A Comparison of the Creative Potential of Rural and Urban Adolescents in China

• In Event: Dissertation workshop session
  In Special Session: Youth

Proposal

Based on quantitative evidence gathered from Chinese adolescents, this study aims to identify the rural-urban disparity in creativity and its contributing factors. It addresses three research questions: 1) Do rural adolescents fall behind urban adolescents in creativity development? 2) If yes, are family and school education disparities the underlying mechanisms? 3) Do family, school, and intrapersonal factors affect the creativity of rural and urban adolescents in the same way? Creativity has become an increasingly-valued learning outcome in China (Lin, 2017; Pang & Plucker, 2012). This study intends to show that promoting creativity has consequences for social equity; if rural adolescents outperform urban adolescents in creativity, creativity can work as a lever for social equity such as adding it to college admissions criteria; but rural-urban inequity could be exacerbated if rural adolescents have a disadvantage in creativity; because creativity is associated with positive academic, mental, and career outcomes (Plucker, Beghetto, & Dow, 2004).
Because no theory directly addresses the connection between creativity and social equity, this study is framed by prior literature, the hierarchical framework of creativity (Runco, 2007), and the investment theory of creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). The common definition of creativity is the ability to produce useful and novel products (Runco & Jaeger, 2012). However, adolescents can lack sufficient cognitive resources and knowledge to produce publicly recognized products (Russ & Fiorelli, 2010; Runco, 2007). Therefore, instead of fixating on the product, Runco (2007) proposed the hierarchical framework of creativity which urged scholars to examine the creative potential of adolescents. So, this study assesses creative potential, instead of the product, as a proxy for creativity. Runco (2007) argued that creative potential is influenced by person, process and environmental factors without specifying the factors in each category; so, the investment theory of creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995) is introduced in this study to delineate the specific person, process, and environmental factors to investigate. Because both theories are Western theories, this study provides cross-cultural validation for them in an Eastern context. Gaps in the prior literature also guide the study design. First, very few studies investigated the influence of rurality on creativity, despite the persistent rural-urban gap in developing countries and the high percentage of rural population (Deaton & Dreze, 2002; Hernández-Torrano, 2018; Knight & Shi, 1996; Lopez, 2007; Opoku-Asare & Siaw, 2016; World Bank, 2017). Second, limited existing studies in China mostly found a rural disadvantage using verbal assessment of creativity while U.S. studies using figural assessments have found a lower SES advantage in creativity (Gezi, 1969; Gu, Zhou, & Hu, 2009; Han & Hu, 2005, 2007; Kaltsounis, 1974; Li, Hu, & Shen, 2010; Liu & Zhang, 2017; Shi, Dai, & Lu, 2016; Shi, Lu, Dai, & Lin, 2013; Shi, Qian, Lu, Plucker, & Lin, 2012; Solomon, 1974; Torrance, 1967). This study uses figural assessments in China to provide more evidence for the debate on low SES advantage on figural creativity cross-culturally. Finally, although several studies in China hypothesized that family and school disparities are the underlying mechanisms behind the rural-urban creativity gap, they rarely empirically tested such hypotheses (Gu et al., 2009; Han & Hu, 2005, 2007; Li et al., 2010; Shi et al., 2012; Shi et al., 2013; Shi et al., 2016). This leaves a gap of knowledge on how to remedy such disparity. This study will empirically test whether family and school disparities underlie the rural-urban creativity gap.
This study employs a cross-sectional design using surveys and psychometric tests for creative potential. Approximately 1000 adolescents aged between 13 and 16 in China will be investigated. Stratified sampling will be used to recruit participants from both urban and rural schools. Structural equation models with robust estimators are employed to account for the clustered nature of the data. To answer the first research question, the creative potential of rural and urban adolescents will be compared. To answer the second research question, underlying mechanisms, family and school factors, are operationalized as the mediators of the influence of rurality on creative potential. To create a time sequence between the mediators and the outcome, adolescents are asked to report their family and school experiences from the last semester. To answer the third research question, the effect size of each person, process, and environmental factor on rural adolescents’ creative potential will be compared to the effect size of those factors on the urban adolescents’ creative potential.
This dissertation is in the data collection stage. And I am the advisee of Professor Soo-Yong Byun at the Pennsylvania State University.

Author

• Yiran Zhao, The Pennsylvania State University