Adams, Jennifer H
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Publication Identifying the Attributes of Effective Rural Teachers: Teacher Attributes and Mathematics Achievement among Rural Primary School Students in Northwest China(2012-01-01) Adams, Jennifer HUsing matched student-teacher, I investigate what kind of teacher attributes make a difference for student achievement in resource-constrained rural communities in northwest China. Results from a series of random-effects models controlling for student background and community economic and social resources identifies several teacher attributes that are associated with student mathematics achievement in the early years of schooling. Students who are taught by teachers who have official credentials, high levels of motivation to improve practice, commitment to the profession, and strong interpersonal skills have higher math achievement, on average. In addition, students who are taught by teachers with 3-5 years of teaching experience have the highest performance, on average, controlling for other student, family, and community characteristics. Importantly, the analyses indicate that teacher attributes to be a distinct dimension of community inequality in rural Gansu rather than as an immediate link between community resources and student achievement. The findings provide a complex picture of the influence of wide range of teacher characteristics on achievement, and carry important policy implications for teacher recruitment, retention, and professional development in rural disadvantaged communities in China and around the world.Publication Curriculum Transformation in China: Trends in Student Perceptions of Classroom Practice and Engagement(2012-01-01) Adams, Jennifer H; Sargent, Tanja CIn the late-1990s, education policymakers began a process of curriculum reform with the goal of transforming Chinese schooling from exam-oriented education to student-centered learning. Traditional education practices have expected students to passively accept and memorize material presented by teachers, and to reproduce the knowledge on often high-stakes examinations. The new curriculum is designed to reduce teacher-centered instruction in favor of student-centered learning characterized by active learners creatively solving problems, challenging existing knowledge, and participating in lively discussion. Despite such a dramatic shift in curriculum policy, little is known about the whether reform efforts are truly transforming the educational experiences of students. In this paper, we describe these changes in curriculum policy. Second, using data from three waves of the Gansu Survey of Children and Families (2000, 2004, 2007), we investigate how student perceptions of classroom and teaching practices have changed as over time as the new curriculum has been implemented. Finally, we examine the relationship between new curriculum practices and student engagement. The perspective of the students is a crucial dimension to understanding the shift in the practices of teaching and learning that seek to cultivate creativity and innovativeness in students to bolster China’s entrance into the global information age.Publication Adversity and internalizing problems among rural Chinese adolescents: The roles of parents and teachers(2013-11-01) Davidson, Shannon; Adams, Jennifer HThroughout the developing world, adolescents living in rural poverty face multiple and inter-related adaptive challenges. Using longitudinal data from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families, we adopt an approach grounded in resilience theory to investigate the relationship between cumulative adversity and internalizing problems among 1,659 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 16 years in an interior Chinese province. We also investigate the compensatory roles of parental warmth and teacher support. Results of multivariate regression models suggest that internalizing problems increased in later adolescence in this sample. The rate of increase did not differ by gender, counter to most extant literature on sex differences in the developmental trajectory of internalizing problems. Along with parental warmth, teacher support emerged as an especially important compensatory factor, highlighting the significance of teachers as an often overlooked resource for poor rural adolescents.Publication Reforming Rural Education: Understanding Teacher Expectations for Rural Youth(2013-12-01) Yiu, Lisa; Adams, Jennifer HThe Chinese state's commitment to improve teaching quality in rural regions is a key component of national efforts to close the rural–urban education gap. In this paper, we investigate an understudied but critical dimension of quality teaching: teacher expectations. We employ longitudinal data gathered in Gansu Province in 2000 and 2007 to first examine whether teacher expectations for rural youth are conditioned by students’ social origin and teacher background characteristics. Next, we determine the predictive accuracy of their expectations. Our results highlight the ways in which teacher expectations condition the sorting of rural children among different schooling tracks with distinct life trajectories. Significantly, teachers are more likely to hold lower expectations for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, non-local teachers hold lower expectations for rural children compared to local teachers. Finally, a low percentage of teachers expect students to enroll in post-compulsory vocational education. We consider the implications of these results for both educational policy and social inequality.Publication School violence in China: A multi-level analysis of student victimization in rural middle schools(2016-12-05) Adams, JenniferMotivation: Physical victimization at school is little studied in impoverished developing country contexts. Moreover, the role of school and classroom contexts as risk factors remains poorly understood. Purpose: The aim of the study is to investigate the prevalence of physical victimization in rural Chinese middle schools as well as the individual, teacher/classroom, and school level risk factors associated with experiencing physical victimization. Design: We use two waves of longitudinal, representative survey data to perform a multi-level logistic regression analysis of physical victimization among middle school students from 100 villages in one of China’s poorest provinces. We focus on a subset of questionnaire items that were gathered from students when the sampled children were 13-16 years old. We also utilize student data from the first wave of the survey to control for prior internalizing problems and academic achievement. Finally, we link matched data collected from principal and teacher questionnaires to examine the risk factors for physical victimization associated with students’ microclimates and the wider school environment. Findings: A substantial proportion of middle school students (40%) reported having been beaten by classmates. Elevated risk was found among males; students with prior poor performance in language; students with past internalizing problems; students of female teachers and teachers evaluated as low performing; students in disruptive classrooms; and students in classrooms undergoing mandated reforms. Implications: These findings suggest that efforts to reduce school violence should not focus on the deficits of individual students, but rather should target practices to alter the within school risk factors associated with micro-climates.