Hukou-based Discrimination and Migrant Adolescents’ Adaptation: Migrant Pattern Differences among the Buffering Role of School Engagement

While the detrimental consequences of racial/ethnic discrimination for adolescent adaptation are well established, little is known about the long-term impact of hukou-based discrimination from the hukou (household registration) system and the potential protective benefits of adolescents’ internal capabilities; furthermore, there have been even fewer studies examining potential migrant pattern differences in the association. The current study addressed these gaps by investigating the longitudinal associations between hukou-based discrimination and migrant adolescents’ adaptation outcomes (cognitive ability, depressive symptoms, and behavioral problems), as well as whether school engagement moderated these pathways, and whether this function varied by adolescents’ migrant patterns. The data were obtained from 1226 migrant adolescents (51.31% male; 51.47% urban migrants, 48.53% rural migrants) aged 12 to 16 years (Mage = 13.56, SD = 0.69 at Wave 1) from the China Education Panel Survey in two waves separated by twelve months. Multilevel modeling revealed that hukou-based discrimination from peers and teachers was negatively related to cognitive abilities, but positively related to depressive symptoms and behavioral problems. School engagement served not only as a facilitator of adaptation but also as a protective factor against hukou-based discrimination. The moderating effect of school engagement was more pronounced in urban migrants than in rural migrants. The current study’s findings highlight the role of hukou-based discrimination in adaptation disparities and shed light on the importance of internal capabilities in protecting migrant adolescents with different migration patterns from the detrimental impacts of discrimination on the adaptation process.