The results of the initial diagnosis of parents’ readiness for a social and educational partnership with a rural school considering features of modern parents

Описана проблема формирования готовности родителей к социально-образовательному партнерству с сельской школой. Подчеркнута актуальность исследования готовности сельских родителей к социально-образовательному партнерству, его значение на уровне государственной политики и общества. Обоснован выбор критериально-диагностического аппарата для проведения начальной диагностики на этапе констатирующего этапа эксперимента, который представлен критериями, показателями и методиками. Представлены результаты диагностики участников констатирующего этапа эксперимента: контрольная группа – родители школьников МБОУ «Верх-Катунская средняя общеобразовательная школа» и МБОУ «Малоугреневская средняя общеобразовательная школа»; экспериментальная группа – родители школьников МБОУ «Сростинская средняя общеобразовательная школа им. В.М. Шукшина» и МБОУ «Лесная средняя общеобразовательная школа» (Бийский район, Алтайский край). Проведенный анализ помог выявить уровень сформированности готовности родителей к социально-образовательному партнерству на начальном этапе эксперимента и приступить к реализации формирующего этапа. Авторы отмечают значение социально-образовательного партнерства как главного ресурса взаимодействия между современными родителями и сельской школой, учитывая при этом внутренние и внешние факторы, влияющие на партнерские отношения между субъектами образовательных отношений. The problem of formation of parents' readiness for social and educational partnership with a rural school is described. The relevance of the study of rural parents' readiness for social and educational partnership, its importance at the level of state policy and society is emphasized. The choice of a criterion-diagnostic apparatus for conducting initial diagnostics at the stage of the ascertaining stage of the experiment, which is represented by criteria, indicators and methods, is justified. The results of diagnostics of the participants in the initial stage of the experiment are presented: control group - parents of schoolchildren of "Verkh-Katunskaya secondary school" and "Malougrenevskaya secondary school"; experimental group - parents of schoolchildren of "Shukshin Srostki secondary school" and "Lesnaya secondary school" (Biysk region, Altai Territory). The analysis helped to identify the level of parents' readiness for social and educational partnership at the initial stage of the experiment and to begin the implementation of the formative stage. The author notes the importance of social and educational partnership as the main resource of interaction between the modern parents and the rural school, taking into consideration internal and external factors affecting the partnership relationship.

Rural Food Environment, Caregiver Influence and School-Aged Children’s Unhealthy Food Choice: New Evidence From Rural China

Background A large number of unhealthy foods with low nutrition content and safety issues exist in the rural food consumption environment of China. Guiding rural children to avoid eating unhealthy foods through family intervention has become much more critical. However, when current rural caregivers are once left behind by their parents and lack of family education in their childhood, how would they affect their children’s unhealthy food choices? The purpose of this study is to highlight the new evidence of current rural caregivers’ influences on children’s unhealthy food choices in China. Methods Based on a survey of 5611 pairs of rural school-aged children and their caregivers in seven provinces, the significant effects of caregivers’ types, parenting attitudes, and socio-demographic characteristics on children’s unhealthy food choices were evaluated through an ordered probit model. Results This study found that rural parents did not perform positive influence than rural grandparents as conventionally believed. When the caregiver type changing from parents to grandparents, the percentage of children who mildly accept unhealthy foods increased 6.94%, while the percentage of children who moderately and severely accept unhealthy foods decreased 6.48% and 0.46%, respectively. In addition, this study underscored the significance of caregivers’ neglectful parenting attitudes on the impact of children’s unhealthy eating behavior. When caregivers’ parenting attitudes changing from doting attitude to neglectful attitude, the percentage of children who mildly accept unhealthy foods decreased 9.75%, while the percentage of children who moderately and severely accept unhealthy foods increased 8.77% and 0.99%, respectively. Conclusions Our study proposes new evidence that the current rural parents’ inherent intention and preference for those unhealthy foods formed in their childhood would be much higher than rural grandparents and might have performed a significantly negative influence on their children. Our findings also have policy implications for health promotion professionals who look for intervention targets of caregivers to improve their health education effectiveness for children. For the health education toward rural caregivers, instead of focusing on the caregiver types, segmenting those rural caregivers with neglectful parenting attitude would be the key step to identify the intervention targets.

Advocacy Experiences Among Rural Parents of Children With Disabilities

Parent advocacy is an essential component to help children with disabilities receive appropriate school services. However, there are limited studies about parent advocacy for children with disabilities living in rural areas. To address this issue, semistructured interviews were conducted with 12 parents of children with disabilities. The purpose of the study was to identify and define unique barriers and facilitators to advocacy among families of children with disabilities living in rural areas. Constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The findings suggest that families living in rural areas lack the necessary resources to advocate successfully for their children with disabilities. Notably, participants expressed that advocating and maintaining relationships with school personnel took an emotional toll. Participants also reported that relationships with school personnel outside of school impacted their experiences with advocacy. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

What Influences Health Professionals’ Recommendations for Non-Scheduled Childhood Vaccinations? A Qualitative Study of Health Professionals’ Perspectives in Three Provinces of China

