social life, community is an important context for migrant children in which they can communicate and interact with urban residents. Indeed, it is difficult for migrant children to adapt or assimilate without a community that operates as an organizational carrier (Zhang, 2018). Community support was defined as community connectedness among residents that supports their mutual trust, willingness to assist each other, and sense of safety. In that sense, community support is an extra-family social network that provides social control and resources for children and adolescents living in a community (Sampson, 1997; Simons, Simons, Conger, & Brody, 2004). 3

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bullying perpetration, the aim of the study was to investigate how migrant status might contribute to bullying perpetration and how family support and community support mediate that relationship. To those ends, three hypotheses were developed:

Although few scholars have investigated how experiences in community influence bullying perpetration (Khoury-Kassabri, Benbenishty, Avi Astor, & Zeira, 2004; Swearer & Doll, 2001), it is generally believed that the less social support perceived in a community, the higher the rate of violence therein (Cullen, 1994). Likewise, children’s behaviors are influenced by communities (Plybon & Kliewer, 2001) and, in turn, can play out in school environments (Espelage, Low, Rao, Hong, & Little, 2014). In Western countries, immigrant children have tended to relocate in communities marked by unemployment, segregation, and crime (Desmond & Kubrin, 2009), in which they are more likely to engage in misconduct and even bullying (Everett & Price, 1995; Simons et al., 2004). As mentioned above, most migrant families in China live in urban villages marked by decaying housing conditions, reduced public safety, and deteriorating social order, which afford highly limited access to social resources and support for them. Despite that finding, studies on how community support can influence bullying perpetration among children in mainland China have remained rare.

H1: Migrant children are more likely than non-migrant children to engage in bullying perpetration. H2: Migrant children perceive less family support, which predicts higher levels of bullying perpetration, than non-migrant children. H3: Migrant children perceive less community support, which predicts higher levels of bullying perpetration, than non-migrant children. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants The study’s sample consisted of 1,132 migrant and 468 non-migrant children in Grades 4–9 (mean age = 11.74) from eight schools in the cities of Nanjing and Guangzhou in mainland China. Nanjing and Guangzhou are the respective capitals of Jiangsu and Guangdong Provinces, which, as China’s top two provinces in terms of economic aggregate, attract large numbers of migrants seeking higher-paying jobs and better living conditions. Also, both cities are located on China’s eastern coast within two of the country’s most developed areas: the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. Thus attractive to both intra-province and inter-province migrants, Nanjing and Guangzhou are considered to be suitable for collecting data from migrant children with diverse backgrounds. Following a school-based, multistage random sampling method, data were collected with a structured questionnaire distributed in participants’ classrooms by trained university students majoring in social work. Once two of 11 districts in Nanjing and Guangzhou where migrants concentrate most were identified, a complete list of primary and secondary schools available to both migrant and non-migrant students in those two districts was obtained from the Educational Bureau. After one primary school and one secondary school were randomly selected from each district, 90 students in two or three classes in each school were randomly selected from each grade level: Grades 4 to 6 in primary school and Grades 7 to 9 in secondary school. Of the 2,160 students to whom questionnaires were distributed, 1,747 students submitted relatively completed questionnaires along with a consent form from a parent or guardian. The response rate was 81 percent. Of those questionnaires, 147 were deleted because responses related to the primary variables were missing. For all single missing values, expectation maximization was used, which can maximize likelihood functions that arise in statistical estimation problems (Fessler & Hero, 1994). Ultimately, 1,600 children were included in the study.

