Chinese migrant children’s mental health and career efficacy: the roles of mentoring relationship quality and self-efficacy

The current study aimed to examine whether migrant children’s relationship quality with mentors could make unique contributions in predicting their mental health and career efficacy, above and beyond the prediction from their relationship quality with parents. Based on social cognitive theory, it was also proposed that migrant children’s self-efficacy beliefs may mediate the positive effects of mentoring relationship quality on career efficacy and mental health. A survey study was conducted among Chinese migrant children (n=114) who joined a mentorship program in Beijing, China. The results showed that after controlling for the effects of parent relationship quality, mentoring relationship quality made a unique contribution in predicting migrant children’s career efficacy and mental health. In addition, path analysis revealed that the positive effects of mentoring relationship quality were fully mediated by children’s self-efficacy beliefs. These results revealed the importance of a mentor-mentee relationship in migrant children’ personal growth and provided preliminary evidence on the mechanisms underlying this process.