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Academic performance for

left-be-hind children in rural areas and

mi-grant children in urban areas

in

China

Systematic Literature Review from 2010-2020

Jing An

One year master thesis 15 credits Supervisor:

Interventions in Childhood Madeleine Sjöman Examinator:

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SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION (HLK) Jönköping University

Master Thesis 15 credits Interventions in Childhood Spring Semester 2020

ABSTRACT

Author: Jing An

Academic performance for left-behind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas in China

A Systematic Literature Review from 2010-2020

Pages: 28

Due to the increasing number of rural-to-urban migration of middle-aged labors, some of the mi-grants’ children were left behind in the rural areas with one parent, grandparents, siblings or other relatives, however, some others migrated to the urban areas with one or both parents. To the left-behind children and migrant children in school age, there are different barriers and facilitators in rural and urban areas for their academic performance. This study is a systematic review with the aim of describing the academic performance in China for left-behind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas between the ages of six to eighteen. This systematic review was conducted by using four databases with an inclusion and exclusion criteria designed in advance. Articles on left-behind and migrant children were searched separately. 97 articles on left-behind children and 184 on migrant children were identified at first. 6 articles on left-behind children and 19 on migrant children were identified after abstract and title screening. Eventually, 8 articles in total were included into this study after the full text screening process. The results showed that, there are a number of barriers for academic performance of left-behind children, for example, the poor quality of school and the absence of mother. And for migrant children, there are more facili-tators for academic performance comparing to left-behind children, for instance, they are more likely to have adequate support from parents. The limitations, further researches and practical im-plementations were also discussed in this study.

Keywords: Left-behind children, migrant children, academic performance, systematic review

Postal address Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation (HLK) Box 1026 551 11 JÖNKÖPING Street address Gjuterigatan 5 Telephone 036–101000 Fax 036162585

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摘要

作者: 安静 影响六岁到十八岁之间的中国农村留守儿童和城市随迁儿童的学业表现的阻碍因素和促进因素 2010-2020 系统综述 页数:28 随着从农村迁入城市的中年农民工的数量不断增长,一些农民工的子女成为了留守儿童, 在农村地 区由父母中的一人,祖父母,兄弟姐妹或其他亲属抚养,而另一些农民工的子女跟随农民工父母或其 中一人迁入城市。对于处于学龄的留守儿童和随迁儿童来说,他们的学业表现在农村和城市都各有阻 碍因素和促进因素。本篇系统综述的目的是描述影响在六岁到十八岁之间的中国农村留守儿童和城市 随迁儿童的学业表现的阻碍因素和促进因素。本片系统综述在四个不同的数据库使用预先制定好的筛 选标准来进行。关于留守儿童和随迁儿童的文章分开进行搜索。初次搜索到 97 篇关于留守儿童和 184 篇关于随迁儿童的文章。在标题简介筛选后保留了 6 篇关于留守儿童和 19 篇关于随迁儿童的文章。 最终,在全文阅读筛选后采用了其中 8 篇文章。结果表明,留守儿童的学业表现受到很多阻碍因素影 响,例如的低质量学校,母亲的缺席。对于随迁儿童,比起留守儿童在学业表现上有更多的促进因 素,比如,他们更有可能获得来自父母亲的足够的支持。本文另外讨论了本片系统综述的不足之处, 未来值得研究的方向和实际应用。 关键词: 留守儿童, 随迁儿童, 学业表现, 系统综述 通信地址 Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation (HLK) Box 1026 551 11 JÖNKÖPING 街道地址 Gjuterigatan 5 电话号码 036–101000 传真 036162585

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Table of Content

1 Introduction ... 1

2 Background ... 2

2.1 Hukou system ... 2

2.2 Chinese educational system ... 2

2.3 Chinese rural-to-urban migration ... 2

2.3.1 Left-behind children and migrant children ... 3

2.3.2 Educational situation of migrant children ... 3

2.3.3 Educational situation of left-behind children ... 5

2.4 Academic performance... 5

2.5 Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological system model ... 7

3 Aim and research question ... 9

4 Method ...10

4.1 Systematic review ...10

4.2 Searching strategy ...10

4.3 Inclusion and exclusion criteria ...11

4.4 Selection process ...12

4.4.1 Title and abstract screening ...12

4.4.2 Full text screening ...13

4.5 Data extraction ...13

4.6 Quality assessment ...13

4.7 Data analysis ...14

5 Results ...15

5.1 Overview of the articles ...15

5.1.1 Basic information of the articles ...15

5.1.2 Participants ...15

5.1.3 Design of the articles ...15

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5.2 Barriers and facilitators for left-behind children’s academic performance ...16

5.2.1 Facilitators for left-behind children’s academic performance ...16

5.2.2 Barriers for left-behind children’s academic performance ...19

5.3 Barriers and facilitators for migrant children’s academic performance ...20

5.3.1 Facilitators for migrant children’s academic performance ...20

5.3.2 Barriers for migrant children’s academic performance ...22

6 Discussion ...23

6.1 Summary of the results ...23

6.2 Reflections of the results ...23

6.3 Further research and practical implementation ...25

6.4 Limitation of this study ...26

6.5 Ethical considerations ...27

7 Conclusion ...27

Reference ...29

Appendix A Extraction protocol for chosen articles ...33

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1 Introduction

The Chinese Ministry of Education calculated the number of different kinds of children between six and sixteen who were in the age of compulsory education in 2012. There were two types of children that were worth noting, left-behind children and migrant children. At least one of the parents of those children migrated from rural areas to urban areas for better jobs. Migrant chil-dren are the ones followed their migrant parents to the urban area, and left-behind chilchil-dren are the ones stayed in the rural areas (Ding & Bao, 2014).

According to the released data, left-behind children at compulsory education age reached more than 22 million. Besides, there were 12.6 million compulsory-education-aged migrant chil-dren in the urban area (Chinese Ministry of Education, 2012).

The poor condition of left-behind and migrant children has raised more and more atten-tion. Among all of the issues, their educational outcome is one of the major concerns. Compara-tive research showed that the academic performance of migrant children from rural areas re-mained lower than their local peers (Liu & Yu, 2017). For left-behind children, the low quality of education and the lack of education resource limited their educational outcome and increased their drop-out rate (Lu, 2012). Therefore, the barriers and facilitators that are affecting these chil-dren's academic performance should be studied in depth.

The previous systematic reviews on left-behind and migrant children mainly focused on their mental health, such as depression and anxiety, physical health, resilience such as safety and psychological adaptation, social adaption issues, victimization, and behavioral problems such as alcohol and cigarette use disorder. Although some of those systematic reviews mentioned those children's academic performance, none of them analyzed academic performance as the primary outcome of their studies.

