New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

Background. Physical literacy is vital for addressing children’s health issues such as childhood obesity, physical inactivity, and sedentary behavior. However, there is a lack of research on PL assessment in Pakistan. This study is aimed at translating and cross-culturally adapting the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy-2 (CAPL-2) tool and establishing its validity and reliability in the Pakistani population. Methods. The CAPL-2 was translated to Urdu employing the translation and back translation method. A cross-sectional study involving 350 school children (8-12 years) from Multan, South Punjab, evaluated the CAPL-2U version’s reliability. Results. Expert consensus and pilot testing successfully achieved translation, cross-cultural adaptation, face and content validity. The CAPL-2U demonstrated excellent reliability and internal consistency across the domains. Specifically, daily behavior domain had an internal consistency of and test-retest reliability of . Knowledge and understanding domain showed internal consistency ranging from to 0.986 and test-retest reliability of to 0.986. The motivation and confidence domain had an internal consistency of to 0.997 and test-retest reliability of to 0.993. The correlation between test-retest results for knowledge and understanding and motivation and confidence domains was to 0.973. However, two items in the motivation and confidence domain showed discrepancies in test-retest outcomes. Conclusion. The study confirms the successful translation and adaptation of the CAPL-2 questionnaire for use in Urdu and Pakistani contexts. The findings endorse the tool’s reliability and suitability for assessing physical literacy in Pakistan’s children aged 8-12.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects and Confucius Institutes in Pakistan encourage Chinese language (CL) learning for education, jobs, and other activities. The study explores CL learners’ attitudes, obstacles, and motivations in Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan, and the CPEC’s role in promoting CL education. The research uses a mixed-methods approach to obtain quantitative and qualitative data. The data collection comprised a 5-point Likert scale study with 19 closed-ended and two open-ended questions. Results suggest that both provinces’ students favor CL learning. However, the Mann–Whitney test indicates Sindh learners’ perspectives, and motivations differ significantly. They generally support CL learning but express concerns about their local language and culture, leading to resistance against foreign language influence in their province. The study illuminates’ student attitudes, obstacles, and motivations in Punjab and Sindh CL learning. The research also explores the potential impact of CPEC on CL education and identifies postproficiency opportunities for learners. These findings influence educational policymakers, language educators, and stakeholders in Pakistan to encourage CL learning. Ultimately, the research is aimed at enhancing CL education in Pakistan, enabling learners to benefit from language proficiency in the context of growing socioeconomic ties between Pakistan and China.

Introduction. Child labor is widely regarded as one of the most severe forms of child maltreatment (CM), but little is known about how working children, especially in low-income countries like Bangladesh, experience different forms of CM. This paper explores the extent of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and neglect experienced by working children and determines the important risk factors for these forms of CM among them. Methods. This cross-sectional study included 398 working children from four local Bazars (rural marketplace) of Raiganj Upazila, Sirajganj district, who were enrolled in this study in March and April of 2017, through a snowball approach, due to a lack of a list of working children. The International Child Abuse Screening Tools for Children (ICAST-C) was used to estimate the different forms of CM in this study. Results. Lifetime prevalence of psychological abuse (PsyA), physical abuse (PA), neglect, and sexual abuse (SA) were 100%, 100%, 82.7%, and 13.5%, while the past year prevalence rates were 100%, 84.2%, 67.1%, and 9.9%, respectively. Common forms of PsyA experienced by children include shouting, yelling, or screaming, as well as restrictions on outings and time-outs. PA typically involves slapping on the face or head, hitting with objects (excluding the buttocks), and ear twisting. Watching pornography is the primary form of SA, while the leading form of neglect is unmet medical needs. The prevalence of PsyA, PA, SA, and neglect was higher among children who lived with individuals other than their parents. Both PsyA and PA were found to be associated with family violence, such as the presence of weapons in the household and adults engaging in frightening screaming behavior. Additionally, children who were bullied by their siblings, had a parent with a primary level of education or less, and always felt safe at home were at an increased risk of experiencing PA. Children who did not feel safe at home all the time were more likely to experience SA. Furthermore, for every one-year increase in schooling, the likelihood of experiencing neglect decreased by 8.3% (: -.157, value < .003). Conclusion. Nearly all male working children in rural areas of Bangladesh experienced PsyA and PA, and adult negligence was also prevalent. Although male SA is not a widely discussed issue in Bangladesh, the results of this study are alarming.

