Associations Between Student Leadership Experiences and Maladjustment Trajectories Among Chinese Children: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study

The student leadership system is a prominent feature of Chinese public schools that assigns formal leadership roles to student at school (e.g., school leaders responsible for organizing school events), class (class leaders responsible for monitoring classroom daily routines), and group (e.g., small group leaders responsible for collecting and distributing daily homework) levels. This study examined the co-occurring associations between children’s student leadership trajectories and their maladjustment (internalizing, externalizing, and learning problems) trajectories with 1248 Han-ethnic primary-school students (M_age=8.50 years, SD = 0.26; 51% boys) using a 5-wave longitudinal design. Four student leadership trajectories emerged: Stable High, Stable Low, Increasing, and Decreasing. Children in the Stable High group had the fewest internalizing, externalizing, and learning problems, whereas those in the Stable Low group had the highest. Compared to girls, boys were more likely to benefit from leadership experiences, as reflected in their decreased internalizing and externalizing problems when their leadership roles increased over time. However, girls with stable high student leadership were more likely to experience increased internalizing problems than boys. Together, these findings highlight the nuanced implications of student leadership experiences in Chinese primary schools.