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2 Background

2.1 Hukou system

Hukou, which is also known as the registration permit in the Chinese household registration sys-tem, divided Chinese households by where they were born (Lu, 2012). It is used to help the gov-ernment to distribute all kinds of resources, such as education, employment, and health (Wei & Hou, 2010). It also served as the standard and rule for Chinese citizens to get their benefits and to use their rights (Wei & Hou, 2010).

There are mainly two categories in the household registration system, the agricultural one for rural citizens, and the non-agricultural for people living in the urban area (Guo & Zhao, 2019). Migration from the rural areas to the urban area was almost forbidden until the relaxation of the hukou system by the government in the year of 1985 (Hu & West, 2015). The relaxation of the hukou system was an inevitable result of the disparity in economic development between ru-ral and urban areas (Hu & West, 2015). This disparity in economic growth is also reflected in the education system.

2.2 Chinese educational system

In China, the first 12 years of education is called primary education, which includes six years in primary school, three years in junior high school, and another three years in senior high school. Usually, children start going to primary school by the age of six and graduate from senior high school at eighteen years of age. The first nine years are compulsory primary education. It is pro-vided in the Compulsory Education Law of the PRC that children's parents should work with the gov-ernment for their children to achieve the first nine years of compulsory primary education (Hu & West, 2015). The tuition fee of the nine-year compulsory primary education is covered by the lo-cal government since 2006 (Hu & West, 2015).

2.3 Chinese rural-to-urban migration

With the accelerating process of economic globalization and the reform of the economy in China, a growing number of laborers from rural China quitted agricultural work and migrated to

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an urban area (Ding & Bao, 2014). According to the National Health and Family Planning Com-mission of PRC published in 2015, more than sixteen percent of the national population, which exceeds 245 million people did rural-to-urban migration in China. Most of these migrants are in their middle age who have got married and had children (Lu, 2012). Therefore, as rural-to-urban migrants' children, some of them became left-behind children, and the others became migrant children (Shen, 2017).

2.3.1 Left-behind children and migrant children

Left-behind children are the children younger than eighteen years old whose one or both parents migrated from rural areas to urban areas in China (Ding & Bao, 2014). These children were left in the rural area with one parent, their grandparents, other siblings, relatives, or the worst situation, on their own. Migrant children refer to the group of children whose one or both parents mi-grated from the rural area to urban area in China for better jobs and were taken to the urban area during their migration.

The pie chart below is an overview of proportions of rural-to-urban migrant children and left-behind children among all children in 2015 (UNICEF, 2018). Other migrant or left-behind children in the pie chart refers to children migrating inside urban or rural areas and left-behind children in urban areas, who are not going to be analyzed in this study.

Pie chart Proportion of left-behind and migrant children in 2015

2.3.2 Educational situation of migrant children

Other children 62% (168 million) Other migrant or left-behind children 15% (41.65 million) Rural-to-urban migrant children 8% (20.87 million) Left-behind children in rural area 15% (40.51 million) 23%

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For the migrant population in China, the household registration system can be a massive obstacle in many ways, especially on their children's education (Ding & Bao, 2014).

Due to the hukou system, the government budget for the tuition fee of compulsory edu-cation was calculated by the number of school-aged children who registered locally (Wei & Hou, 2010). As a result, when rural children moved to the urban area with their parents, their propor-tion of educapropor-tional fund can't move to the urban area with them, which caused a huge burden and uncertainty on a budget of education to urban governments and public mainstream schools (Wei & Hou, 2010). As a result, some of the migrant parents have to leave their children behind in the rural area where they can go to the local school. On the other hand, some others choose to take their children to the urban area but have to pay a significant amount of extra fees for their children's education in urban public schools or private schools (Wei & Hou, 2010).

Moreover, obstacles build up as migrant children achieving higher levels of education. To be specific, the research was done by Wei Jianwen, and Hou Jiawei in 2010 on the education situation of migrant chil-dren in Beijing can be taken as an example. Firstly, during the primary school period, 94.4 percent of chilchil-dren were able to receive primary school education, which shows a nice progression of the school at-tendance regulations. However, when it comes to the quality of implementing, 48.4 percent of those children could not enter public primary school. Instead, they went to transient primary schools (primary school for temporary resident children) and boarding schools (schools providing accommodation for students). The condition of educational resources and quality cannot be proved there. Besides, 59.5 percent of them were overage students. Secondly, when it came to junior high school, the situation went worse. Approximately eighty percent of migrant children went back to their rural hometown for school, and some dropped out of school at that time. Even-tually, senior high school as the part beyond compulsory education, few resources could be distrib-uted to migrant children. Meanwhile, the college entrance examination follows the graduation from senior high school, in which students can only take the one in their registered hometown of the household. This led to another big wave of children returning to the rural area.

This inequality situation in education for migrant children raised attention from the gov-ernment, and several policies were made for migrant children to get equal rights to receive primary

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education. For instance, the regulation published in 2006 addressed that public schools should treat all students with the same standard and cannot separate migrant children in different classes from local students. Besides, no extra fee and entrance examinations should be taken to the migrant children (Hu & West, 2015).

2.3.3 Educational situation of left-behind children

Unlike the relatively higher quality education in urban areas, education in rural areas is usually considered to be low in quality with high expenses. The increased expenses were caused by insuf-ficient financial support from the government (Lu, 2012). Besides, the strong sense of patriarchal leads to the reduction of educational opportunities for girls in rural areas (Lu, 2012). Moreover, as left-behind children, there is a long-lasting lack of accompanying and home education from one or both parents (Shen, 2017). Since some of the left-behind children had both parents mi-grated, they were sent to boarding schools where they can both receive education, accommoda-tion, and daily care. However, the condition in rural boarding schools was also not good enough (Meng & Yamauchi, 2017).

But there are still advantages as left-behind children comparing to migrant children’s edu-cational issues. Firstly, their access to education is guaranteed by the Hukou system. Secondly, compared with children without parents migrated to rural areas, left-behind children can get more money for their daily life and education from their migrant parents, which increased their opportunities to receive better education (Lu,2012). Meanwhile, in order to decrease the disparity in the quality of primary education between rural and urban areas, more government budget was put into the reform of the overall education system in the rural areas (Shen, 2017). Because of the lack of support from parents, many left-behind children became more mature and independent than their peers (Ye & Pan, 2011).

