How does socioeconomic status affect education

An index of status characteristics proposed by Warner et al. Compared with data on schooling years, diploma data are relatively easy to collect because many students, especially those in lower grades, may not know or be able to calculate the number of years their parents have attended school.

This may lead to missing or artificial data. The prestige of an occupation can be measured based directly on the occupational classification. However, this method tends to leave out new occupations and fails to reflect the class differentiation within one occupation.

Another method is to require students to describe the occupation and job category and then have coders categorize the occupations and assign them values according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations ISCO , which was formulated by the International Labor Organization. Despite consuming more money and time, the second method can achieve more accuracy and higher validity than simply gathering occupation information from students. There are 81 occupations that received a score ranged from 9.

The measurement of income, which seems easy, is difficult to conduct in practical situations such as this one. The most direct method is to ask students or their parents to report monthly or annual income. However, many people are reluctant to disclose the real amount of their income, especially in Chinese culture, where income is widely considered a private matter. In addition, hidden income and income mobility might undermine data authenticity.

Another measuring method that has been widely used in multiple studies is to ask students to report their family property. Does your family own a car, a truck or a van? How many computers are there in your family? How often has your family traveled during the past 12 months? The Programme for International Student Assessment PISA requires students to report the type and amount of electrical equipment in their home, the number of cars in the family, housing conditions, bathing conditions, and so forth.

This method was also used in empirical research with a Chinese cultural background Ren and Xin, In this paper, we adopted the second method. With the aim to better represent or easily distinguish the family economic conditions, taking the practical situation in China into consideration, we chose equipment such as TV, refrigerator, home ownership, car, washing machine, air conditioner, and computers as indicators of the index. The measuring index of academic achievement functions as another moderator variable.

In the educational context, academic achievement can be measured not only by a general index such as GPA or IQ but also by a specific index such as language and math scores. We proposed an operational definition and measuring framework of reading ability based on well-known pre-existing measuring programs i. Given that the form and the content of reading materials are two important influencing factors, we set three different conditions: reading literary texts, reading continuous information texts, and reading non-continuous information texts.

We investigated three different reading abilities reflected during the reading procedure: retrieving and inferencing, integrating and interpreting, and evaluating and reflecting.

The form of reading material refers to how a text is organized, that is, continuous text or non-continuous text. The content of reading material refers to the type of information transmitted, that is, literary text or informational text. Therefore, combining the two forms and two types of content would result in four pairs. Accordingly, three reading situations were adopted in this study.

The first condition was reading literary texts; the test material included fairy tales, fables, fiction, or prose. The second condition was reading continuous informational texts; the test material included introductions and explanatory texts such as expositions, scientific essays, and argumentations. The third condition was reading non-continuous informational texts; the test material mainly included practical texts such as graphs, tables, and advertisements. Three kinds of reading ability were examined: retrieving and inferencing, integrating and interpreting, and evaluating and reflecting.

Retrieving and inferencing involves retrieving explicit information and making simple inferences from it. Integrating and interpreting involves forming an overall perception and initial summary of the article and then inferring and explaining the implicit information within it. Evaluating and reflecting requires readers, with pertinent background information, to think critically regarding the content and form of the reading material.

By far, there are a number of research have discussed the relationship between SES and reading ability in both Chinese and western cultural background Hoff, ; Noble et al. However, they paid less attention to the internal mechanism of the relationship.

Additionally, there are some deficiencies in the measurement of SES and reading ability in these studies. To achieve this goal, we adopted an SES index suited to the Chinese context and estimated reading ability using the item response theory IRT technique.

Many studies have made discoveries regarding the relationship between SES and reading ability Hoff, ; Noble et al. They found that SES contributed to variance in phonological skills and vocabulary in the early developmental stages. A longitudinal study conducted by Su et al. The results indicated that family SES and parent—child reading engagement were associated with literacy skills. Wen et al. The mediating variables of child, family, and school characteristics may be substantial channels for the influence of SES on academic achievement Sirin, Based on an integration of results from studies of preschool, primary, and grade school children, Hess and Holloway identified that the relation between parents and children is one of the important variables linking socioeconomic factors to school achievement.

