Household Social Composition and Academic Performance in Primary School
Univariate and Multivariate Effects of Family Occupation and Education in Europe
Supporting Agencies
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
Abstract
Studies linking inequality in educational achievement to social inequality often use parental occupation and educational attainment, but considering only the highest value of one parent for both variables. This approach masks the household joint effect, limiting the range of variability in performance. The aim of this study is to analyse the aggregate effect of household social composition on educational outcomes. We will examine the combined effect of the occupational and educational level of both parents on student performance in Maths and reading and assess the improvement in the explained variance compared to solely considering the highest occupational or educational level of one parent. Data come from TIMSS-2019 (maths) and PIRLS-2021 (reading), with two samples of 57,735 and 69,849 4th grade students from 12 European countries. One- and two-way ANOVA models were estimated to identify the effects of household occupational and educational conditions, and their interaction, on educational performance. The results indicate that the significant variation in performance is higher when both parents are considered, for either education or occupation, as well as when both variables are included in the two-way model. The inclusion of the household aggregate effect reveals greater inequality in student performance between more disadvantaged households, with lower cultural (related to education) and material (related to occupation and income) resources, and more socioeconomically advantaged households, with more resources. We argue that the household represents more accurately the effects of inequality of educational opportunity on students with lower socio-economic and cultural resources.
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