2.4 Academic performance

Academic achievement is closely connected with the future plans to Chinese students, and aca-demic performance in each level of education is the criterion on whether they are successful stu-dents (Zhao, Li, Ma & Zhang, 2019). In China, the educational system was exam-oriented, which emphasized the chance of entering college. Therefore, academic performance mainly represents

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the scores student got in homework, quizzes and exams in mandatory subjects, such as mathe-matics, Chinese language and English language. Other subjects like music and art are not consid-ered as important as the mandatory subjects. However, with the curriculum reform for basic edu-cation in China, it is transforming to quality-oriented eduedu-cation which pays more attention to the comprehensive development of morality, intelligence, sports, art and labor, as well as students’ experience in school context, ability and interest of learning (Tan, 2016).

Children's academic performance is the main focus of this study, which can be influenced by a variety of factors. Some previous studies showed that the factors playing significant roles in the quality of students' performance at school are mainly about the characteristics of the student, the family, school, and the student's peers (Farooq, Chaudhry, Shafiq & Berhanu, 2011).

Student's characteristics have been found to affect academic performance negatively. For example, the ability of self-regulation and planning for long-term goal in studying is associated with higher achievement in academic outcome (Vermunt, 2005). Compared to their peers, chil-dren get relatively lower grades who are suffering from medical problems and impairments, lower levels of intelligence, emotional difficulties, and neurobehavior disorders (Karande & Kulkarni, 2005). There are also previous studies showing that the child's age and gender are associated with their academic performance in different ways (Habibullah & Ashraf, 2013).

The characteristics of the child's family are another factor that influences the child's aca-demic performance (Karande & Kulkarni, 2005). Adequate support of parents, such as tutoring homework and communicating about school life, is beneficial for children’s performance at school (Zhao & Hong, 2012). Although most Chinese parents have high expectations for their children's academic performance, however, families from a different level of social-economic sta-tus (SES) will bring their children various opportunities and resources to education (Li & Qiu, 2018). Children from high SES level families can get education and services in higher quality (Li & Qiu, 2018). However, children from low SES level families who are not gaining enough nutri-tion in daily life are more likely to perform worse than their peers (Karande & Kulkarni, 2005). But on the other hand, there is also evidence showing that children from low SES families are

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doing better in self-studying, which will also promote their academic performance (Li & Qiu, 2018; Vermunt, 2005).

The environment is another cause of different learning outcome (Karande & Kulkarni, 2005). It can play a huge impact on children’s self-expectation and academic performance (Li & Qiu, 2018). School as the environment that children spend their most time during the day, a good atmosphere in the school is beneficial to students' engagement and academic performance (Wang & Holcombe, 2010). The quality of school partly determined the opportunity of higher level of academic achievement (Li & Qiu, 2018).

There are many previous researches focused on academic performance of left-behind children and migrant children. When left-behind children were given after school assignments, there is high possibility that they cannot finish them due to the lack of self-study ability and fam-ily guardianship (Shen, 2017). It is also worth noting that, even both urban public schools and the urban government made an effort for migrant children to achieve the equal right of education, some research showed that the academic performance of migrant children from rural areas re-mained lower than their local peers (Liu & Yu, 2017).

2.5 Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological system model

In this study, bio-ecological model will be used to describe the barriers and facilitators for children’s academic performance to get an overview of the factors influencing their academic performance. In addition, it can also be useful to compare both similarities and differences be-tween the two groups of children.

The environmental factors that promote positive progress can be regarded as facilitators, and the ones that are limiting the development of the child can be seen as barriers (WHO, 2007). The Bio-ecological Model is a framework that considering the impact of environmental factors in human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). As the driving force of development, proximal processes that represent the interaction between the human being and the immediate surroundings, the different outcomes can be examined regarding the exposure to during the

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pro-cesses (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000). The developmental outcome is the result under multi-ple influences of the personal characteristics, the environmental context of in daily life, and the length of interruption time during the exposure to processes (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000).

When analyzing the barriers and facilitators for those child’s academic performance, this model can be applied as a tool to structure them within the systems. In this model, the factors are classified into five systems. The microsystem represents the everyday relationships within imme-diate surroundings (Garbarino & Ganzel, 2000). Based on some previous studies, for example, a barrier to left-behind children in the rural areas, their parents are absent in their life and they are not getting as much guardianship on their school work as those children who migrated with their parents to the urban areas. For migrant children, the schools in urban areas with higher quality can a facilitator to them (Shen, 2017). Mesosystem as the relationships between microsystems, is another important aspect in this study (Garbarino & Ganzel, 2000). The lack of communication on their academic performance between teachers and the migrant parents of the left-behind dren is a barrier in mesosystem. Meanwhile, those parents usually are not familiar with their chil-dren’s friends and classmates (Sun et al., 2015). Exosystem is the factors influencing microsys-tems (Garbarino & Ganzel, 2000). For instance, to most of the migrant and left-behind children, their migrant parents are doing hard physical work in urban areas, which is stressful and time-consuming, this can be a barrier that reduce their support and supervision to academic perfor-mance of their children (Ding & Bo, 2014). Macrosystem is the overall ideology patterns within the culture. The Hukou system is an example of Macrosystem as a barrier to migrant children while getting access to education in urban areas (Wei & Hou, 2010). The chronosystem as the factors that are changing over time (Garbarino & Ganzel, 2000). To left-behind children, the length of being away from their parents, and the higher demand of resources and support while both left-behind and migrant children grow older are barriers potentially influncing their aca-demic performance in this system.

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3 Aim and research question

This study aims to describe the academic performance in China for left-behind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas between the ages of six to eighteen.

1. What are the barriers and facilitators for academic performance for left-behind children in ru-ral areas?

2. What are the barriers and facilitators for academic performance for migrant children in the urban areas?

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4 Method

4.1 Systematic review

A systematic literature review was done based on the aim of this study. A scoping review was performed before this systematic review to get an idea of the knowledge gaps. The articles were collected from four databases, and the whole process was documented. The title and abstract screening process were performed following an inclusion and exclusion criteria, which was set up during the scoping process. A quality assessment was conducted while doing full-text screening to decide if the articles will be included in further analysis. Then, the useful information from the articles was extracted and analyzed to get an overview of the previous studies on this subject (Jes-son, Mathe(Jes-son, & Lacey, 2011).

4.2 Searching strategy

The searching strategy aims to find articles discussing barriers and facilitators to academic performance for left-behind children or migrant children in China. Articles used in this study were collected from four databases, including ERIC, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE. In order to make sure the whole study transparent, only articles written in English were chosen for this study, meaning Chinese databases was excluded. The articles about left-behind children and migrant children were searched separately. Articles were limited to the peer-reviewed article from all databases to find articles with relatively good quality.

