Migrant Children Anti-Bullying Project
The motivation of launching this initiative
During my community service at the Liuseshi Library, a conversation with a mother about her child being bullied at school struck a deep chord with me. Her story reminded me of my own experience of being isolated as a newcomer to Shenzhen. This revelation sparked the idea to conduct a formal survey on the living conditions and mental health of migrant children in the city. I realized that while "left-behind children" in rural areas receive significant attention in China, the "migrant children" who accompany their parents to large cities like Shenzhen are often overlooked.
What did I do?
Unexpectedly, my initial attempts to launch this project faced major obstacles. Several schools for migrant children declined my request to conduct the survey, treating the topic as taboo. However, after two months of persistent cold emailing, I finally received a positive response from Ms. Huang Ruiyun, a psychological counsellor at the Third Longhua Shiyan Migrant Children School. She recognized the value of the research for providing better psychological support to her students. Subsequently, we secured permission from another school.
Under Ms. Huang's guidance, we administered questionnaires on school bullying, anxiety, social support, and family support to over 1,600 seventh and eighth-grade students. We collected 1,536 valid responses. Since the schools lacked computer labs, we used paper questionnaires. I then spent the next two months meticulously entering tens of thousands of data points into SPSS statistical software for analysis.
The findings from the survey
The results revealed a high incidence of school bullying and significant anxiety levels among these migrant children, coupled with a notable lack of social and family support. We compiled these findings into a report submitted to the local education bureau, recommending enhanced anti-bullying education and increased allocation of psychological counselling resources for such schools. Furthermore, we proposed a specific support initiative: establishing on-campus "Well-being Huts." These would be safe spaces for children reluctant to speak directly with school staff to access information and support channels. Additionally, with safeguards for anonymity, these huts could provide aggregated data to the education bureau, serving as an early-warning system to help prevent tragedies.
I also presented this research in a paper and submitted it to the International Journal of High School Research, where it is currently under review. The process of writing a scientific paper was a significant learning experience, through which I gained practical skills in retrieving and reviewing academic literature, as well as in statistically analyzing data and discussing results. More importantly, I hope that the potential publication of this paper will draw broader attention to the challenges faced by migrant children in China and galvanize greater societal support through its data-driven findings.