早期心理健康教育与初中儿童行为发展

Early Mental Health Education and the Behavioral Development of Middle School Students

儿童行为健康发展对其未来人力资本积累影响深远,而心理健康教育对儿童健康行为的塑造具有重要意义。本文使用中国教育追踪调查数据,以儿童行为具有较强的可塑性为出发点,研究了早期心理健康教育对初中儿童外化问题行为的影响。在解决了早期心理健康教育的内生性问题后,研究发现早期心理健康教育显著减少了儿童外化问题行为,且该影响主要存在于男孩、农村户籍和来自财政拨款占比高学校的儿童。机制分析表明,儿童负面情绪的改善和学校适应性的增强是重要的影响渠道。进一步分析发现,早期心理健康教育虽然可以显著增加儿童的亲社会行为,但是难以显著提升其学业成绩。本文结论为将心理健康教育融入教育政策以促进儿童行为健康发展提供了实证依据。

Childhood behavioral health has a profound impact on later human capital development,and early psychological education plays an irreplaceable role in molding childhood behaviors.This paper uses data from China Education Panel Study(CEPS)to examine the effect of early psychological education on the externalizing behaviors of middle school students.After fixing the endogeneity of early psychological education caused by omitted variables and reverse causality,we find a significant effect of early psychological education in reducing children,s externalizing behaviors.This effect is much stronger for boys,children with rural Hukou,and children from heavily subsidized schools.The main contributing factors are the improvement of children,s positive emotions and the enhancement of their school adaptability.Further analysis shows that early mental education can significantly increase children,s good behavior,but it cannot improve children,s academic achievement.This paper provides strong support on integrating early mental education into the current education system and promoting the healthy development of children,s behavior.