After some preliminary searches, the search terms used in the final search were devel-oped. The search terms used for left-behind children included “China OR Chinese” AND “child OR adolescent OR teenager OR youth” AND “school OR education OR academic OR learning” AND “performance OR outcome OR achievement” AND “left-behind” NOT “no child left be-hind For Migrant children,” search terms included “China OR Chinese” AND “child OR adoles-cent OR teenager OR youth” AND “school OR education OR academic OR learning” AND “performance OR outcome OR achievement” AND “migrant OR immigrant OR emigrant

Articles published between 2010 and 2020 were selected. In 2003, the Chinese Council promulgated the "Opinions on Further Doing a Good Job in Compulsory Education for the

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Children of Migrant Workers in Cities", which clarified the policy orientation of encouraging mainstream school to accept migrant children. Furthermore, the "Compulsory Education Law" that was revised and promulgated in 2006, was clarified in the form of law that migrant children should have access to public mainstream school. In addition, due to the changes of situation and time needed in implementation of new regulations to left-behind and migrant children, articles in the recent ten years were included in this study.

Extra filters were used in PsycINFO and MEDLINE when searching for articles on mi-grant children. For instance, in PsycINFO, filters including “NOT (cross-cultural differences AND Asian Americans AND middle-aged AND Asian continental ancestry group AND united states AND Canada AND racial and ethnic differences)” were used to exclude irrelevant results. Subjects including “academic achievement OR education OR educational programs OR school environment OR schools OR academic achievement motivation OR ecological factors OR edu-cational aspirations OR eduedu-cational status OR elementary school students” were included in the results. For MEDLINE, the results were narrowed by subject age to all children from 0 to 18 years and subject geographic to China.

4.3 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used during the selection process. It was made according to the aim of this study. An overview of the inclusion- and exclusion criteria can be found in Table 1.

Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Exclusion

Target group

Children and adolescent at school age (be-tween six to eighteen)

Children younger than six or older than eighteen

Their father and/or mother migrated from rural to urban for job in China

Rural to rural migration Urban to urban migration Migration to other countries Publication

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Peer-reviewed research articles Not peer-reviewed articles Published from 2010 to 2020 Published before 2010

Published in English Published in other languages

A qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method research

Report, book, systematic review, literature re-view, post-hoc design and pilot study The subject of the articles

Focused on those children’s academic perfor-mance at school

The outcome of the article is mainly on an-other subject although it mentioned aca-demic performance, studies in home set-tings, after school activities

4.4 Selection process

Articles on left-behind children and migrant children were searched separately in the same data-bases. The whole process of selection and the number of hits in different procedures were shown in the flow chart.

4.4.1 Title and abstract screening

There were 97 results for the left-behind children, including 47 duplicates. For migrant children, there were 184 articles with 55 duplicates. While comparing the 50 articles on left-behind children and the 129 articles on migrant children before the title and abstract screening process, 33 dupli-cates were found and excluded. These duplidupli-cates appeared because the articles about left-behind children sometimes include the term “migrant parents” in the title. A few articles make compari-sons between left-behind children and migrant children, which made these articles showing in both searches.

During the abstract and title screening process, 44 articles on left-behind children and 77 articles on migrant children were excluded. Although the search words including China or Chinese were used, it was noticed that there were still many articles on international migration, urban to urban migration, and migration to Hong Kong. Some articles from MEDLINE focused on children younger or elder than school age. Many articles focused on an irrelevant outcome, such as the

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physical and mental health of migrant and left-behind children, which were not related to the re-search questions in this study. Systematic reviews and pilot studies were also found in this pro-cess. One article was excluded due to no access to get the full text and was therefore excluded.

4.4.2 Full text screening

After the abstract and title screening, 6 articles on left-behind children and 19 articles on migrant children went through full text screening. Among them, 17 articles were excluded. Firstly, some articles mentioned very little information on children's academic performance. Instead, they mainly aimed at children's physical and psychological health. Secondly, there was one article using two samples, the first one measuring the health outcome and the other one measuring academic performance. The age range of the first sample group was from zero to eighteen, and the aca-demic group was from six to eighteen. But the two samples were compared and analyzed to-gether in the result section. Therefore, the result of that article was not precise enough for the population in this study. Thus, these articles were excluded from this procedure. In the end, 3 ar-ticles on left-behind children and 5 arar-ticles on migrant children were chosen to be used in this study.

4.5 Data extraction

Regarding the aim and research questions for this study, useful information was extracted from the eight chosen articles. The data extracted included identification of articles, such as title, au-thor, year of publication, name of the journal, as well as the aim and research questions of the studies. Information about the participants was also extracted, including age group, type school they were attending, gender, number of participants, living location, and parents' migration status. Besides, information on the design of the studies was recorded in the protocol. Finally, the barri-ers and facilitators for academic performance for left-behind and migrant children were extracted from the articles separately, along with practical implications and limitations of the studies. The whole extraction protocol can be found in the Appendix A.

4.6 Quality assessment

The quality assessment in this study was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) check-list. Since the articles chosen for this study were all quantitative cross-sectional studies, as a

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checklist, especially for analytical cross-sectional studies, the JBI checklist was appropriate to be used for quality assessment in this study (Joanna Briggs Institute, 2017). There are eight questions in the JBI critical appraisal checklist. All the questions can be answered with yes, no, unclear, or not applicable. Articles met one to three standards of yes in the checklists were rated low in qual-ity, the ones met four to six were rated as moderate quality and seven to eight as high quality. The full checklist can be found in the Appendix B. All the articles were given an article number, which will be used instead of referencing in further analysis. The article number and quality of the articles is shown in table 2.

4.7 Data analysis

The data extracted from the articles were analyzed after the procedures above. Initially, some characteristics of the studies were presented, such as the year of publication, author, aim and re-search questions. Information of the participants in the studies such as age group, gender, type of school they attended, and the migration situation of their parents were compared. Design of the studies, measurements of academic performance and test methods applied in the studies were also analyzed and summarized in tables, in order to have an overview of the studies.

Then, to answer the two research questions, the results extracted from the articles were analyzed separately. For the first research question, results from the relevant articles were catego-rized into barriers and facilitators for academic performance for left-behind children. For the sec-ond research question, information about migrant children was organized in the same way.

The environmental factors that show positive influence on the academic performance of left-behind or migrant children would be categorized as facilitators. Meanwhile, the factors that playing negative influences on those children’s academic performance would be sorted as barri-ers. Furthermore, in order to make the result precise, only factors showing moderate or high level of significance were extracted and included in the result.

