scholarly journals Late-Stage Educational Inequality: Can Selection on Noncognitive Skills Explain Waning Social Background Effects?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Michael Smith ◽  
Eric Grodsky ◽  
John Robert Warren
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Family Of Origin ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
High School Completion ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Academic Skills ◽  
Noncognitive Skills ◽  
Educational Transitions ◽  
College Entry

Past research finds that the effect of socioeconomic origin on the probability of making educational transitions decreases for successively higher educational transitions, suggesting for example that one’s family of origin matters less for college entry than it does for high school completion. This pattern of waning effects could well be the result of selective attrition, since those of modest social origins who make a given transition may have unobserved characteristics, such as cognitive or noncognitive skills, that help them make the next transition, while better off individuals may be less steeply selected on these characteristics. I study a sample of American 10th graders from 1980 to assess how much the pattern of waning effects is due to selective attrition along academic and noncognitive skills for this cohort. I find that controlling for academic skills makes the effect of socioeconomic status more stable across transitions, but controlling for noncognitive skills does not. Socioeconomic advantage does not decline uniformly across transitions, and it appears most pronounced at the transition into college. These results do not support a claim that late transitions are egalitarian.

scholarly journals Educational Transitions and Educational Inequality: A Multiple Pathways Sequential Logit Model Analysis of Finnish Birth Cohorts 1960–1985

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 700-719
Author(s):  
Juho Härkönen ◽  
Outi Sirniö
Keyword(s):  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Logit Model ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Weighted Sum ◽  
Educational Transitions ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Educational Stratification ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Educational Persistence

Abstract We developed a multiple pathways sequential logit model for analysing social background inequality in completed education and applied it to analyse educational inequality in Finland (birth cohorts 1960–1985). Our model builds on the sequential logit model for educational transitions, originally presented by Robert D. Mare and later extended by Maarten Buis, which disaggregates inequality in completed education into the weighted sum of inequalities in the transitions leading to it. Although the educational transitions framework is popular among educational stratification researchers, its applications have almost exclusively focused on analysing inequalities in separate educational transitions. Buis presented a unifying model of inequalities in educational transitions and completed education, which gives a substantive interpretation to the weights that link them. We applied this to an educational system in which the same educational outcomes can be reached through multiple pathways. Our analysis of Finnish register data shows that intergenerational educational persistence increased, particularly among women. The main reasons are increased inequality in academic upper-secondary (gymnasium) completion and gymnasium expansion that increased the weight of this transition as well as of the transition to university. We discuss the integration of structural and allocative mechanisms in educational stratification research.

Do Well-off Families Compensate for Low Cognitive Ability? Evidence on Social Inequality in Early Schooling from a Twin Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos J. Gil-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
Educational Transitions ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Academic Track ◽  
Early Schooling ◽  
Academic Potential

This article bridges the literature on educational inequality between and within families to test whether high–socioeconomic status (SES) families compensate for low cognitive ability in the transition to secondary education in Germany. The German educational system of early-ability tracking (at age 10) represents a stringent setting for the compensatory hypothesis. Overall, previous literature offers inconclusive findings. Previous research between families suffers from the misspecification of parental SES and ability, while most within-family research did not stratify the analysis by SES or the ability distribution. To address these issues, I draw from the TwinLife study to implement a twin fixed-effects design that minimizes unobserved confounding. I report two main findings. First, highly educated families do not compensate for twins’ differences in cognitive ability at the bottom of the ability distribution. In the German system of early-ability tracking, advantaged families may have more difficulties to compensate than in countries where educational transitions are less dependent on ability. Second, holding parents’ and children’s cognitive ability constant, pupils from highly educated families are 27% more likely to attend the academic track. This result implies wastage of academic potential for disadvantaged families, challenging the role of cognitive ability as the leading criterion of merit for liberal theories of equal opportunity. These findings point to the importance of other factors that vary between families with different resources and explain educational success, such as noncognitive abilities, risk aversion to downward mobility, and teachers’ bias.

Compensatory advantage in educational transitions

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Bernardi ◽  
Moris Triventi
Keyword(s):  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Educational Transitions ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Transition From High School ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Simulated Scenario

In this article, first, we present new evidence on a specific type of compensatory advantage (CA) mechanism in educational transitions and attainment, whereby students from socio-economically advantaged families compensate the negative event of achieving poor grades by ignoring them and disproportionally moving on to the next level of education. Using two independent data sources, we focus on the attainment of an upper secondary degree and the transition from high school to university in Italy, investigating the role of parental education and social class in compensating for an early poor academic performance. Second, we develop a simulated scenario analysis to assess how much of the observed social background inequality is due to the educational outcomes of poorly performing students from high social backgrounds. The results are consistent with the notion that a CA mechanism is in place and show that the advantage of individuals with higher backgrounds over those from lower backgrounds is much larger among students with bad marks in earlier school stages. We estimate that at least one-third of the observed social background inequality in educational transitions in Italy can be attributed to the CA mechanism. This result is consistent across different outcomes, samples and birth cohorts, and is robust to a number of sensitivity checks.

