The Influence Of Neighborhood Environment On Adolescents’ Non-cognitive Skills

As Chinese urbanization rate increases and the income gap between residents widens,residential segregation has become increasingly prominent and social stratification has solidified.Improving the neighborhood environment has become a strong driving force for social harmony and educational equity,which indicates that the study of neighborhood effects is of great significance in China.A series of social phenomena such as the "rich second generation","poor second generation" and "it is difficult for a poor family to produce a noble son" show that there is a low level of intergenerational mobility in China and the problem of class solidification still exists.The phrase "things come together in groups,people come together in groups" is also reflected in community neighborhoods,residential segregation indicates that adolescents create inter-class differences in living space,and different neighborhood environments could have positive or negative effects on the development of adolescents’ individual abilities.At the same time,non-cognitive skills play a key role in adolescents’ academic development and future educational returns,career development,wage income,social integration and so on.In previous studies,scholars have mostly focused on non-cognitive skills in terms of family background and school environment,while neglecting the influence of neighborhood environment on adolescents’ non-cognitive skills.To this end,this study focuses on the influence of the neighborhood environment on children’s non-cognitive abilities.Based on the above background and the analysis of relevant literature,this study is based on the Bronfenbrenner Ecosystem Theory and the New Human Capital Theory as the theoretical basis and this study used data from the China Education Panel Survey(CEPS)for the 2013-2014 school year,and the data were cleaned and processed to obtain a valid sample of 11,557.Firstly,this study used principal component analysis to construct a composite non-cognitive ability indicator to indicate the level of children’s non-cognitive ability,and the occupation of neighbors to indicate whether the neighborhood environment was good,and then used ordinary least squares(OLS)for the basic regression;secondly,this study selected whether the children lived with their grandparents and whether the parents received admission information from other parents for that school as instrumental variables to address the endogenous problems of the existence of the neighborhood environment and empirically analyzed using two-stage least squares(2SLS);then this study grouped samples with different characteristics for heterogeneity analysis and used multiple propensity score matching(PSM)and maximum likelihood estimation to test the findings of this study for robustness;next,this study provides an explanation of the effect of neighborhood environment on non-cognitive ability;finally,the study provides an interpretation of the mechanism of the influence of neighborhood environment on non-cognitive abilities.The results of the study found that:1.neighborhood environment is an important factor influencing children’s non-cognitive ability,and after controlling for child-level,parent-level and school-level variables,neighborhood environment has a significant positive effect on children’s non-cognitive ability.2.group regression results indicate that there are significant differences in the effect of neighborhood environment on non-cognitive ability among children of different genders,household registration types,only-child status and different parenting 3.Neighborhood environment influences non-cognitive abilities through the family education process as a pathway,as a good neighborhood environment can increase parents’ expectations for their children’s education,family education commitment and improve parents’ family discipline and interaction.Based on the above findings,this study makes the following policy recommendations:1.Optimize the allocation of public education resources.2.The development of housing policies should pay attention to the rational design of mixed housing.3.Strengthen the policy of expectation intervention.4.Increase spending on the education of children from disadvantaged groups.5.Implement the "double reduction" policy and reverse the unscientific educational orientation of "score-based" education.