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5 Results

The information collected in this study is presented in this section, in order to give answers to the aim and research questions which is to describe the barriers and facilitators for academic perfor-mance for left-behind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas.

5.1 Overview of the articles

5.1.1 Basic information of the articles

After the process of selection, eight articles were chosen to include in the data analysis. Six arti-cles (artiarti-cles 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8) were written only by Chinese authors, and two artiarti-cles (article 4 and 6) have authors from other countries involved. All of the articles were published between 2010 and 2020. Among the eight articles, three articles (articles 1, 2, and 3) are about left-behind children in rural areas and five (articles 4 to 8) about migrant children in urban areas. Seven out of the eight articles were assessed as moderate quality according to Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklist, which means they met four to six standards of yes in the checklists. Only one article met more than six standard and was rated as high quality. The main information about the aim and research questions relating to this study along with more details was summarized in Tables 2.

5.1.2 Participants

As shown in table 3, The numbers of participants were all very large in the researches. The partic-ipants were mainly in primary school and junior high school age, only two studies (article 1 and 8) included senior high school participants. The studies were done on participants living in fourteen provinces in China. To be specific, left-behind children recruited for the studies were living in west and south China. The other five studies conducted research on migrant children in two of the biggest developed migrant-receiving cities, Beijing and Shanghai. For left-behind children, they were mainly in public school, whereas, most of the migrant children were from private schools. More details about the participants can be found in Table 3.

5.1.3 Design of the articles

Only quantitative designed studies were found in this review and all the studies were cross-sec-tional. The recruitment strategy differs between articles, including randomized, non-randomized, convenience, systematic and stratified strategy. Most of the articles used questionnaires to collect data, and half of the questionnaires were answered by children themselves (article 2,4, 7 and 8). Most of the articles applied various kinds of statistical analysis in order to prove the result valid.

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The specific recruit strategies, instrument for data collection and statistical analysis methods were shown in Table 4.

5.1.4 Academic performance

Among the eight articles, six articles measured academic performance by the grade, score or level of tests (article 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8). There are also two articles measured academic performance by taking those children’s feeling about school into consideration, such as their engagement and sense of belonging (article 1 and 3). Article 2 and 7 investigated children’s academic performance by their attitude toward studying, for instance, the effort they willing to make, the level of academic achieve-ment they expected to gain. Among the eight articles, seven of them examined the barriers for children’s academic performance, and seven analyzed the facilitators. A summary of barriers and facilitators can be found in Table 5.

5.2 Barriers and facilitators for left-behind children’s academic perfor-mance

Among the chosen articles, article one to three analyzed both barriers and facilitators on left-be-hind children’s academic performance related aspects, such as school engagement, school belong-ing, school performance, and academic achievement.

5.2.1 Facilitators for left-behind children’s academic performance

As one of the key components in development, the person and the characteristics can influence the tendency of proximal processes. From the perspective of personal characteristics, the ability to control their internal locus can be seen as an active resource of ability (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). It can help left-behind children to be more engaged at school (Article 1).

Family is one of most important environments which can influence the development of children’s competence and characteristics (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). From the perspec-tive of family in microsystem, enough family cohesion can contribute to left-behind children’s en-gagement at school (Article 1). Apart from that, there is a positive effect from eating snacks on left-behind children’s academic performance, because having extra money for snacks is a sign that children’s family have provided enough pocket money and nutrition. (Article 3).

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Table 2. Overview of the selected articles

* The quality of articles is based on Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklist

Article num-ber Author Year of publication Population Quality of the arti-cle*

Key points in aim and research questions

1 Wen & Lin 2012 Left-behind

chil-dren

moderate Comparison of educational outcomes between left-behind children and children from nonmigrant families.

2 Zhang & Yang 2019 Left-behind

chil-dren

moderate Examination of the association between food insecurity and school performance among Chinese rural left-behind children.

3 Wang & Mao 2018 Left-behind

chil-dren

moderate The effect of boarding on campus on the sense of school belonging and their academic achievement to left-behind children.

4 Wu, Palinkas & He 2010 Migrant children moderate Examination of how social resources from the family, school, peer group and commu-nity influence the academic achievement of migrant children.

5 Ma, Hou, Huang,

Wang, Li, Zhou & Du

2018 Migrant children moderate Investigation of relationships between migrant children's academic achievement with their migrant status, family SES, parental involvement, school settings, and school

sat-isfaction.

6 Lu, Huang & Rios 2017 Migrant children moderate The effects of mindfulness on the academic performance of elementary-school migrant children.

7 Wu, Tsang & Ming 2014 Migrant children High Examination of how resilience, family social support and community social capital work influence the educational outcomes, academic effort, educational aspiration and

plan to drop out of school of migrant children.

8 Fang 2020 Migrant children moderate Investigation of whether school satisfaction and family closeness mediate the relations between acculturation patterns and academic achievement.

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Table 3 Participants

Article number Number of partici-pants

Age group Living location Type of school

1 625 8 to 18 Hunan Province Public mainstream school

2 2128 Mean age=13.21

Grade 5 to 9

Hunan Province Boarding school

3 6638 Average age=12.66 ± 2.25 years

Grade 4, 5, 7, 8

11 provinces in western China

Public mainstream school and migrant chil-dren’s school

4 772 Mean=12.87

Grade 4 to 9

Shanghai Public mainstream school and private mi-grant school

5 687 Grade 1 to 9

Age not clearly mentioned

Beijing Private migrant school

6 219 Grade 5

Age not clearly mentioned

Beijing Private migrant school

7 806 Grade 7 to 9

Age not clearly mentioned

Beijing Private migrant school

8 2412 10 to 18

Age not clearly mentioned

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Table 4. Design of the studies

Article number

Basic design Recruitment strategy Instrument for data collection

Statistical Analysis

1 Cross-sectional Snowball sampling and random

ap-proach

Questionnaire Chi-square test, factor principal component analysis, Ordinal logit regression analysis and Ordinary linear

square regression analysis

2 Cross-sectional Random selected Self-reported

question-naire

Pearson correlation coefficient 3 Cross-sectional Invited to participate voluntarily

(non-randomized)

Questionnaire Propensity score matching analysis, multilevel regres-sion analysis

4 Cross-sectional School-based multi-stage random

sampling

Self-reported question-naire

Structural equation modeling

5 Cross-sectional Random selected Interview and

Parent-re-ported questionnaire

Structural equation modeling, Confirmatory Factor Analysis

6 Cross-sectional All fifth-grade students in two schools6

Teacher reported ques-tionnaire

Ordinary linear square regression analysis

7 Cross-sectional Snowball sampling Self-reported

question-naire

Structural equation modeling, Likelihood ratio test, Comparative fit index, Root mean square error of

ap-proximation

8 Cross-sectional Stratified sampling Self-reported

question-naire

Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Comparative fit index, Tucker and Lewis index, Root mean square error of approximation, standardized root-mean-square

