📄 social_science

The impact of parent–child relationship on the professional commitment of Chinese secondary vocational school students: The chain mediating role of resilience and educational stigma

Based on a study of 1,625 Chinese secondary vocational students, this paper demonstrates that positive parent–child relationships significantly enhance professional commitment both directly and indirectly by fostering resilience and reducing educational stigma.

Original authors: Xuesong Du, Hang Zheng, Aiping Wang

Published 2026-07-14

📖 4 min read☕ Coffee break read

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Xuesong Du, Hang Zheng, Aiping Wang

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine your future career path as a long, winding video game level. For students in Chinese secondary vocational schools, this level is tricky. They are learning specific skills for real jobs, but they often face a sneaky enemy: the feeling that their chosen path isn't "good enough" because of what society says. This study, involving 1,625 students aged 14 to 19, tries to figure out what helps players stick with the game and finish the level with high "Professional Commitment" (that's the fancy term for sticking with your major and loving your future job).

The researchers found that the most powerful "power-up" comes from home: the Parent–Child Relationship.

The Home Base Power-Up

Think of your parents as your "Home Base" in the game. When the relationship is warm, supportive, and close, it acts like a secure shield. The study shows that a good relationship with mom and dad doesn't just make you feel happy; it directly boosts your commitment to your major. It's like having a player who constantly says, "You've got this," which makes you want to keep playing your character's story.

But the magic doesn't stop there. The study discovered that this Home Base power-up works through two special "skill trees" that unlock in a specific order.

Skill Tree 1: The Resilience Shield

First, a supportive family helps build a character trait called Resilience. Imagine resilience as a "health bar" or a "bounce-back meter." When things get tough—like a hard exam or a confusing lesson—students with high resilience don't crash; they recover quickly. The data suggests that a good parent–child relationship fills up this health bar. And here's the cool part: having a full health bar makes you much more likely to stick with your major. In fact, this path (Parent → Resilience → Commitment) was the biggest helper, accounting for about 48% of the total positive effect.

Skill Tree 2: The Stigma Shield

Next, there's a tricky enemy called Educational Stigma. This is like a "negative status effect" or a "debuff" that the game world (society) tries to put on vocational students. It's the feeling that people look down on you because you went to vocational school instead of a regular high school. The study found that when students feel this stigma, their commitment drops.

Here is where the family and resilience team up. A supportive family doesn't just build the Resilience shield; it also helps you realize that the "negative status effect" isn't real. When you have a strong resilience shield, you are less likely to believe the bad things society says about you. You stop internalizing the "debuff." This path (Parent → Resilience → Less Stigma → Commitment) was the second most important route, explaining about 19.5% of the effect.

The Chain Reaction

The researchers mapped out a "chain reaction" model. It works like this:

Parents give support.
This support builds Resilience (your bounce-back ability).
High Resilience helps you ignore Educational Stigma (the society's bad vibes).
With less stigma and more bounce-back, your Professional Commitment skyrockets.

The study measured this chain and found that 82.62% of the total positive effect of parents on commitment happens through these indirect paths (Resilience and Stigma). Only 17.38% is the direct "I love my major because my parents love me" boost.

What the Study Does Not Say

It's important to know what this game map doesn't cover. The study looked at a snapshot in time, so it can't prove that parents cause the changes in a strict, time-traveling way; it just shows they are strongly linked. Also, the data came from 8 schools in Guangdong Province, a place with strong resources. The authors suggest we can't be 100% sure this exact map applies to every single region in China without more testing. They also didn't test other variables like "career adaptability" or "self-efficacy" in this specific model, so those remain unexplored territories for future players.

The Bottom Line

The study suggests that if you want vocational students to love their majors and stick with their careers, you can't just teach them skills. You have to help them build their Resilience shield and protect them from the Stigma debuff. And the best way to start? Strengthen the Parent–Child Relationship. It's the ultimate cheat code that helps students ignore the noise, bounce back from challenges, and commit to their future.

Technical Summary: The Impact of Parent–Child Relationship on Professional Commitment in Chinese Secondary Vocational Students

Problem Statement
Professional commitment—the identification with, investment in, and willingness to persist in an educational pathway linked to future employment—is a critical determinant of career development and school-to-work transition for vocational students. However, existing literature has largely focused on university or higher vocational students, leaving a gap in understanding the antecedents of professional commitment among secondary vocational school students in China. This demographic faces a unique developmental context characterized by early career decision-making, frequent socioeconomic disadvantages, and persistent social devaluation of vocational education. The study addresses the need to elucidate how family dynamics (specifically the parent–child relationship) influence professional commitment, and how this influence is mediated by internal psychological resources (resilience) and external social risks (educational stigma).