scholarly journals Predicting Postsecondary Pathways: The Effect of Social Background and Academic Factors on Routes through School

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802311989517
Author(s):  
Rebecca L. Boylan
Keyword(s):  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Educational Transitions ◽  
Academic Factors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Educational Pathways ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Educational Careers

Access to institutions of higher education has increased in recent decades; however, increased access has not led to parallel increases in degree completion among all types of students. In this article, I examine the associations between individual-level factors and the particular paths through educational institutions that students follow as they navigate their educational careers. Research on educational pathways has typically examined individual educational “transitions” but failed to examine the full “trajectories” that students experience. Applying optimal matching sequence analysis techniques to the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, I capture the long-term postsecondary educational experiences of respondents across 107 months in early adulthood. Examining how social background factors affect the extent and ordering of postsecondary experiences over this extended period of the life course contributes to our understanding of the ways these factors may influence whole educational careers and provides a holistic counterpart to the more traditional transitions-focused literature.

Social Context Variables Affecting the Implementation of Microcomputers

1987 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn W. McGee
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Elementary Schools ◽  
Social Context ◽  
School Size ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Computer Implementation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Grade Span ◽  
Context Variables

Although technological innovations have been widely adopted in elementary schools, efforts to implement these have generally not been successful. Past research on innovation has largely ignored the social context in which implementation occurs. This research examines how the implementation of the microcomputer is affected by traditional social context variables of socioeconomic status (SES), school size, and grade span as well as by “content specific” social context variables such as the type of computer, the length of time schools have owned computers, and student to computer ratio. Findings from the study of implementation in a random sample of 128 elementary schools indicate that SES and student to computer ratio have a strong, significant impact on the level of computer implementation. SES also interacts with school size and grade span to affect the progress of implementation.

Does College Influence Sociopolitical Attitudes?

2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Campbell ◽  
Jonathan Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
College Completion ◽  
Gender Egalitarianism ◽  
Sociopolitical Attitudes

Past research shows a statistically significant relationship between college completion and sociopolitical attitudes. However, recent scholarship suggests the effects of college on social outcomes may be confounded with unobserved family background. In this study, we leverage the shared family and social background of siblings to better identify the effect of college on sociopolitical attitudes. We draw data from the Study of American Families and General Social Survey and use sibling fixed effects to assess the effect of college on political orientation, support for civil liberties, and beliefs about gender egalitarianism. We find that earning a four-year college degree has a significant impact on support for civil liberties and beliefs about gender egalitarianism, but the effect of college on political orientation is confounded by family background.

Education Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 592-613
Author(s):  
Héctor Cebolla-Boado
Keyword(s):  
Education System ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Training Programmes

In the European context, Spain is a late modernizer, which experienced a delayed educational expansion. However, after 1970, and especially after the restoration of democracy in 1978, the Spanish education system completed its expansion and modernized significantly, converging with its neighbours on most outcomes related to the quality of education. Notwithstanding remarkable levels of stability of institutional design and framework policies, it is widely believed that education in Spain is subject to constant political reforms. This is partly explained by the frequent use of education in political and electoral debates, and, particularly, by the overrepresentation in public debates of a limited repertoire of normative and organizational aspects of educational policies. While the current education system in Spain has achieved a high level of quality combined with low levels of educational inequality by social background when compared with other developed countries, there are secular problems that need to be addressed, particularly the reform of teacher selection, training programmes, and careers; modernization of school curricula; adaptation of pedagogical innovations; rationalization of retakes; and diversification of tracks to offer less successful students an alternative and prevent early dropout. This chapter describes this transformation and problematizes key educational reforms in Spain, focusing on the democratic period, using different international datasets including PISA (OECD, several years), PIACC (OECD 2016), TIMSS, and PIRLS (IEA, several years), the European Social Survey as well as several national sources of data including the Spanish General Social Survey (CIS 2013) and the Labour Force Survey (several years).

Personality and Socioeconomic Status Over the Adult Working Years

2018 ◽  
pp. 394-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin P. Chapman ◽  
Ari Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Family Of Origin ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Socioeconomic Indicators ◽  
Adult Life Span ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Using Data

Measuring the interrelationship of personality and socioeconomic status (SES) over the adult life span is crucial in assessing how—or if—personality traits are involved in SES health differentials. Using data from Midlife in the United States cohort members of working age throughout a 16- to 17-year period, we studied the reciprocal relationship between personality traits and SES. Results indicated that standing on socioeconomic indicators was heavily shaped by both family of origin SES and education, with small positive associations of Openness and Conscientiousness and negative associations of Neuroticism and Agreeableness with SES indicators at subsequent waves. Results revealed small associations between socioeconomic factors and future Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Openness. Continuity in SES and personality dwarfed reciprocal influences. Findings suggest that any major selection effects of personality on SES occur prior to midlife, and that family of origin SES and education are common links to both adult SES and personality.

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