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Table 5Barriers and facilitators of academic performance

Article number

Measurement of academic performance Facilitators Barriers

1 Assessment to the level of school engagement Internal locus control, family cohesion, support from teachers Mothers' absence, age 2 Self-reported average grade of midterm

examina-tions and educational expectaexamina-tions

Depression and excessive educational expec-tation, a lack of safe and nutritious food 3 Sum of scores in Chinese and Maths; sense of

school belonging

Eating snacks, caring staff in boarding school, sufficient facili-ties, enough private and secure space

Parental migration situations, length of being in boarding school, age, uncomfortable boarding condition, crowed dorm, escaping from school to play computer games, the lack

of safety training 4 Self-reported average grade of last semester Social capital, boys, help and interaction with family members,

family financial capital, Parents' level of education, public school, social capital

Age

5 Parent-reported levels in Maths, Chinese, and English of the children

Girls, parents' involvement, engagement and tutoring, quality of school, children's satisfaction towards school

Private migrant schools 6 Teacher reported resent final exam grades in

Chinese, Math, and English

Executive function, girls, living with both parents, 7 Self-reported academic effort, educational

aspi-ration and intention to drop-out

Resilience, family social capital, family financial capital, social capital

The length of being in urban areas, financial situation, community social capital 8 Self-reported test scores of Chinese English and

Maths

The ability to adapt a new culture, girls, family closeness, family socioeconomic status

Low ability of adaptation into a new culture, age

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School is another main context that shapes children’s development in microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Article one and three mentioned the facilitators with the con-text of school. School’s impact on children’s academic performance can also emerge in both ways. For example, the school management was of great significance to left-behind children’s ac-ademic performance and sense of belonging at school. Indeed, adequate support from teachers can increase left-behind children’s school engagement in public mainstream school (Article 1). Likewise, the main task of caring staff in boarding school is to take care of these left-behind chil-dren’s daily life, such as providing meals, managing their daily schedule, and keeping them healthy. These caring staff played the most important role as caregivers who may promote their sense of belonging at school and academic achievement (Article 3). In boarding schools, suffi-cient facilities such as clean water for drinking and cleaning, hot water for drinking and shower in winter and the access to the toilet in the dormitory are all beneficial to left-behind children’s aca-demic success and sense of belonging to the school. Also, enough private space and a secure en-vironment can influence left-behind children’s school belonging and academic achievement posi-tively.

5.2.2 Barriers for left-behind children’s academic performance

As a negative demand personal characteristic which can disrupt during the developmental pro-cesses (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), depression and excessive educational expectation can further influence left-behind children’s school performance as mediators (Article 2).

Within the family context in microsystem, parental migration situations can be barriers for left-behind children's school engagement and academic performance (Article 3). As men-tioned in article one, mothers' absence can play a negative role in children's and adolescents' school engagement. Comparing to children living with both parents or mothers only, left-behind children living with only father engaged least at school (Article 1). Some left-behind children were having trouble getting enough safe and nutritious food, which can lead to worse school perfor-mance, depression, and lower educational expectations (Article 2).

Changes as time passing to the children and the environment around the children how these changes may influence the developmental outcomes of those children (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). The duration of exposure to the experience of being left-behind and away from parents plays negative role in the development of academic performance. Being in the boarding school and away from home for too long for those left-behind children was another factor that influenced their academic achievement and the sense of belonging to the school. The negative attitude towards studying increased as the length of being away from home extending (Article 3).

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Besides, according to the research on left-behind children in a public mainstream school, the older these children became, the lower they engaged at school (Article 1). The same situation happened to left-behind children in boarding school. Their academic achievement in junior mid-dle school reduced comparing with primary school (Article 3).

Many barriers in the school context were discussed in article three. Uncomfortable board-ing condition can brboard-ing about negative impact (Article 3). The more children there were in one dorm room, the less they were likely to achieve academically (Article 3). More than half of left-behind children in boarding school who participated in the research reported with rude staff and poor service which reduced their motivation on studying indirectly (Article 3). Due to the lack of supervision and security management, some left-behind children were found to escape from school to play computer games which apparently affected their school belonging (Article 3). Alt-hough, safety training at school can bring left-behind children the sense of security which also re-lates to their academic development. However, 56.1% of left-behind children reported that they haven’t received any safety education in boarding school (Article 3).

5.3 Barriers and facilitators for migrant children’s academic performance

Five out of the eight chosen articles analyzed the barriers and facilitators for academic perfor-mance for migrant children in urban areas.

5.3.1 Facilitators for migrant children’s academic performance

The facilitators in person characteristics were found to migrant children's academic performance. The ability to adopt to a new culture is a kind of resource characteristic, which can contribute to the development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Children migrating from rural areas to urban areas have to deal with the adaption to a relatively different new culture (Article 8). Different lev-els of adaption ability are associated with various academic achievement. Migrant children who have a better ability to adapt to the new culture and keeping their original culture at the same time, have a higher academic achievement.

As another resource characteristic which can be beneficial to proximal processes, execu-tive function, such as the ability to self-regulate and initiate a goal, has a posiexecu-tive effect on mi-grant children's academic performance, especially contributing to language learning outcomes (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Article 6). Besides, migrant children with a higher level of resili-ence are associated with the willingness to put more effort into improving their academic

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perfor-mance. Furthermore, those migrant children with better resilience ability also have higher aspira-tions in education, which means they are willing to gain a higher level of academic achievement. Meanwhile, it also predicts the lower level of intension to drop out of school (Article 7).

Gender as a demand characteristic, is another aspect of children's characteristics, also show different impacts on their academic performance. It was demonstrated that migrant girls generally performed better than migrant boys (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Articles 5, 8). Comparing with boys, girls have a better ability to execute their goals, which can promote their academic performance (Article 6). Meanwhile, girls are more eager to achieve a higher level of education, to work harder academically, and there is a lower drop-out rate after high school than boys (Article 7). For boys, they are more likely to get more social capital in family and school with higher quality. Social capital represents the value of relationships in various social contexts, usually associating with better academic achievement (Article 4).

