Social trust/mistrust is closely related to individual well-being and happiness. School transition is challenging because students adjust themselves to a new environment with new teachers and peers. Teachers and peers become more important social elements and the roles of parents also change in early adolescence. Surprisingly, social mistrust is less studied at the adolescent level in a specific cultural context, where new social groups are forming rapidly under different school systems and cultural perceptions. Therefore, this project aims to investigate how student's social mistrust associates with their school behaviors and interpersonal relationships (i.e., parent-child, teacher-student, and peer relationships) from primary to secondary schools in two different countries: China and the Netherlands.  

This project is part of the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC).