How Socio-economic Status Affects Academic Performance

A Study of Education Inequality in Junior High School Students in China Based on a Structural Equation Model

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210519.255How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Socio-economic status, academic performance, structural equation model, China

Abstract

As social stratification has deepened in contemporary Chinese society, educational capital and academic performance in secondary education have differentiated according to students’ socio-economic status. Most of the existing studies on the relationship between family background and children’s academic achievement focus on the impact of a student’s family background on the final level of education achieved, but education acquisition is a continuous process. Without an analysis of the educational process, it is difficult to understand the process mechanism by which family background affects children’s educational opportunity. By using data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this paper studies the paths and effects of students’ socio-economic status on their academic performance. Through modelling latent variables (socio-economic status, academic performance) with fourteen observed variables in a sample size of approximately 7,000 junior high school students around China, this study found that: first, families use their socio-economic resources to provide children with different educational resources and thus influence their academic performance; second, through parents’ educational participation and behavioural support, families develop children’s learning attitudes and habits, thus influencing their academic achievements. The findings of this paper provide a possible basis for reducing class differences in children’s academic achievements and promoting educational equity.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuchen Jiang
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/05/20
TI  - How Socio-economic Status Affects Academic Performance
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1299
EP  - 1310
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210519.255
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210519.255
ID  - Jiang2021
ER  -