Educational Expectations and Academic Persistence among Rural Adolescents: The Protective Role of High Self-Esteem

Rural adolescents are at higher risk of reduced academic persistence due to socioeconomic barriers. Educational expectations are theoretically viewed as important for adolescents’ learning behaviors, and cross-sectional research has supported this assumption. However, few longitudinal studies have investigated the influence of educational expectations on adolescents’ academic persistence. In addition, research has not clearly identified whether self-esteem moderates this link among adolescents who experience greater economic risk. Using data from two time points (i.e., six months apart), this study aims to provide a more complete understanding of whether, and under what conditions, rural adolescents’ educational expectations influence academic persistence. The participants consist of 631 adolescents (Mage = 13.34 years at T1), and all the adolescents are from families with rural household registrations. The results show that the interaction term of educational expectations and self-esteem significantly predicts academic persistence. Specifically, after controlling for baseline academic persistence, educational expectations positively predict later academic persistence for rural adolescents with lower self-esteem, and educational expectations do not significantly predict later academic persistence for those with higher self-esteem. This study reveals the protective role of self-esteem in rural adolescents. High self-esteem benefits rural adolescents by protecting them from the effects of lower educational expectations on academic persistence. This finding also emphasizes the importance of developing self-esteem interventions for rural adolescents with low educational expectations to prevent them from experiencing weaker academic persistence.