Juvenile delinquency is often linked with various proximal family and environmental factors during a child’s upbringing. Richard Jessor’s problem behavior theory (PBT) emphasizes that a combined interplay of these factors may explain this phenomenon appropriately. This study employed the PBT framework to investigate the impact of family on students’ delinquency, considering the influence of neighborhood and delinquent peer association. A model was developed for analyzing the variables by structural equation modeling (SEM). Data were collected through interviews with 1026 students aged between 12 and 18 years from a child development center and eight educational institutes in Bangladesh. The findings revealed that family-level factors (adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and family deprivation) can significantly predict students’ delinquency directly and through the moderation effect of neighborhood-level variables (neighborhood social capital and neighborhood disorganization). Delinquent peer association exhibited a significant mediating role in the model. It could directly predict delinquency as well. The research has notable theoretical and practical implications for understanding the complex dynamics of family, neighborhood, and delinquent peer association in explaining students’ delinquency.

Adolescence is the preparatory stage for young people to enter the society. Although teenagers are good at catering to the development trend of society, they are limited by age, growth environment, and other factors, and their cognition of society is too simple, resulting in poor social adaptability. This paper adopts control method and questionnaire survey to study the effect of mental health education on improving social adaptability of teenagers. A total of 712 adolescents from two schools in Beijing were selected for the study (, ). In addition, the age, gender, family environment, and growth environment of the youth were taken as the independent variables. The results showed that the social adaptability of adolescents and its subdimensions were significantly affected by age, family environment, and growth environment (), while gender had little effect on the overall social adaptability of adolescents (). After receiving mental health education, adolescents’ social adaptability has significantly improved, with statistical differences in self-adjustment ability, interpersonal adaptability, behavioral adaptability, and environmental adaptability as well as in all dimensions (), indicating that mental health education has obvious and comprehensive improvement effect on adolescents’ social adaptability. The social adaptability of adolescents is also affected by their own characteristics and growth background, which will further affect the effect of mental health education on the improvement of the social adaptability of adolescents. Based on these findings, this study provides significant insights for parents and teachers to improve the social adaptability of adolescents from the angle of mental health. Meanwhile, parents and teachers should specially pay attention to the influence of personality and growth background of adolescents which also play a decisive role on the effect of mental health education. This study provides practical and useful recommendations for improving adolescent social adaptability and adds to the theory for corresponding future research.

This study is aimed at identifying the structure and traits of college counselors’ professional personality. Following existing methodology in conducting face-to-face and open-ended interviews, specialist evaluations, and a literature review, we develop a pilot test questionnaire measuring college counselors’ professional personality traits (79 questions) based on salient data collected from a random sample of 2372 university/college students across China. We also conduct explorative factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to construct the formal “scale for college counselors’ professional personality traits” (SCCPPT, 45 terms) using SPSS 20.0 and LISREL 8.80 software. The results show that this scale features a second-order, 5-factor structure covering the following five dimensions of professional personality: dutifulness, loyalty, affinity, dedication, and innovation. The findings indicate that the reliability (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) of these five factors ranges from 0.741 to 0.952 and that their validity is supported. Identifying their professional personality enables college counselors to have a more sustainable career and promote the faster growth and higher quality development of students, and the SCCPPT can be used as a measurement tool, supporting research on college counselors’ professional personality. Thus, this study expands both the theoretical and practical literature concerning professional personality traits. It can also provide a novel perspective, which can help global educators understand Chinese higher education; it is also a reference with international implications for professional groups of student affair administrators or instructors.