Dormitory Architecture and Emotional Well-Being of Left-Behind Children: Evidence from a Rural Boarding School in Central China

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_4How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Left-behind children; Dormitory spatial environment; Residential well-being

Abstract

In China, boarding schools in remote regions have become the primary living and learning environments for millions of left-behind children. Yet little is known about how dormitory environments influence their residential well-being. This study examines newly constructed dormitory buildings at H School, a large public boarding school in the mountainous areas of central China, to understand how dormitory architectural design shapes students’ living comfort, adaptability, daily experiences, and overall well-being. The findings indicate that the new dormitory facilities substantially improve students’ basic living conditions, including infrastructure quality, spatial scale, and circulation flow. At the same time, management routines, fixed bed allocations, and inspection procedures constrain students’ autonomy, making the adaptation process challenging for some. Therefore, enhancing children’s agency within personal spaces, adopting more inclusive management practices, and incorporating semi-private and restorative micro-spaces can help strengthen emotional comfort and psychological resilience.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Tianhong Yan
AU  - Xiaoping Wang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - Dormitory Architecture and Emotional Well-Being of Left-Behind Children: Evidence from a Rural Boarding School in Central China
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 12th International Conference on Digital Humanities and Frontiers in Social Sciences (DHFSS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 27
EP  - 33
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_4
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_4
ID  - Yan2026
ER  -