1.4. The present study Despite established evidence of how migration, family support, community support, and bullying perpetration relate to each other, certain gaps in that series of relationships require scholarly attention. First, theoretical and empirical findings on the association between migration and bullying have conflicted. In particular, the relationship between internal migration and bullying perpetration among migrant children remains unclear. Given extensive but controversial findings about that relationship in Western literature and limited research on the topic in Chinese contexts, knowledge on how migrant status relates to bullying perpetration needs to be expanded. Second, despite evidence that migrant children tend to experience a low level of family and community support or a high level of bullying perpetration, such findings derive from studies that have not included appropriate reference groups. Without a reference group, it is impossible to determine whether or to what extent migrant children have less social support or more bullying perpetration than their non-migrant counterparts. Third, the potential mediating roles of family support and community support might factor into the relationship between migrant status and bullying perpetration remains unclear. Although the literature reviewed above indicates a potential association between migration and social support from families and communities, as well as an association among family support, community support, and bullying perpetration, hardly any researchers have investigated how migrant status might influence bullying perpetration by way of deteriorated means of family and community support. Consequently, such neglect could inhibit the translation of academic evidence into effective interventions at the family and community levels. For policymakers and practitioners tasked with allocating limited resources and effort, however, it is important to recognize how family support and community support might mediate the effect of migrant status on bullying perpetration. Among other oversights in the literature to date, the stress process model has been tested primarily in Western contexts, research on the stress process in migration experiences remains scarce, and most scholars have examined the biochemical, physiological, and emotional outcomes of stress but its expression in behavioral patterns. In response to those gaps in the literature, it is first necessary to confirm the crosscultural utility and validity of the theoretical framework, especially in China, where individual behavior is influenced by collectivism whereas that in Western cultures is primarily influenced by individualism. Second, it is additionally necessary to examine migration as a stressful life event using the stress process model, which promises to enrich empirical and theoretical evidence about migrant status and bullying. Third and last, exploring the behavioral outcomes of stress as a means to supplement the existing stress process model is also necessary. To fill the mentioned gaps in research on migrant status and

2.2. Measures Several measures (e.g., community support and bullying perpetration) used in the study were adopted from scales in Western literature. Translation and back-translation were performed by professional translators with the help of experts in youth studies. A pilot study was conducted with 100 participants in Grades 4–9 to examine the applicability of the questionnaire. After the adjustment and amendment of the questionnaire in accordance with the data of the pilot study, the measures used in the final version of the questionnaire were as follows. Migrant status was identified by asking the participants, “Where is your household-registered residence?” Those who answered Guangzhou or Nanjing were categorized as non-migrant children, whereas those who answered a location other than Guangzhou or Nanjing were categorized as migrant children. In data analysis, migrant status was recoded as a dummy variable (0 = non-migrant children, 1 = migrant children). 4

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Family support was measured with 8 items selected from the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (Malecki & Demaray, 2002), which is generally used to measure perceived social support among children and adolescents in Grades 3 to 12. On the instrument, the frequency of each socially supportive behavior was measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = never, 5 = always). The selected items included statements such as “My parents help me practice things”, “My parents give me good advice”, “My parents tell me how well I do on tasks”, and “My parents listen to me when I’m mad” (Cronbach’s α = 0.855). A higher score on the scale indicated a greater degree of family support. The Chinese version of the scale has previously demonstrated high reliability and validity (Chen & Wei, 2013). Community support was measured with 4 items selected from Social Support Index (McCubbin, Cauble, & Patterson, 1983). Responses to each item were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = never, 5 = always). The items included “Living in this community gives me a secure feeling”, “People can depend on each other in this community”, “People here know they can get help from the community if they are in trouble”, and “If I had an emergency, even people I do not know in this community would be willing to help” (Cronbach’s α = 0.811). A higher score on the scale indicated a greater degree of community support. Bullying perpetration was assessed with 15 items selected from the Personal Experiences Checklist (Hunt, Peters, & Rapee, 2012), which can provide a multidimensional assessment of a person’s experiences with perpetrating acts of bullying. Bullying perpetration in the study described how often one has perpetrated bullying against others in the past 6 months. The Personal Experiences Checklist is a well-developed scale that refers not only to traditional types of bullying perpetration, including physical bullying (e.g., kicking, shoving, or hitting others), verbal bullying (e.g., calling others names or teasing or making fun of them), and relational bullying (e.g., playing nasty practical jokes on others that could hurt or injure them or purposefully ignoring or excluding others), but also to cyberbullying (e.g., via text messaging, email, social media networks, or chatrooms) and bullying perpetration based on culture (e.g., making fun of others’ accents or not talking to them because of where they are from). Responses to each item were rated on a 5-point scale (1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = most days, 5 = every day), and the total score for those five dimensions was computed for each student (Cronbach’s α = 0.862). A higher score on the scale indicated a greater degree of bullying perpetration. Socio-demographic variables that controlled in the study included gender (1 = male, 2 = female), grade level (4–9), and family’s socioeconomic status (SES). Socioeconomic status was assessed in terms of parents’ highest level of education completed and monthly household income. Each parent’s level of education was reported by participants in one of seven categories, ranging from 1 (didn’t attend or finish primary school) to 7 (bachelor’s degree or higher), whereas monthly household income, in RMB, was reported by participants in one of six categories, ranging from 1 (0–1,999) to 6 (10,000 or more).

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the participants. Frequency (n) Gender Male 888 Female 712 Age Mean = 11.74 (SD = 1.83) (years) Grade Grade 4 340 Grade 5 241 Grade 6 270 Grade 7 296 Grade 8 244 Grade 9 209 Migrant status Non-migrant 468 Migrant 1,132 Left-behind status Previously left-behind 445 Never left-behind 963 Missing 192 Father’s highest level of education (Non-migrant/migrant) Didn’t attend or finish primary school 6/57 Primary school 22/163 Secondary school 104/465 High school 109/169 Technical school 39/39 College 63/48 Bachelor’s degree or higher 64/50 Don’t know 56/126 Missing 5/15 Mother’s highest level of education (Non-migrant/migrant) Didn’t attend or finish primary school 9/103 Primary school 42/215 Secondary school 99/414 High school 102/127 Technical school 42/40 College 54/30 Bachelor’s degree or higher 62/36 Don’t know 52/143 Missing 6/24 Monthly household income (Non-migrant/migrant) 0–1,999 11/38 2,000–3,999 61/200 4,000–5,999 89/250 6,000–7,999 74/175 8,000–9,999 83/142 10,000 or more 75/110 Don’t know 64/201 Missing 11/16

Percentage (%)

55.5 44.5

21.2 15.1 16.9 18.5 15.2 13.1 29.2 70.8 27.8 60.2 12.0 1.3/5.1 4.7/14.4 22.2/41.1 23.3/14.9 8.3/3.5 13.5/4.2 13.7/4.4 12.0/11.1 1.0/1.3 1.9/9.1 9.0/19.0 21.2/36.6 21.8/11.2 9.0/3.5 11.5/2.7 13.2/3.2 11.1/12.6 1.3/2.1 2.4/3.4 13.0/17.7 19.0/22.1 15.8/15.5 17.7/12.5 16.0/9.7 13.7/17.7 2.4/1.4

Note: The data for parents’ education levels and family income in regular print and those in bold, represent, respectively, the results for non-migrant and migrant children.

3. Results 3.1. Descriptive Statistics

2.3. Data analysis

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the sample, which contained 1,600 participants with an average age of 11.74 years (range 8–17 years). By gender, the sample consisted of 888 male and 712 female students. By migrant status, 1,132 participants were migrant children (70.8%), whereas 468 were non-migrant children (29.2%). The results indicate that the parents’ education levels and the family income of non-migrant children were higher than those of migrant children. Table 2 lists the inter-correlations of variables in the study. Table 3 presents the mean score and standard deviation on each scale by migrant versus non-migrant status. To investigate possible differences in the primary variables depending on migrant status, t tests were conducted. The results revealed that migrant children were more likely than non-migrant children to report receiving low levels of family and community support and more likely to report high levels of

Structural equation modeling was performed with AMOS 21.0 to test the hypothesized model. Once confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to ensure the good fit of the measurement model, the final structural model was tested with the full sample. Several indicators were used to assess the fit of the measurement model and structural model, including the chi-squared (χ2) index, a likelyhood ratio test statistic in which a non-significant chi-squared value indicates a hypothetical model fits well with the sample’s data; the comparative fit index (CFI), in which values exceeding 0.90 indicate a good model fit (Bentler, 1990); and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), in which values less than 0.05 indicate a close fit (Kline, 2015).