Family is a context in microsystem of great significance to children's development (Bron-fenbrenner, 1986). Article 4, 6, 7, and 8 mentioned the relationship between academic perfor-mance and the migrant families' social capital, which shed light on the impact of family relation-ships between family members. Migrant children who have both of the parents living with them get a relatively high score in school than the ones living with only one parent (Article 6). The mi-grant children who have closer relationships with other family members are more likely to have better academic achievement. (Article 8) There is a higher possibility of migrant children, who are living in a family with adequate help from parents, and more interactions between family mem-bers, achieving better academically (Article 4). Migrant children in a family with more family so-cial capital have a higher potential to put more effort into their school work. It also reduces the rate of dropping out of school (Article 7).

The financial situation in migrant children's families is another factor in microsystem that has been analyzed in the articles. Family socioeconomic status plays a positive part in migrant children's academic achievement in microsystem (Article 8). Migrant children with more family financial capital have more intention of getting a higher level of education and lower risk of drop-ping out of school (Article 7). Family financial capital can also influence family social capital and plays a positive role in academic achievement as a mediator (Article 4).

From the perspective of characteristics of migrant children's parents, there are also facili-tators on those children's academic performance. Parents' involvement and engagement are asso-ciated with their children's performance at school positively. Besides, the higher frequency of tu-toring from parents can help their children to achieve higher academically (Article 5). Parents'

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level of education influences family social capital, and indirect impact negatively on migrant chil-dren's academic performance positively (Article 4).

The articles also mentioned the effect of the context of school on migrant children's aca-demic performance. The quality of school and children's satisfaction towards school is associated with migrant children's academic performance (Article 5). It was mentioned in article 4 that at-tending public school predicted a higher level of social capital at school, which can be beneficial to academic performance.

The context within the neighborhood can be another facilitator to migrant children's aca-demic performance. It can contribute to social capital in their family and school, which can also indirectly predict better academic performance (Article 4). Meanwhile, it has a positive impact on children's resilience, which is associated with the intension to work harder and to achieve a higher level of education (Article 7).

5.3.2 Barriers for migrant children’s academic performance

Migrant children's characteristics can also bring negative effects on their academic achievement. The low ability of adaptation into a new culture in the urban area as a negative resource charac-teristic, is associated with lower academic achievement, no matter whether these migrant children are good at the maintenance of the culture of the rural area they from (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Article 8). Besides, as the age of migrant children increasing, there is a higher possibility to get the lower academic achievement (Article 4, 8). Moreover, the increasing age and length of be-ing in urban areas are both negatively associated with an effort that migrant children willbe-ing to make for academic achievement (Article 7).

There are barriers to academic performance in different contexts. The financial situation of the migrant family can play an impact on their children's academic performance negatively in microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). The richer the migrant families become, the less academic effort their children are willing to make (Article 7). In the school context, the private migrant schools are more likely to associate with lower quality, which led to a worse academic performance comparing urban children who were participating in public schools (Article 5). In the community context, the possibility of dropping out of school increases is associated with community social capital. In other words, the frequency of and getting help contacting friends in the community plays a negative role in migrant children's academic achievement (Article 7).

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6 Discussion

6.1 Summary of the results

This systematic review aims to describe the academic performance in China for left-be-hind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas between the ages of six to eight-een. During the searching procedure, it was found that the majority of studies about left-behind children and migrant children were focusing on their psychological and physical development. Eight articles fitted the criteria and were identified that providing relevant information. Among them, three articles are about academic performance of left-behind children and five articles are about migrant children.

It is indicated in the result that there are more barriers than facilitators for academic per-formance for left-behind children. The poor quality of boarding school and the increasing disad-vantage associated with the growth of length of being left-behind and in boarding school are the main barriers for left-behind children. These barriers reduced left-behind children’s motivation in studying, sense of belonging to school which affect their academic performance. These aspects correspond with earlier studies of Shen (2017) and Meng and Yamauchi (2017). On the contrary, schools provided adequate support, sufficient facilities, enough private and secure space play the roles as facilitators to their sense of belonging at school and academic performance. There are more facilitators for migrant children since they have their parents living with them, meanwhile, support from parents, family closeness, parents’ involvement and engagement are beneficial to the migrant children’s academic performance.

6.2 Reflections of the results

The measurement of academic performance in this study are mainly based on grades, scores and average levels in examinations in mandatory courses, such as Mathematics, Chinese language and English language (article 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8). This is in line with the examination-oriented educa-tion system (Tan, 2016). Four articles adapted the curriculum reform for basic educaeduca-tion in China and took the interest of learning and students’ experience in school into consideration (article 1, 2, 3 and 7). That fitted the quality-oriented education in the new curriculum and definition in aca-demic performance in China (Tan, 2016).

From the results obtained in this study, the factors influencing academic performance of those children can be categorized into the systems in bio-ecological system. The facilitators for academic performance of those children mainly emerge in microsystem. For both left-behind and

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migrant children, the facilitators mainly appear in microsystem, which include factors of person characteristics, family and school context.

For left-behind children, school as the context where children spend most time of the day, due to their parents’ absence and the lack of support in their families, becomes the biggest facilitator. Meanwhile, the financial advantage of having extra pocket money is benefit from the increased income from their migrant parents (Lu,2012). For migrant children, the most important facilitators are from their family, and this further proved the argument of Li and Qi (2018) on the importance of parents’ participation in children’s academic performance. Only studies in migrant children involved the community social point of view in mesosystem.

Person characteristics both have been mentioned as facilitators for left-behind children and migrant children. Parents’ absence can be a possible reason that indirectly formed left-be-hind’s independence and ability of internal locus control which can promote their performance academically (Ye & Pan, 2011). The facilitators for migrant children shed light on the importance of resilience and culture adaption which are of great significance for them to get use to the new environment in urban areas. These aspects are in line with previous studies about the relationship between person characteristics and academic performance (Li & Qiu, 2018).

The barriers for academic performance arose in microsystem, mesosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem. The majority of barriers for left-behind children appear in microsystem, espe-cially in school context, including rural schools and boarding schools. It further proved the poor quality of boarding schools in rural areas in China (Meng & Yamauchi, 2017). Meanwhile, the re-sult highlighted the negative impact of malnutrition to children’s academic performance. These barriers reflected the huge impact of environment to children’s academic performance from the studies of Karande and Kulkarni (2005) as well as Wang and Holcombe (2010). Articles about migrant children mentioned the disadvantages of education in private migrant school comparing to public school in urban areas. This is a reflection to the policies of Chinese hukou system and the difficulties of getting access to education for rural-to-urban migrant children in a macro level (Wei & Hou, 2010).

