The influence of students background on school attainment

In the following I set out to review articles dealing with the relationship between the background of students and their attainment levels. The articles reviewed here discuss the background factors which account for the differences in academic achievement between American or Australian and Far Eastern students, by comparing results of the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) for students of these countries. Mathematics is a proper basis for comparison as it is not as much culture dependent like language learning, thus it is an appropriate approach to the universal issue of learning and student background general terms. As a result, hopefully we can draw conclusions which are also relevant in Hungary and devise methods which can also be applied for Hungarian students. It is common knowledge that the background of students has a significant influence on their school attainment level, yet a careful scrutiny is necessary to establish which aspects of the background of students have a key role in contributing to the students academic achievement. Marjoribanks (Marjoribanks, 2004) investigates the relationship between the students backgrounds, their individual characteristics and their academic, affective and social outcomes. He introduces a moderation-mediation model based on Bourdieus theory of the social trajectory of individuals and Colemans concept of opportunity structures. According to the model, the relationships among adolescents family and school capital, individual characteristics and young adults outcomes are moderated by family background, while social capital mediates the effects of family background on young adults outcomes. The aim of the study is to examine whether family background differences can be explained by differences in learning environments and individual characteristics and, whether the relationship between this is different for students of different backgrounds. The survey was carried out among year 9 and 10 and 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds, the variables measured were family background composed of family social status and family ethnicity, social capital, both that of the family and the school. Intervening variables were individual characteristics comprising academic achievement, academic self-concept, educational aspirations and self confidence, and outcomes encompassing educational attainment, subjective well-being and social engagement. The results showed that in earlier attainment for Asian families social status does not have as significant influence on attainment than for other young adults, their aspirations

were less influenced by changes in attainment, as they indifferently displayed high aspirations. in the case of later educational attainment the results were similar in that Asian young adults still had higher attainment scores than Anglo-Australians. Moreover, Asians scored higher in social engagement. However, results for subjective well-being were quite the opposite, Anglo-Australian young adults scored above the mean for the sample, while Asians were below the average, in addition students who scored high on attainment were less satisfied in general, which is probably caused by high expectations of the students. In his analysis Marjoribanks draws attention to the distinction between withinfamily social capital and between-family social capital, the first referring to the support of the parents, the second encompassing the relationships between families and educational institutions and the community, which together with the high prestige of education, account for the higher scores of Asian students in academic achievement. Marjoribanks suggests that between-family practices, like the sharing of resources for the education of children, their support, encouragement and solidarity of the community, should be integrated into student-family programs, because they are a significant factor for the development and achievement of the students. Yet another issue to be dealt with is the relationship between lower scores of Asian students on subjective wellbeing and the high expectations of their parents. Wang (Wang 2004) compares the results of Chinese seventh and eighth grade students from Hong Kong and US students on mathematics achievement in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to find out whether the better results of Hong Kong students can be accounted for by background factors, how they are related to mathematics achievement and finally if they are equally related for both Hong Kong and US students. Earlier research highlighted the differences in family values between Chinese and US student, namely that Chinese parents have higher aspirations, they themselves have high attainment levels and are able to help their children, moreover they encourage extra learning outside the class. In addition, they are more likely to employ authoritarian parenting style, they attribute their childrens failure to lack of effort and consider education very important. On the other hand, US parents can generally be characterized by having authoritative parenting styles, and they express satisfaction more frequently. These aspects of family background contribute to the academic achievement of the students, and may provide an explanation for the significantly higher scores Hong Kong

students have, as their backgrounds are quite different in many aspects. US parents had higher education and provided their children with more study aids, while Hong Kong parents offered a traditional family environment, a different set of values showing a preference for their children entering high-achieving classes, for which aim they were willing to cut down their free time and encourage them to take extracurricular lessons. On comparing the results of Hong Kong and US students the factors which contributed to higher scores of the students were mainly related to the family. Hong Kong students were advantaged in eight family background areas, while US students in only three, in addition, Hong Kong students had lower scores in areas which hinder school achievement, like watching TV or playing computer games. The factors which were perceived as beneficial for the students performance were living with birth parents, the specific expectation from the mother to go to high-achieving classes and spending extra time to study, and those that hindered their performance were TV time, school high absenteeism rate and skipping school. On the whole the factors which were beneficial for all students were higher expectations from parents, being assigned to high achieving classes, study aids, and living with birth parents. Hong Kong students who mostly live in traditional families, who are expected to perform well at school were to a certain degree in a privileged situation compared to US students with respect to school achievement in mathematics. The relevance of this study for schools and teachers lays in help it can offer in planning the extracurricular activities for students to help them manage their time and balance their school-related and extracurricular tasks and academic and non-academic activities. For US students, who spend more time watching TV or playing computer games, parents are advised to limit TV viewing and help them with their homework or encourage their children to take part in after school programs, and indicate the value of learning and schooling. The article of Susan Paik (Paik 2004) similarly deals with the reasons behind students from the East Asia, in this case Korea, outperforming US students. She also underlines the importance of family background factors and the Confucian ethic, which advocates the importance of the family and education, thus Koreans have a high respect for education, and even the government supports school-family-community partnerships. Besides, Korean students spend more time studying in school and out of school than students of most countries.

The research is based on TIMSS surveys and focuses on aptitude, instruction and environment, motivation, quality of instruction, quantity of instruction, classroom climate, home environment, peers and TV viewing and out of school time. Korean students performed significantly better in mathematics than US students did, still US students had higher self-esteem. The quantity of instruction was also significantly higher for Korean students which supported the fact that they spend more time studying in school and out of school, and also there are less behavioral problems with Korean students. Furthermore, even though they watch a lot of TV, Korean students watch more educational programs. The results show that the Curriculum of the Home was the most significant variable influencing students achievements, for instance living with a birth mother or father lead to gaining better scores for students. Although US parents were found to be more educated and offered more study tools, Korean students spent more time studying, took extra classes and they were also more motivated and have well-determined goals which is one of the main reasons for their success. The Korean educational system operating similarly to a family, and its being in close relationship with the family and the community make it truly efficient, it constitutes a model that is worth following. In conclusion, the high performances of East Asian students can be accounted for by the supportive family, and also community background, which helps them make up for their social or economic disadvantages. The high expectations of their families makes them extremely motivated, yet at many times they are not as satisfied with their achievements as US students who perform well, but probably receive more positive feedback from their families. However, the models which East Asian countries offer have a wide range of benefits which makes them worth considering as possible alternatives for helping our students perform better. For instance, family-school-community partnerships could have a major impact on childrens and their parents attitudes towards learning and school in general, which could make them more motivated in learning, and respectively aiding the learning process, and also improve their self-image. Through such partnerships parents, teachers and any member of the community could help students by sharing their resources and offering support to students, thus making use of their social capital and also expanding it even further by creating a more complex network of valuable relationships among each other.