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Table 2 Inter-correlations of variables.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Migrant status Family support Community support Bullying perpetration Gender Grade level Socioeconomic status

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 −0.162** −0.202** 0.137** 0.002 0.101** −0.231**

1 0.409** −0.198** 0.017 −0.149** 0.116**

1 −0.187** 0.003 −0.039 0.127**

1 −0.187** 0.102** −0.031

1 −0.058* 0.004

1 −0.236**

1

** Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). * Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

4. Discussion

Table 3 Mean score and standard deviation on each scale by migrant versus non-migrant status. Latent variable

Migrant status

n

M

SD

t

Family support

Migrant Non-migrant Migrant Non-migrant Migrant Non-migrant

1,132 468 1,132 468 1,132 468

3.2534 3.5789 3.1510 3.6359 1.2463 1.1562

0.88560 0.93949 1.05956 1.10246 0.32961 0.24063

6.568***

Community support Bullying perpetration

The stress process model maintains that stressful life events and chronic life strains can both directly and indirectly, through social support, influence individuals’ physical, psychological, and behavioral expressions (Chen & Wei, 2013; Kaniasty & Norris, 1993; Pearlin et al., 1981). Migration has been recognized as stressful and destabilizing experience, particularly for children, who generally do not choose to migrate (Suárez-Orozco, 2012). The stress of migration can result in dramatic changes in available sources of social support and diminish the perception of such support, which can prompt migrant children to engage in violent behaviors (Brabant et al., 2016). Based on Pearlin’s stress process model, this study marked an initial attempt to understand how migrant status might influence children’s bullying perpetration in contemporary urban China. In particular, this study involved examining the effects of family support and community support as mediators of the relationship between migrant status and bullying perpetration. The results indicate that migrant children are more likely to engage in bullying perpetration than non-migrant children, which supports Hypothesis 1. In the context of the controversy about whether knowledge of so-called “threatening immigrants” and “healthy immigrants” can elucidate the association between migration and violence, the study marked an initial attempt to respond to that debate with evidence from a sample of internal migrant children in mainland China. The findings additionally indicate that the healthy immigrant effect, self-selection theory, and immigration paradox, all of which hold that migrants tend to behave themselves and engage in less problematic behaviors, do not characterize migrant children in mainland China. It is possible that migrants in China are often of low socioeconomic status (Ye et al., 2016), live in disordered communities (Zheng et al., 2009), and have low levels of education, as indicated by the demographic data. Consequently, their children tend to have fewer forms of social support and the resources that they need (Wu et al., 2015) and are more likely to be associated with delinquent peers (Liu & Liu, 2016). In that light, they differ from the often selective immigrants in developed Western countries, who tend to work hard, to behave themselves, and to cherish better job opportunities and educational or medical resources in their countries of destination (Sampson, 2008). Although theories of threatening immigrants reviewed above hypothesize the causes of crime or violence at the level of the social structure, the neighborhood, as well as within the process of assimilation, the results of the study presented here do not corroborate any comprehensive response to those theories. Nevertheless, the findings about migrant children’s higher level of bullying perpetration might inspire additional research on the underlying mechanisms of bullying among such children based on those theoretical perspectives. The results indicate that migrant status is directly associated with bullying perpetration and indirectly mediated by perceived family support, which supports Hypothesis 2. Briefly, migrant children were found to be more likely than non-migrant children to perceive less family support and, in turn, more likely to engage in bullying perpetration. As mentioned earlier, the parents of migrant children tend to have

8.228*** −5.352***

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

bullying perpetration.

3.2. Test of the measurement model The measurement model of the three latent variables (i.e. family support, community support, and bullying perpetration) was examined before testing the structural model. As indicated by the results of analysis, the measurement model fit the data well (χ2 = 1211.876, df = 316, p < .001, CFI = 0.939, RMSEA = 0.042), with a CFI greater than 0.90 and an RMSEA less than 0.05. All observed variables were significantly loaded on the corresponding latent constructs, which suggests that the selected indicators represented the underlying constructs in a statistically reliable manner (factor loading range, 0.558–0.817).

3.3. Test of the structural model Results of testing the structural model indicated its good fit with the data. Due to its sensitivity to the sample size, the chi-square value was large and significant (χ2 = 1475.364, df = 412, p < .001). The CFI (0.930) and RMSEA (0.040) also indicate a good fit. The standardized solution for the test of the structural model is presented in Fig. 1. As hypothesized, the effect of migrant status on bullying perpetration (β = 0.09, p < .01) was partially mediated by family support and community support. Those results suggest that migrant children tended to perceive less family support (β = −0.15, p < .001) and less community support (β = −0.20, p < .001) than non-migrant children, both of which factors were associated with higher levels of bullying perpetration (β = −0.13, p < .001 and β = −0.12, p < .001, respectively). Regarding the socio-demographic variables, girls (β = −0.17, p < .001) were less likely to engage in bullying perpetration than boys. Meanwhile, students in higher grade levels tended to report less family support (β = −0.12, p < .001). Last, higher family socioeconomic status was associated with more family support (β = 0.06, p < .05) and community support (β = 0.09, p < .01).

