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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1473007
This article is part of the Research Topic Culture and Emotion in Educational Dynamics - Volume III View all 6 articles
The Effects of Gender, Age and Region on Rural Teachers' Professional Honor: An Empirical Analysis of Survey Data from Seven Provinces in China
Provisionally accepted- 1 Shandong University of Aeronautics, Binzhou, China
- 2 Yancheng Institute of Technology, Yancheng, Jiangsu, China
- 3 University of Bath, Bath, England, United Kingdom
Professional honor is a critical factor shaping the recruitment and retention of teachers in rural China. This study examines the influence of demographic factors—gender, age, and region—on professional honor among 1,320 rural teachers across seven Chinese provinces. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the reliability of the professional honor scale was established (χ²/df = 6.249; RMSEA = 0.063). Comparative analyses revealed significant differences: female teachers reported higher levels of professional honor than their male counterparts; teachers in the Eastern Region exhibited greater professional honor than those in the Western Region; and teachers aged 31–40 displayed the lowest professional honor among all age groups. A multiple regression analysis identified gender, age, and region as significant predictors of professional honor, with gender moderating the relationship between public professional honor (PuPH) and personal professional honor (PePH). These findings have significant implications for addressing challenges in rural teacher prestige, including workforce feminization, age-related dynamics, and teacher migration from Western to Eastern regions. Recommendations are proposed to mitigate these challenges and enhance teacher retention in rural schools
Keywords: Rural Teacher, professional honor, professional identity, sense of professional honor, teacher feminization, Age crisis, Teacher turnover
Received: 30 Aug 2024; Accepted: 11 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Zhang and Sandoval-Hernandez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yuyi Chen, Shandong University of Aeronautics, Binzhou, China
Andres Sandoval-Hernandez, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, England, United Kingdom
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