High Achievers from Low Family Socioeconomic Status Families: Protective Factors for Academically Resilient Students

Abstract

Students with low family socioeconomic status (SES) often have lower academic achievement than their peers with high family SES, as has been widely demonstrated. Nevertheless, there is a group of students beating the odds and achieving academic excellence despite the socio-economic background of their families. The students who have the capacity to overcome adversities and achieve successful educational achievements are referred to as academically resilient students. This study’s purpose was to identify the protective factors among academically resilient students. A total of 46,089 students from 303 primary schools in grade 6, 55,477 students from 256 junior high schools in grade 9, and 37,856 students from 66 high schools in grade 11 in a city in northeast China participated in the large-scale investigation. Students completed a structured questionnaire to report their demographic information, psychological characteristics, and three academic tests. A causal comparative research model was applied to determine significant protective factors associated with resilient students (referring to students are resilient if they are among the 25% most socio-economically disadvantaged students in their city but are able to achieve the top 25% or above in all three academic domains). Multivariable logistic regression analyses found that the intrinsic protective factors for resilient students included higher proportion of academic importance identity, higher proportion of achievement approaching motivation, longer-term future educational expectation, and more positive academic emotion compared with non-resilient students; the extrinsic protective factors included parents’ higher proportion of positive expectations for their children’ future development, as well as more harmonious peer and teacher–student relationships. The results of this study provide important targets for psychological intervention of disadvantaged students, and future intervention studies can increase their likelihood of becoming resilient students by improving their recognition of the importance of learning, stronger motivation for achievement approaching, longer-term expectations for future academic careers, and positive academic emotions and harmonious teacher–student relationships.

Student engagement and its association with academic achievement and subjective well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

“…Additionally, our supplementary analyses revealed that the association between affective engagement and academic achievement was stronger in studies with a higher percentage of students from low SES backgrounds. According to the reserve capacity model (Gallo & Matthews, 2003), individuals from low SES backgrounds are exposed to more chronic stressors that deplete both social and emotional resources which could serve as important buffers against negative academic outcomes (see, e.g., Yan & Gai, 2022). Thus, promoting opportunities to boost positive emotions toward school and learning can protect these at-risk students against the hazards of depleted and challenging experiences.…”

“…Aside from gender, other student characteristics, such as race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES), could also potentially moderate the strength of engagement-outcome associations. This is because a student's social identities and resources could shape how he or she interprets and engages in school-related activities (e.g., see Verkuyten et al, 2019;Yan & Gai, 2022). However, given that such information is not always reported in primary studies, the present article only explored the moderating role of race and ethnicity (i.e., percentage of racial and ethnic minorities) and SES (i.e., percentage of students from low SES backgrounds or receiving free or reduced lunch) on a subset of studies from the United States (see the online supplemental materials).…”

Is medical training solely to blame? Generational influences on the mental health of our medical trainees

“…This might limit the generalizability of the findings, although it is not clear in which direction. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who rely on their aspirational values rather than environmental factors [ 77 ], may be more resilient, and therefore the current study may have overestimated stress levels. In addition, the lack of association with parenting style necessitates the need for a multicultural study and a qualitative approach to understand this among medical trainees within different contexts.…”

The Effect of Student–Teacher Relationships on Students’ Math Motivation Across EU Countries

“…Therefore, students from low socio-economic backgrounds who have positive STR are more likely to have higher grades, better attendance, and higher graduation rates (Ayala, 2020; Bernstein-Yamashiro & Noam, 2013). So, positive STR and holding higher expectations may help reduce income-based achievement gaps (Yan & Gai, 2022).…”