Family SES is a reflection of the social and economic resources that parents can provide Bradley and Corwyn, According to the family stress model, parents in low SES families face more financial pressure and emotional exhaustion, which are associated with low income and self-efficacy Conger and Donnellan, This may cause parents to use negative, unkind strategies to get along with their children and result in an undesirable parent—child relationship McLoyd, ; Conger et al.

The undesirable relationship may deprive children of advantageous psychological circumstances that benefit their cognitive development.

By contrast, parents in high SES families have much more time, energy and knowledge about education, and they are inclined to express more warmth and affection in order to cultivate a favorable parent—child relationship Kraus et al. Positive parent—child interactions or relationships have been found to be correlated with good reading ability development Chan, Lau and Leung found that better relationships with parents and school peers lead to higher academic performance, including higher class rank, higher final exam scores, and higher scores in Chinese, English, mathematics, physical education, and music.

This is because in a favorable relationship, parents devote more attention to educating their children and show more enthusiasm, which can provide children emotional support and in turn enhance their academic performance and reading ability.

The influence of SES on academic achievement is not the same for all children. Moderating variables, including demographic variables such as grade, age, and race, and external supporting variables such as family, school, and community, is most often discussed White, ; Bradley and Corwyn, ; Sirin, From the academic resilience perspective Arellano and Padilla, , although academic risk factors can block academic development, resilience factors such as learning motivation help children overcome risk factors Alfaro et al.

Some evidence has shown that learning motivation plays a moderating role in the relation between academic performance and certain personal variables, especially intrinsic motivation, which occurs when individuals engage in activities based on interests and enjoyment Ryan and Deci, ; Spinath and Steinmayr, The abovementioned personal variables also include learning experience, test anxiety, and psychological distress Salami, ; Ning and Downing, ; Khalaila, Another study found that intrinsic motivation explained more variance in the reading performance of low ability readers than that of high-ability readers Logan et al.

The results of this study indicated that children with low reading skill who had higher intrinsic motivation tended to persevere more in developing their abilities, but those who had lower intrinsic motivation tended more to abandon the effort to learn. Likewise, low SES is also an undesirable condition, and motivation might moderate the relationship between SES and reading ability because the role of motivation may be more crucial for low SES children than for high SES children.

Recently, Kim et al. Based on interviews with 48 respondents, they found that students of poorer parents were more motivated to gain upward mobility through academic achievement. They may want to change their current situation more urgently than students who are better off, and they may think that it will be easier to do so if they study harder and do better at school.

In other words, family SES influences individual success differently according to the motivation. Children with similar family SES may not have the same academic achievement. We proposed that such discrepancies may be caused by the different levels of learning motivation among children.

We assumed that for students with strong motivation, the influence of SES on reading ability is weakened. However, for students with weak motivation, the influence of SES through the mediating variable is strengthened. Based on the previous literature e.

We used a cluster random sampling method to recruit middle-school students in grades 8 from 11 schools in Beijing and Guangzhou to participate in our study. All participants provided their oral informed consent before completing the measures.

The data were collected and analyzed anonymously. This definition has been widely used in the academic research, and the present study used it to measure family SES. Student reports of the amount of family property, which included purchased houses, cars, air conditioners, computers, etc.

The factor analysis showed that these indexes belonged to a factor, and the accumulated variance contribution rate was The factor score obtained was taken as the raw score of family property. Ultimately, we transformed the raw score of the three indexes into a standard score and summed them into composite SES points.

One of the major advantages is that the estimates of test item parameters e. In CTT, item parameters depend on a representative sample from the target population Embretson, For example, item difficulty is defined in terms of the scores obtained by examinees taking a test.

When examinees have low ability, the test will appear to be difficult, and when examinees have high ability, the test will appear to be easy. By contrast, in IRT, examinee ability and test difficulty are described by monotonically increasing functions called item characteristic curves ICC. These curves describe how changes in ability level relate to changes in the probability of a correct response, and they are determined by one or more item and ability parameters.

