In addition to the most pressing issues of the day, scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies focus their research on many regions of the world, from Beijing to Brazil.
Research Spotlight
South Korea's Democratic Decay
South Korea is following global trends as it slides toward a “democratic depression.” Both the spirit of democracy and actual liberal-democratic standards are under attack.
The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century
Southeast Asian and Chinese perceptions of each other are examined using survey research and by asking whether China views the region as its “strategic backyard.”
Author Vincent Barletta explores rhythm as a primordial and physical binding force that establishes order and form in the ancient world, as the anatomy of lived experience in early modern Europe, and as a subject of aesthetic and ethical questioning in the twentieth century.
Cognitive and social-emotional development in the first three years of life is associated with later skills. However, little is known about the paths of developmental delays in both cognitive and social-emotional skills before age 3 or to what extent these paths predict later developmental outcomes. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between the different paths of developmental delays in both cognitive and social-emotional skills of children before age 3 and the levels of development of the children when they are preschool age. Using a longitudinal data collected at three time points from 1245 children and their caregivers in rural China, we identified four different paths of developmental delays in cognitive and social-emotional before age 3 and examined how these paths are associated with different levels of developmental outcomes at preschool age. We used a non-parametric standardization approach and an ordinary least squares model to perform our analyses. Findings show that rates of developmental delays in either cognitive or social-emotional domain or both domains are high at all different time points, ranging from 20% to 55% for cognitive delays and 42% to 61% for social-emotional delays. Over half of children experienced deteriorating levels of either cognitive or social-emotional development before age 3. A large share of children was found to be persistently delayed in either domain. Only a small share of children raised their levels of development in either domain before age 3. In addition, we identified certain socioeconomic status of the family that are associated with never or deteriorating path of child developmental delays. More importantly, we revealed that different paths of developmental delays before age 3 have predictive power on different levels of developmental outcomes at preschool age. Our results suggest that actions are needed at the earliest times to improve child development when children are still infants or toddlers.
This brief presents the findings of an experiment that measures how persuasive AI-generated propaganda is compared to foreign propaganda articles written by humans.
The online child safety ecosystem has already witnessed several key improvements in the months following the April publication of a landmark Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) report, writes Riana Pfefferkorn, formerly a research scholar at the SIO and now a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).
Background: The association between sleep patterns and young students’ mental health, which is crucial for their development, remains understudied in rural China. Therefore, the relationship between sleep patterns and mental health among primary and junior high school students in rural China was examined. Method: A total of 1592 primary and junior high school students from rural areas of Gansu Province were surveyed, and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) was utilized to assess mental health, alongside self-reported data on their daily sleep patterns. Results: Significant sleep inadequacies were identified: 28% of students received less than 8 h of sleep on weekdays, and 19% went to bed later than recommended. On weekends, 38% of students had delayed bedtimes, though only 7.2% received less than 8 h of sleep. Notably, a “U-shaped” relationship was uncovered between sleep duration and mental health for students on weekends, with optimal mental health correlated with receiving 10–11 h of sleep, while both shorter and longer sleep durations on weekends worsened outcomes. This pattern is absent on weekdays. Additionally, adequate sleep and an earlier bedtime was linked to a 6–8% decrease in mental health risks. Conclusions: These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers seeking to enhance student mental well-being in rural settings, emphasizing the importance of implementing measures that promote balanced sleep habits among young students.
Policymakers in China have attempted to improve the quality of rural education by investing in teacher salaries through initiatives like the Rural Teachers Support Plan (RTSP). This study estimates the effects of teacher salary increase on students' educational outcomes in rural China by utilizing the exogenous variations of rural teacher salaries induced by the RTSP. It employs an intensity-based difference-in-differences strategy and panel data from 2010 to 2018 with 3,351 rural children. The findings reveal that an increase in teacher salaries had a significant positive impact on students' examination results. Moreover, the results of mechanism analysis indicate that salary increases could have both quality and quantity effects on students' outcomes by increasing the proportion of highly educated teachers and reducing the student–teacher ratio. Our findings contribute to the discussion on the importance of teacher salary incentives in education production functions and provide insights for other countries undertaking rural education reforms.
Rural girls in China stay in school longer than boys and outperform them in many subjects. This gender gap suggests analogous disparities in early childhood development, a key factor in later educational outcomes. This study examines gender disparities in social-emotional development among 1,301 children aged 18–30 months in rural China. Results indicate that male children trail their female counterparts by 0.18 SD on average on the scale of standardized ASQ:SE score. A large share of the difference is driven by the bottom 10 % of children, where the magnitude of the gender gap (0.34 SD) is 1.9 times larger than at the median (0.19 SD). Demographic characteristics are uncorrelated with the gender gap in heterogeneity analysis, suggesting that the mechanisms underlying observed gender disparities are similar across rural Chinese households.
The new law seeks to regulate critical infrastructure operators responsible for “continuous delivery of essential services” and "maintaining important societal and economic activities."
Purpose China’s rapid urbanization has been associated with increased mental health challenges, especially in rural-to-urban migrant children. This study evaluates the effects of mindfulness and life-skills (LS) training on emotional regulation and anxiety symptoms from a randomized controlled trial aimed at improving the mental health of Chinese migrant children.
Methods Two intervention arms—mindfulness training (MT) and MT plus LS mentorship (MT + LS)—were compared to a waitlist control group of 368 migrant children aged 9–17 years. Volunteers were trained to deliver interventions to 285 migrant children in small groups of 15 for eight weeks weekly. Social integration varied: migrant children mixed with local children at public schools were considered highly integrated, those in migrant-only classrooms at public schools had intermediate levels of integration, and children in private migrant schools had low integration. Emotion regulation and anxiety symptoms were assessed preintervention, postintervention, and three months postintervention.
Results Postintervention and compared to the control group, children with high social integration in the MT arm showed increased cognitive reappraisal ability (p < .05) but higher physical anxiety (p < .01). Children with high social integration in the MT + LS arm had lower anxiety symptoms of harm avoidance (p < .01) and physical anxiety (p < .05). Children with low social integration in the MT + LS arm showed lower cognitive reappraisal (p < .01) and poorer overall emotion regulation abilities (p < .01). Three months later, children with intermediate integration in the MT + LS arm had lower separation anxiety (p < .05) and harm avoidance anxiety (p < .05). No other groups showed significant improvements in emotion regulation or reducing in anxiety symptoms three months postintervention.
Discussion Mindfulness and LS training may benefit Chinese migrant children who have higher levels of social integration but increase anxiety in those with lower social integration. Future research should consider the sociocultural context in which a treatment is implemented.