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*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 Fig. 1. Standardized solutions for the structural model of direct and mediating effects on children’s bullying perpetration.

behavior to some extent. However, rural-to-urban migration disrupts such moral constraints as part of the processes of urbanization and migration that transform acquaintance societies into stranger societies. Worse still, migrants tend to relocate in urban communities characterized by poverty, a lack of resources, and precariousness. In such environments, migrant children tend to receive or perceive less community support and are more likely to engage in bullying perpetration. In sum, the findings of the study justify the application of the stress process model in explaining bullying perpetration in the context of Chinese rural-to-urban migration. They imply that it is not the migration status itself that directly contributes to bullying perpetration; rather, it may be that perceptions of these migrant children about their available family and community support erode by migration status, which in turn influences their involvement in bullying perpetration. Moreover, the findings verify that migrant children are more likely than non-migrant children to engage in bullying perpetration, which can inform responses to theoretical and empirical controversies in samples of Chinese migrant children. They additionally provide empirical evidence of the perspective that migration attenuates one’s perception of family and community support (Du & Li, 2010; Gong et al., 2012; Guruge & Humphreys, 2009) and that less family and community support relates to higher levels of bullying perpetration (Demaray & Malecki, 2003; Wang et al., 2009, 2012).

limited time, ability, and resources to provide their children with the support that they need. Due to migration, children become separated from their close friends and extended family members in their hometowns, and consequently, they come to depend more on their parents, especially when they have not established new social ties in their new communities. If their parents provide less support and guidance during that period, migrant children may engage in bullying perpetration as a way to attract attention or cope with stress. Various forms of parental absence can be injurious to the development of children and adolescents due to weakened parental support and guidance, undermined parent–child bonding, and lessened family control and supervision (Wen & Lin, 2012). From a related point of view, about 28% of migrant children in the study reported having left-behind experiences, meaning that they had been left in rural areas while their parents sought work in cities and reunited with their parents there only after they had found a stable residence or job. Studies have shown that left-behind children without parents’ support are more likely to engage in crime and delinquency (Wen & Lin, 2012; Zhao, 2004). It is also possible that when migrant children move to cities, they bring problematic behaviors with them to the city and their new school environments. In any case, future studies on children whose parents left them behind, and children have both experience of migration and left-behind would enrich current understandings of internal migration’s effect on bullying perpetration. The results also indicate that migrant status is directly associated with bullying perpetration and indirectly mediated by perceived community support, which supports Hypothesis 3. In short, migrant children were more likely than non-migrant children to perceive less community support, which made them more likely to engage in bullying perpetration. Because migrant children have been uprooted from the community in which they were born and raised and changed their residence, school, and friendship networks, they tend to adjust their norms and behaviors based on the characteristics of their new environments. Whereas rural Chinese communities tend to exhibit features of collectivism (e.g., group membership and affiliation with social organizations), those in urban China are characterized by features of individualism (e.g., unique skills and abilities). Not only does residential mobility increase the orientation of the individual self and decrease the orientation of the collective self (Baumeister, 1986), but isolation common in urban life also reduces formal and informal means of social support and increases anonymity, both of which can prompt aggression. Furthermore, rural Chinese communities are traditionally acquaintance societies marked by mutual trust, a willingness to help others, moral constraints, and the rule of rites where people follow the ethical principle of “doing at will without breaking rules” (Fei, 1948). In that context, China’s traditional rural communities provide mutual support and a secure environment that may constrain people’s bullying

