Academic Success Across the Transition from Primary to Secondary Schooling Among Lower-Income Adolescents: Understanding the Effects of Family Resources and Gender

Abstract

Successful academic performance during adolescence is a key predictor of lifetime achievement, including occupational and social success. The present study investigated the important transition from primary to secondary schooling during early adolescence, when academic performance among youth often declines. The goal of the study was to understand how risk factors, specifically lower family resources and male gender, threaten academic success following this "critical transition" in schooling. The study involved a longitudinal examination of the predictors of academic performance in grades 7-8 among 127 (56 % girls) French-speaking Quebec (Canada) adolescents from lower-income backgrounds. As hypothesized based on transition theory, hierarchical regression analyses showed that supportive parenting and specific academic, social and behavioral competencies (including spelling ability, social skills, and lower levels of attention problems) predicted success across this transition among at-risk youth. Multiple-mediation procedures demonstrated that the set of compensatory factors fully mediated the negative impact of lower family resources on academic success in grades 7-8. Unique mediators (social skills, spelling ability, supportive parenting) also were identified. In addition, the "gender gap" in performance across the transition could be attributed statistically to differences between boys and girls in specific competencies observed prior to the transition, as well as differential parenting (i.e., support from mother) towards girls and boys. The present results contribute to our understanding of the processes by which established risk factors, such as low family income and gender impact development and academic performance during early adolescence. These "transitional" processes and subsequent academic performance may have consequences across adolescence and beyond, with an impact on lifetime patterns of achievement and occupational success.

Breaking Up the Vicious Cycle of Poverty: How Can the School Performance of Children from Low-Income Households in Macedonia Be Improved?

“…These usually include gender, age of the student, race/ethnicity etc. Most studies find that females perform better than males (Casillas et al, 2012;Legewie and DiPrete, 2012;Livaditis et al, 2003;Serbin, Stack and Kingdon, 2013) and usually consider being male a risk factor for low performance. Still, some studies find that boys can also outperform girls, usually in math and science (for instance, Feinstein and Symons, 1999), or that gender is insignificant in explaining the differences in school performance (Sandilands et al, 2014).…”

“…Many authors find a strong relationship between parental involvement (PI) and school achievement of children, arguing that it can remedy any negative effects from income (Jeynes, 2005;Bouchamma, Lapointe and Richard, 2007;Shute et al, 2011;Porumbu and Necşoi, 2013;Serbin, Stack and Kingdon, 2013). Singh et al (1995) distinguish between four groups of PI: parental aspiration, parent-child communication, home structure (such as discipline and rules), and parental involvement in school activities.…”

“…Hence, children who are either left out of school or who underperform in school present not only a lost developmental potential for the society, but also suffer large individual losses (lower employment and wage prospects, lower quality of life etc.). There is increasing evidence that low school performance has long-lasting effects on students later in life (Blau and Kahn, 2001;Serbin, Stack and Kingdon, 2013).…”

“…In addition, there are studies which investigate how a multitude of factors affects school performance (Livaditis et al, 2003), and studies focusing on a single factor or a single construct (for instance, school context) (Bouchamma, Lapointe and Richard, 2007). In addition, some studies specifically focus on the performance of children from low-income families (Serbin, Stack and Kingdon, 2013;Li, Allen and Casillas, 2017). There are many studies in this area that are based on correlational analyses, leaving aside the issue of causality.…”

Secondary student outcomes and perspectives on a multiple pathways approach to education : engagement, achievement, and transitions.

“…Lastly, support has significant effects on student's ability to successfully transition into postsecondary education and the workforce (Serbin, Stack, & Kingdon, 2013). These kinds of supportive networks gives students hope for the future, cooperativeness, social independence, resilience, as well as the belief that they can accomplish anything, which is essential in youth development and in turn helps with a students readiness to transition (Plessis et al, 2011;Gillham and Reivich, 2004).…”