As a result, an IRT-based test yields unbiased estimates of item properties and provides valuable insight into the role of test difficulty in reading scores because the researchers developing reading tests generally do not have ready access to representative samples. Because of its psychometric properties, an IRT-based comprehension test may provide a better measure of comprehension than tests used in prior research. We proposed the measuring framework of reading ability and developed an original item bank accordingly.

The original item bank, containing 38 texts and test items, was designed and developed by an expert panel. After a pilot test conducted with grade 8 subjects recruited in Guangzhou City, another group of experts retained 25 texts and questions.

Then, the remaining items were distributed by following a balanced incomplete block design see Table 1. Ten booklets, each containing 26 items, were designed so that any participant could complete a booklet in less than 60 min. As a result, some items were removed from the item bank. Finally, valid questions were retained. IRT analysis was conducted for all remaining items. Using the 2PL model, item discrimination parameters a and item difficulty parameters b were estimated.

Item difficulty b ranged from Item discrimination a ranged from 0. We adopted the Parent—child Relationship Scale Hair et al. The results showed that the scale had a one-dimensional structure.

Eight indexes had high loading on one factor and explained Then, we performed confirmatory factor analysis CFA with the other half of the participants.

The factor loadings of every item were between 0. We adopted the Learning Motivation Scale Cheng et al. This scale contains four dimensions: challenge, engagement, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation. CFA with the other half of the participants showed that the factor loadings of every item were between 0.

We adopted a paper-pencil test and took the class as a group. Each participant received a pack of test questions, which included two parts of the reading test a total of 26 questions and a background questionnaire. The time allotted for the test was divided into two periods with a break between them. We used a balancing technique: half of the participants did the reading test first, and the other half did the background questionnaires first. The participants were allocated to these conditions randomly.

First, we used the expectation—maximization algorithm to handle missing data in SPSS. Then, we tested hypothetical models using path analysis in Mplus with maximum likelihood estimation. The results of the descriptive statistics are shown in Table 2. We can see that family SES, the parent—child relationship, and learning motivation were all positively correlated with reading ability.

The reading scores of males were significantly lower than those of females. Thus, we controlled for the gender factor in the following model test to decrease the spurious effect. Here, we conducted an independent-samples T test to compare the mean differences between students from Beijing and students from Guangzhou on all variables.

According to the test method of the moderated mediation model Baron and Kenny, ; Wen et al. The model Model 1 was a saturated model. Its fit was acceptable in a simple regression model without considering latent variables.

The R 2 of reading ability was 0. Learning motivation played a moderating role between SES and reading ability. Second, based on Model 1, we tested the moderation effect of learning motivation on the first stage i.

The R 2 of the parent—child relationship was 0. The results indicated that learning motivation did not have a moderation effect between SES and reading ability on the first stage or the second stage. Finally, based on Model 2, we removed the interaction effect of learning motivation on the first stage and the second stage from the model.

That is, we considered only the moderation effect of learning motivation on the direct effect. The mediation effect of the parent—child relationship was 0. The direct effects of SES on reading ability differed according to the change in the learning motivation level. The results of simple slope test Dearing and Hamilton, showed that the slope of high motivation was higher than that for low motivation Figure 1.

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Schmidt, W. The role of schooling in perpetuating educational inequality: an international perspective. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to Sue Thomson. Publisher's note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Reprints and Permissions. Achievement at school and socioeconomic background—an educational perspective. Download citation. A family's financial status influences a number of factors that can help or hinder a child in gaining an education. Wealthy families have the financial resources to send a son or daughter to high-quality schools, hire tutors and obtain supplemental education sources.

In some countries, students from low-income families may not even be able to attend school; in the U. Financial stress on the parents can cause a child to leave school early to work. Worries about financial hardship at home can negatively affect low-income children's ability to learn. Parents' education level directly correlates to the importance and influence of education in their children's lives.

Educated parents can assess a son or daughter's academic strengths and weaknesses to help that child improve overall academic performance. The educated parent also sets expectations of academic performance that propel students forward in their achievement levels. However, even if educated, parents who struggled academically and do not think highly of formalized education may have negative attitudes toward education that can still hinder the child academically.