5. Limitations Despite its important findings, some limitations should be noted. First, the cross-sectional method employed prevented the identification of any casual effects among the variables. Consequently, it remains possible that bullying perpetration reduces the perceptions of family and community support among migrant children, not vice versa. In response to that possibility, further longitudinal studies are necessary to pinpoint causal relationships, if any, among migrant status, forms of social support, and bullying perpetration over the life course. Second, the study involved comparing only migrant and non-migrant children in two cities in mainland China. However, because left-behind children are a vulnerable group due to parental migration and tend to have experiences with both being left behind and migrating, researchers should facilitate the comparison of children from various backgrounds to clarify the association between migration and bullying perpetration. Third, some unavoidable deficiencies in the measurement instruments likely resulted in biased responses. As Cornell, Bandyopadhyay, Jimerson, Swearer, and Espelage (2009) have pointed out, data selfreported by children can reflect responses intentionally made to conform to socially desirable standards, which might have caused participants to under-report their bullying behavior. Accordingly, researchers 7

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in the future should employ more comprehensive measurement tools (e.g., peer nomination) for such constructs to enhance the credibility of findings. Fourth, the study involved examining the mediating effects of family and community support only. However, because various other forms of social support (e.g., peer and teacher support) are important for migrant children’s development, researchers should investigate their effects as well. Fifth and last, despite a rigorous sampling procedure, the study and its results represent only two eastern Chinese cities with disproportionate populations of migrant versus non-migrant children. Because the lack of a nationally representative sample may constrain the generalizability of the findings, future research based on nationally representative data would further elucidate the perpetration of bullying among migrant children in mainland China.

community support by way of various strategies. For example, training programs could be provided to parents and guardians regularly to enhance their skills in caregiving and communicating with their children. After all, Chinese parents are less likely to encourage or praise their children, which may diminish their children’s perception of family warmth and support. At the community level, public facilities and spaces (e.g., playgrounds, libraries, and community centers) could be built, and community-based activities (e.g., parent–child events and workshops) could be organized to facilitate interactions among adults and children in communities, which would contribute to a sense of support among members of those communities. Most fundamentally, the hukou system should be reformed, and the living conditions of migrant families should be changed.

6. Implications

Declaration of Competing Interest

Despite those limitations, the findings of the study make significant contributions to literature on migrant status and bully perpetration, especially in China, as well as pose important implications for the development of interventions and other means of preventing bullying perpetration among migrant children. In terms of theoretical implications, the findings justify the application of the stress process model in the context of migration in mainland China. That is, migrant status, resulting from the stressful life event of migration, can be expected to indirectly affect the behavioral outcome of bullying perpetration by attenuating the perception of social support, especially in China’s hukou system, in which migrant status has been regarded as a form of stress (Lo et al., 2018). Examining the stress effect of migration by using the stress process model has enriched evidence of its theoretical application in migration studies. To date, the model has been used to explain stress’s psychological outcomes in nearly all fields of sociology, as well as its biological and physical outcomes in biomedical research; however, few scholars have employed the model to examine behavioral expressions of stress such as bullying. In that sense, exploring that behavioral outcome of stress has enriched the theoretical applicability of the stress process model. As for empirical implications, the findings fill the gap in Chinabased evidence of the association between migrant status and bullying perpetration and the mediating effects of family support and community support in that association. Family and community serve as the most immediate social contexts for children, especially ones who have not actively chosen to migrate. Nevertheless, researchers have paid limited attention to family support and community support in analyzing bullying perpetration in mainland China (Zhang, Chen, & Chen, 2016). In response, this study has provided empirical evidence that migration bears an influence on bullying perpetration by diminishing forms of family and community support, which advances current understandings of the effects of migration-related experiences on behavioral adjustments among children. Such results help to illustrate how children fare within the broad context of migration and how forms of social support embedded in their families and communities can influence their development. Last, in terms of practical implications, the findings should inspire intervention strategies aimed at reducing bullying by promoting family support and community support for migrant children. Currently, the vast majority of migrant workers in China are still employed in lowpaying jobs in manufacturing, construction, and a wide range of service industries, in which they work long hours and have little job security. In response, policymakers should try to improve the working conditions of migrant workers, increase their wages, and limit their working hours. In that way, migrant workers would have more time and resources to interact with and support their children. In addition, China’s government should invest in providing affordable, accessible housing so that migrant families are not forced to live in overcrowded, poorly constructed, disordered communities. From another angle, social workers should provide intervention-based services to enhance family and

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