Examining the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Academic Achievement

Background/Context It is well established in the research literature that socioeconomically disadvantaged students and schools do less well on standardized measures of academic achievement compared with their more advantaged peers. Although studies in numerous countries have shown that the socioeconomic profile of a school is strongly correlated with student outcomes, less is understood about how the relationship may vary if both individual student and school socioeconomic status (SES) are disaggregated. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study examines the relationship between school SES and student outcomes in more detail by asking two research questions. First, how does the association vary for students of different socioeconomic backgrounds? In other words, is the association stronger for students from lower SES backgrounds than for students from higher SES backgrounds? Second, how does the association vary across schools with different socioeconomic compositions? In other words, are increases in school socioeconomic composition consistently associated with increases in student academic achievement? Population/Participants/Subjects This study uses data from the Australian 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The sample includes over 320 secondary schools and more than 12,000 students from Australia. Research Design This study is a secondary analysis of data from the Australian 2003 PISA. Descriptive statistics are used to compare the average reading, mathematics, and science achievement of secondary school students from different SES backgrounds in a variety of school SES contexts. Conclusions The two main findings of the study are that increases in the mean SES of a school are associated with consistent increases in students’ academic achievement, and that this relationship is similar for all students regardless of their individual SES. In the Australian case, the socio-economic composition of the school matters greatly in terms of students’ academic performance.

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The Relationship Between Intelligence and Divorce

Journal of Family Issues ◽

10.1177/0192513x06291887 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 27 (12) ◽

pp. 1723-1748 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Paul Holley ◽

Scott Yabiku ◽

Mary Benin

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Special Interest ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Direct Influence ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Family Behavior ◽

Crime And Delinquency ◽

Divorce Rates ◽

The Relationship

Intelligence has long been a topic of special interest to social scientists, but research that involves intelligence as a predictor of behavior usually focuses on domains such as crime and delinquency, academic achievement, and socioeconomic status. In this article, the authors address this gap in the literature and develop a theoretical framework to hypothesize why intelligence may be related to an important family behavior: divorce. The authors propose three hypotheses in terms of ascribed statuses, achieved statuses, and direct mechanisms, each of which could potentially explain the relationship between intelligence and divorce. The results are consistent with a direct influence of intelligence on divorce, net of ascribed and achieved statuses. The authors conclude by explaining the observed effect on divorce rates through three distinct but interrelated aspects of intelligence: direction, adaptation, and criticism.

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The Relationship of School Absenteeism With Body Mass Index, Academic Achievement, and Socioeconomic Status Among Fourth-Grade Children

Journal of School Health ◽

10.1111/j.1746-1561.2011.00610.x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 81 (7) ◽

pp. 417-423 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Suzanne D. Baxter ◽

Julie A. Royer ◽

James W. Hardin ◽

Caroline H. Guinn ◽

Christina M. Devlin

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Body Mass Index ◽

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Body Mass ◽

Fourth Grade ◽

School Absenteeism ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

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Family Socioeconomic Status, Educational Expectations, and Academic Achievement Among Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrant Adolescents: The Protective Role of Subjective Socioeconomic Status

The Journal of Early Adolescence ◽

10.1177/0272431620983459 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 027243162098345

Author(s):

Yi Ren ◽

Feng Zhang ◽

Ying Jiang ◽

Silin Huang

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Protective Factor ◽

Educational Expectations ◽

Family Socioeconomic Status ◽

Urban Migrant ◽

Migrant Adolescents ◽

The Relationship ◽

Subjective Ses ◽

Family Ses

The adverse impact of a low family socioeconomic status (SES) on rural-to-urban migrant children’s academic achievement has been widely demonstrated. However, knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying this relationship is limited. The current study aimed to examine the potential mediating effects of educational expectations and the moderating effects of subjective SES on the relationship between family SES and academic achievement among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents. A sample of 321 rural-to-urban migrant adolescents (48.2% girls; mean age = 11.73 years, SD = 1.16 years) was recruited in China. The results indicated that migrant adolescents’ educational expectations mediated the relationship between family SES and academic achievement. In addition, the link between family SES and educational expectations was weak among adolescents with higher levels of subjective SES. These findings suggest that subjective SES serves as a protective factor buffering the negative effects of a low family SES on migrant adolescents’ academic achievement through educational expectations.

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Qualitative insights into the relationship between socioeconomic status and students’ academic achievement goals

Social Psychology of Education ◽

10.1007/s11218-018-9442-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 787-803

Author(s):

Nathan Berger ◽

Jennifer Archer

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Achievement Goals ◽

The Relationship

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The Influence of Foreign-born Population on Immigrant and Native-born Students’ Academic Achievement

Socius Sociological Research for a Dynamic World ◽

10.1177/2378023119845252 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 237802311984525 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Florencia Silveira ◽

Mikaela J. Dufur ◽

Jonathan A. Jarvis ◽

Kristie J. Rowley

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Socioeconomic Status ◽

International Student ◽

Immigrant Students ◽

Student Assessment ◽

Immigrant Status ◽

Foreign Born ◽

International Student Assessment ◽

Country Level ◽

The Relationship

With recent increases in international migration, some political and academic narratives argue for limiting migration because of possible negative effects on the host country. Among other outcomes, these groups argue that immigrant students have an impact on education, negatively affecting native-born students’ academic performance. The authors contextualize the relationship between immigrant status and academic achievement by considering a macro social setting: country-level foreign-born population. The authors examine achievement from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment in 41 high-income countries. The authors use within- and cross-level interactions to examine (1) the relationship between immigrant status and academic achievement, (2) the moderating effect of student socioeconomic status on achievement, and (3) how country-level foreign-born population affects both immigrant and native-born students’ performance. The findings indicate that immigrant students perform similarly to native-born students when considering other contextual factors, with socioeconomic status moderating the effect of immigrant status. Furthermore, all students, immigrant and nonimmigrant students alike, benefit academically from more immigration.

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