About

OUR HISTORY

Southeast University in Nanjing, China, reached out to collaborate with the Applied Psychology Department at New York University. Having lived briefly in Nanjing, Dr. Niobe Way was interested. Nanjing's status as a rapidly changing second-tier city in China made it a unique location to investigate how context could affect parents and children over time. The Chinese Families Lab was born.
Since 2005, the Chinese Families Lab has been collecting data on context (e.g., workplace environment, school environment, family relationships, friendships), beliefs and practices (e.g., friendship practices, masculinity, gender roles), and wellbeing (e.g., self-esteem, depression). Through surveys, semi-structured interviews, teacher ratings, and parent-child observation, our data set has the potential to give a well-rounded view of how Chinese context affects parents and children.

Adolescents (7th grade, first year in middle school)
We collected data from adolescents and their parents when adolescents were in 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th grade.

Infants (6-month old)
We collected data from children and their parents when the children were 6-, 14-, and 24-month, 4-, 7-, 10-, and 15-year old.