“忧郁的孩子们”:课外补习会带来负向情绪吗?基于中国教育追踪调查(CEPS)两期数据的因果推断

“Melancholic Children”:Does Cram School Participation Lead to Negative Emotions?Causal Inference Based on Chinese Education Panel Survey(CEPS)Data

本文关注中国大陆中学生课外补习参与及其负向情绪生成的因果关系。本文基于中国教育追踪调查两期数据,借助工具变量等方法来化解内生性偏误,在量化层面上回答了课外补习参与“是否致郁”以及“使谁抑郁”等问题。本研究主要发现如下:其一,课外补习参与对中学生的情绪健康状况具有显著的“致郁效应”,但这种效应主要存在于家庭背景占劣势的较低阶层的子女当中,而家庭背景具有优势的较高阶层的子女对此类负向情绪有更强的抵御能力,表现出了“心理免疫”的现象;其二,本文从“情绪调节”的角度入手,对“致郁效应”的阶层异质性做出了进一步解释。研究结果有助于我们深入理解课外补习参与可能具有的健康不平等意涵。

This study focuses on the causal relationship between middle school students’participation in cram school and their emotional well-being.Our analysis is based on Chinese Education Panel Survey data(CEPS 2013-2015).We construct instrumental variables and introduce lagged variables to mitigate possible endogeneity problems.The major findings are as follows:Firstly,the participation of socioeconomically disadvantaged students in cram school has significantly exacerbated their negative emotions.Students with advantaged family socioeconomic status(SES)have shown better ability in emotional regulation,and they are more likely to be psychologically immune to specific negative emotions.Secondly,we explore the class heterogeneity in the aspect of emotional regulation ability.Specifically,we propose a preliminary theoretical framework based on typology of parenting styles and related empirical findings.We speculate that parents from different social background may respond differently to their children’s negative emotions,while there may also be intergroup differences in children’s own emotional regulation ability.Empirically,we examine the class differences in the performance of emotional regulation of the students in cram school,and apply the counterfactual simulation approach to further illustrate the association between the group difference in emotional regulation and the group heterogeneity of the depressive effects from cram school participation.The finding provides supportive evidences for our theoretical framework.In sum,our study is helpful to better understand the implication of emotional health inequality that may derive from the shadow education system.