Methodology

Participants: The study utilized a convenience sampling method to recruit 1,625 valid respondents from eight secondary vocational schools in Guangdong Province, China. The sample consisted of students aged 14–19 ( $M = 16.24$ ), with representation across first, second, and third academic years.
Measures:
- Parent–Child Relationship: Assessed using the Closeness to Parents Scale (Buchanan et al., 1991; revised by Zhang et al., 2011), measuring emotional closeness with fathers and mothers.
- Resilience: Measured via the Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents (Hu & Gan, 2008), covering dimensions such as goal orientation, emotional regulation, and social support.
- Educational Stigma: Evaluated using the Secondary Vocational School Students' Educational Stigma Scale (Zhang, 2023), capturing dimensions of devaluation, discrimination, unfair treatment, and susceptibility to attack.
- Professional Commitment: Assessed using the Professional Commitment Questionnaire for Secondary Vocational School Students (Lian et al., 2005; revised by Xu, 2021), encompassing affective, normative, and continuance commitment.
Procedure: Data were collected via an online questionnaire. Common method bias was tested using Harman's single-factor test, and multicollinearity was assessed via tolerance and VIF statistics.
Analysis: The hypothesized chain mediation model was tested using SPSS 27.0 and the PROCESS Macro (Model 6) with 5,000 bias-corrected bootstrap samples. Gender, grade, and knowledge of the major were included as control variables.

Key Results
The analysis confirmed a significant positive total effect of the parent–child relationship on professional commitment ( $\beta = 0.466$ ). The study validated four specific hypotheses:

Direct Effect: The parent–child relationship directly and positively predicts professional commitment ( $\beta = 0.08$ , $p < 0.001$ ), accounting for 17.38% of the total effect.
Resilience Mediation: Resilience significantly mediates the relationship, serving as the strongest indirect pathway (effect = 0.224; 48.07% of total effect). A positive parent–child relationship fosters resilience, which in turn enhances commitment.
Educational Stigma Mediation: Educational stigma significantly mediates the relationship (effect = 0.070; 15.02% of total effect). A supportive parent–child relationship reduces educational stigma, thereby increasing commitment.
Chain Mediation: A significant sequential mediation pathway exists: Parent–Child Relationship $\rightarrow$ Resilience $\rightarrow$ Educational Stigma $\rightarrow$ Professional Commitment (effect = 0.091; 19.53% of total effect). This indicates that family support builds resilience, which subsequently buffers against the internalization of educational stigma.

Collectively, the indirect effects (resilience, stigma, and their chain) accounted for 82.62% of the total influence of the parent–child relationship on professional commitment.

Key Contributions

Theoretical Integration: The study integrates Attachment Theory and the Risk–Protective Factor Model to explain vocational student development. It posits that professional commitment is shaped by the interplay between protective family resources and socially rooted risks.
Mechanism Elucidation: It moves beyond direct correlations to reveal the specific psychological and social mechanisms (resource-building via resilience and risk-reduction via stigma mitigation) through which family dynamics influence vocational outcomes.
Population Specificity: It addresses a critical gap in the literature by focusing specifically on secondary vocational students, a group often overlooked in favor of higher education cohorts, despite facing distinct developmental challenges.

Significance and Claims
The authors claim that professional commitment in secondary vocational education is not solely an individual trait but is deeply embedded in the ecological context of family support and social evaluation. The findings suggest that interventions aimed at strengthening professional commitment must be multi-faceted:

Family Involvement: Strengthening parent–child relationships is a foundational strategy for fostering student commitment.
Resilience Building: Educational programs should incorporate resilience training to help students maintain motivation despite academic or career uncertainties.
Stigma Reduction: Interventions must address the social devaluation of vocational education, helping students resist the internalization of negative stereotypes.

The study concludes that a "resource-building and risk-reducing" process, initiated by supportive family environments, is essential for sustaining student engagement and professional development in vocational pathways. The authors note limitations regarding the cross-sectional design (precluding causal inference), reliance on self-report data, and the regional specificity of the sample (Guangdong), suggesting that future longitudinal and multi-regional studies are necessary to confirm these associations.