Results from studies of both groups of children have described barriers in chronosystem, for example, the length of being left-behind, being in boarding school and away from home for left-behind children (Wang & Holcombe, 2010). The length of being in urban areas for migrant children is considered as a barrier which corresponds the increasing difficulties for migrant chil-dren in getting access to higher education in urban areas (Wei & Hou, 2010).

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6.3 Further research and practical implementation

The articles used in this systematic review provided many useful information to the aim and re-search questions. The results described barriers and facilitators in different systems within bio-ecological system. However, the average quality of the articles according to JBI checklist is mod-erate, and there are some aspects that should be given more details and be analyzed in more depth. For instance, the measurement of academic performance in some articles were not ex-plained clearly, and the information about the scores were missing in three articles. In addition, the definition of academic performance in some articles were stated unclearly or even missing. The recruitment strategy and criteria for inclusion of the participants should have been described more clearly.

It was mentioned in the background that the basic education in China contains twelve years in primary school, junior high school and senior high school. However, only two of the eight articles involved participants from senior high school which made the result less exhaustive. In addition, senior high school is beyond the nine-year compulsory education and partly deter-mined the possibility of getting higher education. Therefore, the reasons of excluding these par-ticipants should be given and more research about this group of parpar-ticipants should be done.

In some articles, the age groups of participants were not reported clearly. Only the grades in school of the participants were shown. However, more than half of the children in rural areas went to school later than they were supposed to (Wei & Hou, 2010). And age is an important fac-tor relating to the experience of being away from parents for left-behind children and adapting to a whole new environment for migrant children. So, participants relating to left-behind and mi-grant children from different age groups should be categorized more vividly. Likewise, gender of the participants is another element that have not been indicated in all of the articles. And the rates of female participants are all lower than male participants in the indicated ones. A possible reason may be the gender bias in rural areas and the lower education opportunity (Lu, 2012). So, more female participants should be involved in the studies to shed light on this topic. On the other hand, the gender of absent parent is also worth analyzing, which is proved by some of the articles. But not all the articles marked migration status of parents.

The participants in the studies about migrant children are migrants to Beijing and Shang-hai, the most and second most developed cities in China, which are probably two extreme exam-ples comparing to most of the rural areas. Thus, the results may not be representative to the whole population of migrant children. Due to the different levels of development and various culture in other cities, there are cities such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou which locating in other

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parts of China, and places with less migrants comparing to Beijing and Shanghai that worth ana-lyzing.

During the searching process, it is worth noting that the number of hits in articles about migrant children in urban areas is approximately twice as many as the number in articles about left-behind children in rural areas. However, the number of left-behind children population in ru-ral areas is nearly double the number of migrant children in urban area.

From the results, there are more barriers than facilitators for academic performance for left-behind children. It is the completely opposite way for migrant children. Indeed, the relatively poor quality in schools in rural area restricted the educational outcome. And all the studies were cross-sectional studies, more longitudinal studies will be helpful to the aim of this study. In addi-tion, since that almost all these studies were done by Chinese researchers, this may due to a con-formation bias or stereotype of the authors. There are some aspects, such as the impact of com-munity in rural areas, that have not been analyzed. And the results didn’t cover all the systems in bio-ecological system, which are worth studying as well.

Left-behind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas are two groups of popula-tion in need of special support that living in unsupportive environment where there is lack of adequate care and resources (Meisels & Shonkoff, 2000). The analysis of the barriers and facilitators in this study can be beneficial to map out intervention plans to improve their academic performance in a more com-prehensive way.

6.4 Limitation of this study

Due to the limit number of articles involved in this systematic review, the results may not cover all the barriers and facilitators for academic performance, especially for left-behind chil-dren. The measurement of academic performance in the articles mainly remained in examination-oriented level, and the subjects only contained Math, Chinese language and English language. Other subjects, such as biology, chemistry, geography, history, geography as well as physical edu-cation are subjects in the high school and college entrance examinations which will influence the academic performance and achievement of left-behind and migrant children (Tan, 2016). Mean-while, few articles adapted the quality-oriented education in the reform of the curriculum.

There are some aspects worth analysis, such as the different barriers and facilitators be-tween provinces in China, however, these factors were not analyzed due to a lack of information.

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Besides, only articles in English language were involved in this study in order to make it transpar-ent. However, there are many articles in Chinses language with high quality that were excluded. These articles may contribute to the comprehensiveness of this study.

The average quality of the articles is moderate, with only one high-quality article accord-ing to JBI checklist. And there is many information missaccord-ing in these articles which could be use-ful to this study. It is also worth noting that the standards of examining academic performance are different among the articles. Moreover, this systematic review is done by only one person, thus, there is a possibility of bias in choosing articles and one-sided understanding. These factors reduced the reliability of the results in this study.

6.5 Ethical considerations

As a systematic review, it is important to keep every procedure transparent. All the articles used in this study have taken ethical issues into consideration. No personal information, such as names were shown in the studies. The researches were conducted with explanations in advance.

For the subject of this study, left-behind children and migrant children occupied a large proportion of population in China. They are two groups of vulnerable children in disadvantage situations and in need of support. More further researches should be done in order to provide more appropriate support. Their mental condition is relatively sensitive comparing to other chil-dren, which should be taking into consideration during the process of conducting researches.

7 Conclusion

This systematic review aimed to describe the academic performance in China for left-behind chil-dren between the ages of six to eighteen. Left-behind chilchil-dren in rural areas and migrant chilchil-dren in urban areas are two groups of children that occupied twenty three percent of children in China. However, there are not sufficient researches in this subject, comparing to the large pro-portion of the population.

The facilitators for left-behind children’s academic performance are in microsystem, for instance, from personal ability of internal locus control, financial support from their migrant par-ents and support from boarding school. There are more facilitators for migrant children. These facilitators are from both microsystem and mesosystem. Except for resilience and the ability of adaption to new culture, receiving support from parents is the advantage of migrant children comparing to left-behind children.

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The barriers for academic performance for left-behind children are in microsystem and chronosystem. Because of the absence of their parents, left-behind children are suffering from mental issues and malnutrition. The poor quality of education in rural areas, there are many barri-ers in school context. The disadvantage of being left-behind increase as the length extending. For migrant children, the existing Chinese household registration system (hukou) is a barrier in macro level, as a result, many migrant children have to go to private migrant school in poor quality, which plays a negative role in their academic performance.

This study analyzed the barriers and facilitators by using bio-ecological system which pre-sented a good overview of academic performance of left-behind and migrant children. However, because of the quality and limited number of articles, it is essential to have more further re-searches done in the future.

Figure

Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Table 2. Overview of the selected articles
Table 3 Participants
Table 4.   Design of the studies
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References

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