In the past 20 years, developmental and educational researchers have paid substantial attention to academic achievement in Chinese children.¡¡It has been consistently found that Chinese children outperform their North American counterparts in various academic areas and that the differences persist throughout the elementary and high school years (e.g., Lapointe, Mead, & Philips, 1989; McKnight et al., 1987; Stevenson, et al., 1990; Stevenson, Chen, & Lee, 1993).¡¡Academic excellence in Chinese children may be due to traditional values and a strong emphasis on achievement in the Chinese culture (Ho, 1986), as implied in an ancient proverb ¡°Gold is found in books¡±.¡¡Largely due to limited opportunities to receive a higher education, academic competition is intense from kindergarten to high school in China.¡¡Children are constantly pressured by parents, teachers, and peers to perform optimally, and children who fail to meet standards of academic achievement are often regarded as highly problematic (e.g., Wu & Tseng, 1985).
An interesting issue in the study of academic achievement in Chinese children is its relations with social functioning.¡¡Given that academic achievement is highly emphasized by adults and peers in China, it is reasonable to argue that children¡¯s academic achievement may be of considerable significance for social adaptation such as peer relationships, leadership status and other indexes of social competence.¡¡This argument has been supported by the results of a study conducted recently by Chen and his colleagues in a sample of Chinese children (Chen, Rubin & Li, 1997).¡¡It was found that, consistent with the Western literature (e.g., Kellam, Brown, Rubin & Ensminger, 1983; Wentzel & Asher, 1995), academic achievement significantly and positively contributed to the prediction of social competence and peer acceptance, suggesting that academically competent children are likely to be accepted by peers and become more skilful and sociable in social situations.
It should be noted that although academic achievement is generally valued and emphasized in Chinese culture, there are within-culture variations in academic motivation and achievement.¡¡Investigation of specific contextual factors that account for the within-culture variations and delineate the nature and significance of academic achievement would be important for our understanding of the phenomenon in Chinese children.¡¡One possible source of within-culture variations is differential influences of various types of peer groups (e.g., Brown, 1990; Cairns & Cairns, 1994).¡¡For example, to what extent academic achievement functions as a norm for the group may have pervasive effects on individual performance and adjustment in Chinese children.¡¡In the present study, we sought to investigate the role of group academic norm as a context in mediating and moderating individual-level relations between academic achievement and social functioning in China.

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This article is from:
Xinyin Chen, Lei Chang, and Yunfeng He. (2003). The peer group as a context: Mediating and moderating effects on relations between academic achievement and social functioning in Chinese children. Child Development. 74(3), 710-727.

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