Oriana Skylar Mastro reviews Rush Doshi’s book The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).
To study the factors determining spectacle-wear compliance and reasons for non-wear among students in rural China.
Methods
This study was based on a spectacle intervention trial among 162 schools in rural China. Students with refractive errors were randomly assigned to either a free or voucher group to receive spectacles at baseline. Spectacle-wear compliance was assessed through an unannounced follow-up 7 months after spectacles were distributed. Students not wearing spectacles were also asked their reasons for non-wear. The collected data underwent descriptive, bivariate, and logistic regression analyses.
Results
A total of 1904 students received spectacles at baseline, 1826 (95.9%) of whom were present at the 7-month follow-up. Among those students, 41.7% wore their spectacles. There was no significant difference in compliance rates between the free and voucher groups. Predictors of wearing spectacles at follow-up included older age (Odds ratio = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.12–2.19), the severity of refractive error (3.68, 2.23–6.07), wearing spectacles before baseline (3.91, 2.53–6.04) and having friends who wore spectacles (1.87, 1.32–2.63). When students could see the blackboard from their seats (0.68, 0.51–0.89) and thought that wearing spectacles was bad looking (0.76, 0.57–1.00), they were reluctant to wear spectacles. The two main reasons for non-wear were the widespread perception that wearing spectacles would weaken eyesight (32.8%) and the inconvenience of wearing spectacles during activities (23.6%).
Conclusions
The main reason that accounts for the low compliance of spectacle wear was misconceptions around spectacle. School-based spectacle programs should consider enhancing the compliance rates to maximize the benefits of spectacle wear.
Background: Social-emotional development during the first three years of life is associated with later social-emotional development and cognitive development. In rural China, research has found large shares of children under age three are developmentally delayed, yet little is known about the paths of social-emotional development before age 3 or how developmental paths predict later social-emotional skills and cognitive skills.
Aims: To investigate the paths of child social-emotional development during ages 0–3 and examine how different paths predict social-emotional development and cognitive development at preschool age.
Methods: Three waves of longitudinal panel data from 1245 children in rural Western China was collected. Child social-emotional development was measured by the Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional. Child cognitive development was measured by the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and by the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition. Four paths of child social-emotional development were classified: “never” social-emotionally delayed; “persistently” social-emotionally delayed; “improving,” or “deteriorating.”
Results: 331 (27%) were never social-emotionally delayed; 373 children (30%) were persistently social-emotionally delayed; 149 children (12%) experienced improving social-emotional development; and 392 children (31%) experienced deteriorating social-emotional development. Children who were never social-emotionally delayed or who were on an “improving” path had higher social-emotional development at preschool age (p < .01). Children who were persistently social-emotionally delayed (p < .5) and on a deteriorating path (p < .01) had lower social-emotional development at preschool age. Children on the persistently delay path also were shown to have lower levels of cognitive development at preschool age (p < .01).
Conclusions: Different paths of child social-emotional development before age 3 are associated with different social-emotional and cognitive development at preschool age.
In his final essay as co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, Larry Diamond calls this moment the darkest for freedom in a half-century. Whether democracy regains its footing will depend on how democratic leaders and citizens respond to emboldened authoritarians and divisions within their own societies.
Nate Grubman shows how the repeated failures of Tunisia’s once-promising democratic transition created a crisis ripe for exploitation by a populist outsider
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,
January 11, 2022
School bullying is a widely recognized problem in developed countries, but remains under-investigated in developing countries, especially in remote rural areas. In this paper, we examine the prevalence, correlates, and consequences of bullying victimization and its relation to educational performance and creative attitudes. Using data from 10,528 students across 120 primary schools in rural China, we find an alarmingly high prevalence of bullying victimization and that several individual, family, and school characteristics are correlated with bullying victimization. Analyses indicate students who are bullied frequently score lower in Chinese, reading, and math tests and creative attitudes. Taken together, the results demonstrate a need for further research and policy interventions to reduce bullying in schools.
We're pleased to share CDDRL's 2021 Year in Review where you can learn about the important work the Center has accomplished over the last year. We're grateful to our community committed to our mission and to our generous supporters.
From Alliances, Nuclear Weapons and Escalation: Managing Deterrence in the 21st Century, edited by Stephan Frühling and Andrew O’Neil, published 2021 by ANU Press, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
At SCCEI, we aim to shed some light on what actually is happening in China, and exactly how these happenings might affect the rest of the world. 2021 was an active and busy year for our team. Take a look at our 2021 Annual Report to see all of the incredible work and accomplishments we have achieved together. Download your copy or read it online.
Is it possible to reduce crime without exacerbating adversarial relationships between police and citizens? Community policing is a celebrated reform with that aim, which is now adopted on six continents. However, the evidence base is limited, studying reform components in isolation in a limited set of countries, and remaining largely silent on citizen-police trust. We designed six field experiments with Global South police agencies to study locally designed models of community policing using coordinated measures of crime and the attitudes and behaviors of citizens and police. In a preregistered meta-analysis, we found that these interventions led to mixed implementation, largely failed to improve citizen-police relations, and did not reduce crime. Societies may need to implement structural changes first for incremental police reforms such as community policing to succeed.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,
November 30, 2021
Research continues to highlight the central relationship between caregivers’ mental health and their children’s development. This study examined the relation between primary caregivers’ mental health and school-aged children’s outcomes, including student mental health, resilience, and academic performance, in rural China. Using cross-sectional data from economically poor areas in the Gansu province, 2989 students (mean age = 11.51, 53.33% male, 46.67% female) and their primary caregivers (74.2% female) completed the 21-item, self-report Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. Students also completed the 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and a standardized math test. The results indicated a high prevalence of caregiver depression (31%), stress (39%), and anxiety (24%). Characteristics that were significantly correlated with caregiver mental health issues included being a grandparent, having a low socioeconomic status and low education level, and living in a household with at least one migrant worker. Apart from caregiver stress and student resilience, caregiver mental health issues were negatively correlated with all student outcomes, including student mental health, resilience, and academic performance. Although additional empirical research is needed to investigate the associations between caregiver mental health and student outcomes, our results suggest that rural communities could benefit greatly from programs focused on improving the mental health of caregivers and this, in turn, may have a positive impact on student outcomes.
