Poster #42 - Understanding Chinese left-behind children’s perceptions of grandparental involvement through Photovoice

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Introduction:
Today, a sizable portion of children are left behind by their migrant parents and living with their grandparents in rural China. Studies on left-behind children have primarily focused on children’s negative wellbeing concerning their parental absence and malfunctioning parent-child interactions (e.g., Eriksen et al., 2017). However, resilience factors for the development of left-behind children, such as the role that their grandparents play in their lives, have been overlooked, and left-behind children’s perspectives and voices are lacking in this field of research. This study aims to understand left-behind children’s perspectives of grandparental involvement in their lives through Photovoice.
Methodology:
Based on Intergenerational Solidarity Theory (Silverstein & Bengtson, 1997), this study will re-conceptualize grandparental involvement in the Chinese rural context as a protective factor for child wellbeing. Photovoice, as a participatory action research (PAR) method, has been introduced in this study to understand children’s experiences and perceptions of grandparental involvement in their everyday lives.
Data collection:
Thirty left-behind children were recruited through a school-wide screening in September 2022 to select children with an above-average level of grandparental involvement using the Grandparental Involvement Scale (Li et al., 2018). Three 5-session Photovoice groups have been conducted with children of migrant parents in rural Chongqing (a major labor-sending area in China where parents migrated to cities for work). Children have been asked to take photos that can best represent their lives with grandparents. Apart from photo taking, children will also be invited to interviews to answer questions about their perceptions of grandparental involvement in their lives. Children’s custodial grandparents and migrant parents will also be interviewed to triangulate the data source.
Data analysis plan:
Visual data will be analyzed in four stages, including gathering the images, coding the contents, composing elements of the images as a single entity, and coding the developing and emerging contents of each child’s images as a narrative whole. This enables children to create narrative themes for individuals and generate themes for the group as a whole (Bell, 2015). Other verbal data from the interview will be audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Photos, transcripts, and observatory notes will be imported into Atlas.ti for thematic analysis. The first author will conduct preliminary coding, and the codes will be checked by the second and third authors.
Significance and implication:
Considering the prevalence of grandparental involvement in Chinese society and increasingly in other countries facing family migration and separation challenges, this study will enrich our theoretical understanding of intergenerational solidarity by investigating grandparental involvement in migrant families and its influences on the wellbeing of left-behind children in the context of global migration. In addition, the study findings will inform the development of interventions and policies targeting children living with their grandparents. More importantly, the participatory action research design will empower a group of children to express their voices through documenting their own daily life narratives. The findings will also increase community awareness of the strengths and support resources in these rural left-behind families.

Authors

• Yihang WANG, University of Hong Kong (HKU)
  Presenting Author

• Shuang Lu, University of Central Florida

• Linyun Fu, University of Chicago