The influence of preschool rural migrant composition on rural migrant children's early development in China

A multilevel modeling approach was employed to investigate the relationship between preschool rural migrant composition and the pre-academic and behavioral outcomes of young rural migrant children with different durations of residence in urban China. This study represents a unique contribution because (1) few studies have focused on young Chinese rural migrant children and examined the influence of preschool rural migrant composition on their academic skills and behaviors, (2) few researchers in China have used a continuous (i.e., percentage of rural migrants in school) as opposed to a binary (i.e., mixed school versus rural migrant school) indicator for school rural migrant composition, and (3) few investigations have distinguished groups of rural migrant children by the duration of urban residence (i.e., short-duration (SD) rural migrant children versus long-duration (LD) rural migrant children). Based on data of 1213 Chinese children (2.7-6.17 years of age) and their parents and teachers from 81 urban preschools in Beijing, we found that SD rural migrants (≦2.5 years) were rated significantly lower in oral language and numeracy skills and that LD rural migrants (>2.5 years) were rated as having significantly more behavioral problems than their urban counterparts after controlling for the children's gender, age, family socioeconomic status (SES) and preschool SES. Cross-level interactions indicated that SD rural migrant children in preschools with proportionally more rural migrant peers fared better in terms of oral language skills, and LD rural migrant children had fewer behavioral problems when there were more rural migrant peers in their preschools, whereas urban children performed worse in terms of oral language skills and displayed more behavioral problems in preschools with a high rural migrant composition. These findings provide insights into improving the early development and adaptations of rural migrant children.