Recommendations by health professionals are important for vaccines that are not included in national schedules. This study explored health professionals’ perspectives on recommending non-scheduled (user-fee) childhood vaccinations in China, identifying key influences on professionals’ interactions with caregivers. We conducted individual semi-structured interviews with 20 health professionals from three provinces in China and analyzed data thematically using deductive and inductive coding. Health professionals from all three provinces were uncomfortable about being perceived to encourage parents to accept vaccines that incurred a fee. They provided information about non-scheduled vaccines but emphasized parental autonomy in decision-making. Rural parents were less aware of unscheduled vaccines and health professionals were more likely to encourage parents living in more affluent areas to consider these vaccines; varicella vaccine was preferred by parents as a way of preventing school absence. Economic incentives for unscheduled vaccines were given to staff at most study sites, although the amount given varied widely. These variations meant that staff receiving lower incentives were not motivated to promote non-scheduled vaccines if their workload was high; on the contrary, those receiving higher incentives were more likely to promote these vaccines. Health professionals need more guidance on how to recommend unscheduled vaccines in an informative, positive and appropriate manner. It is evident that parents’ awareness of these vaccines, and their economic circumstances, influence vaccinators recommendation practice. Economic incentives prompted health professionals to recommend non-scheduled vaccines; however, the application of such staff incentives varied widely in China. To adopt appropriate economic incentives, professional organizations should develop protocols for the use of incentives that account for their influence on recommendation practices. Suitable recommendation policy needs to balance basic salaries with performance-based incentives, consider overall workload, and include monitoring and evaluation of economic incentives.

The black hole of dealing with a disability diagnosis: Views of South African rural parents

Background: Lack of support systems in the management of health and rehabilitation related problems, including the stigma of giving birth to a child with disability, results in some parents ignoring the doctor’s prognosis of lifelong disability.Objectives: The study was conducted in the Eastern Cape province (ECP) of South Africa (SA) on parents’ views in caring for children with disability in an area with minimal health facilities in a rural setting.Method: Data was collected using exploratory descriptive qualitative methods. A Xhosa-speaking researcher facilitated six focus group discussions and conducted one individual in-depth interview with 37 parents or caregivers of children with disability residing at Happy home. Only one father was interviewed. Thematic analysis was used in interpreting data obtained from interviews.Results: The findings revealed themes indicating key concerns of parents, which were as follows: challenges with disability diagnosis, negative attitudes of health professionals, health and rehabilitation related problems, and lack of support from families and community.Conclusion: Caring for children with disability in a rural setting where services are minimal or not available to the poorest people who mostly need such services is not easy. Thus, to respond appropriately to the health and support needs of children with disability, it is crucial to understand the social context and needs of their families and caregivers. Due to size of the study, findings cannot be generalised. Recommendations are made for further studies to explore the vital issues affecting parents of children with disabilities.

The Health Effect of the Number of Children on Chinese Elders: An Analysis Based on Hukou Category

Based on the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS 2018), from the perspective of urban-rural disparity, this paper investigates how fertility affects Chinese elders' health. We exploit the enactment of the one-child policy in 1979 to construct instrumental variables capturing the health effect of having only one child rather than multiple children. The empirical results show that the health condition of rural elders having only one child is worse than elders having multiple children, while the negative health effect of lower fertility becomes statistically insignificant for urban elderly parents. After considering the selection on both levels and gains, the results are still robust in marginal treatment effect (MTE) estimation. We investigate the potential mechanism in four ways, the results suggest that having only one child instead of multiple children depresses the upstream intergenerational transfer payments more for rural parents; ameliorates offspring's educational attainment more for urban parents; improves housing conditions more for urban elders; and decreases the visit frequency of children to both urban and rural parents. Our findings have important implications, in the context of increasing population aging, the urban-rural inequality caused by the hukou system has been magnified by the declining fertility rate. The Chinese government should pay more attention to rural elders with only one child, and more public-funded socioeconomic resources are needed for one-child parents in rural areas to improve their health. Moreover, the empirical results also imply that urbanization in China may be able to soften the health deterrent effect of lower fertility.

Be a Good Listener — Exploration of Education Transformation Strategies for Left-behind Children

The education of left-behind children is an important issue in the development of education at present. The emergence of left-behind children is caused by economic transformation and social development. Rural people have always be willing to change their living conditions and improve their living standards, so the parents of rural children have to leave their hometown and come to the city to find a better chance to make a living, but some rural parents are still engaged in the rural orchards, small workshops and other self-employed business. Whether migrant workers or start a small business, or stay in the countryside to operate small business, child's education is bound to be affected to some extent, as a result, the vast majority of the seventy percent of the rural parents wish their children to be looked after by old people, and the parents are not at home for a long time, so they can't take care of the children in learning and life. As a compulsory education worker, we should understand the characteristics of left-behind children and carry out an analysis and research on the education of left-behind children.

A Study on Path of Rural Teachers Helping the Inheritance of Vernacular Culture in China

Vernacular culture is the root of Chinese culture, in essence, so the inheritance of vernacular culture is crucial. Rural teachers are the "rural talents" in rural areas and have been playing various roles as cultural inheritors, protectors and leaders. The cultural responsibilities of rural teachers in the new era face many difficulties: the lack of vernacular cultural literacy of rural teachers, the "urban orientation" of rural education, the backward ideology of rural parents, and the lack of funds. Under the call of rural cultural revitalization, rural teachers should re-erect the banner of cultural inheritance and contribute to rural cultural revitalization by focusing on cultivating rural teachers' local cultural literacy, developing school-based cultural curriculum and compiling local teaching materials, collaborating with village schools and making use of the Internet to promote the inheritance and development of vernacular culture.

Parental Awareness of Rural Adolescents’ Dating Behaviors: Implications for Parent Education

Most parent education programming focuses on educating parents with young children. Programming has focused less on supporting parents during their adolescent children’s dating and sexual development. This study extends literature by exploring the extent to which rural parents are aware of their adolescent child’s dating behaviors, as perceived by adolescents. Findings reveal three main themes: parents are fully aware of their child’s dating behaviors, parents are aware they date but not aware of specific dating behaviors, and parents are not aware at all. Discussion includes practical implications for Extension and other parent education efforts in rural areas based on findings to support the development of healthy relationships during adolescence and into adulthood.