IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v86y2021ics016028962100012x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How do educational inequalities develop? The role of socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, home environment, and self-efficacy along the educational path

Author

Listed:
  • Paulus, Lena
  • Spinath, Frank M.
  • Hahn, Elisabeth

Abstract

In Western countries, children's education is strongly influenced by their social background, which cannot be fully explained by individual differences in cognitive ability between social classes. It is still an open question how, to what extent and at what point along the educational path individual and family factors shape children's educational success. In the present study, twins (N = 6174) clustered in three age cohorts (11, 17 and 23 years) were examined using multilevel analyses to test if parental socioeconomic status (SES) and children's cognitive ability, as well as family's quality of home environment and children's self-efficacy can explain the development of educational inequalities captured via school track recommendations and university attendance. Results showed educational inequalities at each critical point along the entire path of education. With increasing parental SES, individual cognitive abilities mattered significantly less, so that children from high parental SES families often received a recommendation to attend upper secondary education even with low cognitive abilities. In contrast, the association between cognitive abilities and university attendance increased with increasing parental SES in the older age cohort, whereby individuals with high cognitive abilities but low parental SES rarely attended university. Furthermore, for school track recommendations, with increasing children's self-efficacy and better home environment the educational recommendation improved, while home environment amplified the effect of SES on the development of educational inequalities. These results suggest a waste of academic potential of low SES children. Subsequent studies should examine further constructs that could contribute to the development of educational inequalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Paulus, Lena & Spinath, Frank M. & Hahn, Elisabeth, 2021. "How do educational inequalities develop? The role of socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, home environment, and self-efficacy along the educational path," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:86:y:2021:i:c:s016028962100012x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2021.101528
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962100012X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101528?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gottschling, J. & Hahn, E. & Beam, C.R. & Spinath, F.M. & Carroll, S. & Turkheimer, E., 2019. "Socioeconomic status amplifies genetic effects in middle childhood in a large German twin sample," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 20-27.
    2. Ken B Hanscombe & Maciej Trzaskowski & Claire M A Haworth & Oliver S P Davis & Philip S Dale & Robert Plomin, 2012. "Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Children's Intelligence (IQ): In a UK-Representative Sample SES Moderates the Environmental, Not Genetic, Effect on IQ," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(2), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Nicholas W Papageorge & Kevin Thom, 2020. "Genes, Education, and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 1351-1399.
    4. Ganzeboom, H.B.G. & de Graaf, P.M. & Treiman, D.J. & de Leeuw, J., 1992. "A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status," WORC Paper 92.01.001/1, Tilburg University, Work and Organization Research Centre.
    5. Greg J. Duncan & Rachel Dunifon & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, 2001. "As Ye Sweep, So Shall Ye Reap," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 150-154, May.
    6. Solga, Heike & Dombrowski, Rosine, 2009. "Soziale Ungleichheiten in schulischer und außerschulischer Bildung: Stand der Forschung und Forschungsbedarf," Arbeitspapiere 171, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    7. Biewen, Martin & Tapalaga, Madalina, 2017. "Life-cycle educational choices in a system with early tracking and ‘second chance’ options," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 80-94.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gottschling, J. & Hahn, E. & Beam, C.R. & Spinath, F.M. & Carroll, S. & Turkheimer, E., 2019. "Socioeconomic status amplifies genetic effects in middle childhood in a large German twin sample," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 20-27.
    2. Elke Lüdemann, 2011. "Schooling and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Outcomes," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 39.
    3. Pesta, Bryan J. & Kirkegaard, Emil O.W. & te Nijenhuis, Jan & Lasker, Jordan & Fuerst, John G.R., 2020. "Racial and ethnic group differences in the heritability of intelligence: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Thomas Buser & Rafael Ahlskog & Magnus Johannesson & Philipp Koellinger & Sven Oskarsson, 2021. "Using Genes to Explore the Effects of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills on Education and Labor Market Outcomes," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-088/I, Tinbergen Institute, revised 29 Mar 2023.
    5. Clara H. Mulder & Michael Wagner, 2001. "The Connections between Family Formation and First-time Home Ownership in the Context of West Germany and the Netherlands," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 137-164, June.
    6. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik & Schüle, Paul & Henkel, Lukas & Dodin, Majed, 2021. "Social Mobility in Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 16355, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Ralph Hippe & Maciej Jakubowski & Luisa De Sousa Lobo Borges de Araujo, 2018. "Regional inequalities in PISA: the case of Italy and Spain," JRC Research Reports JRC109057, Joint Research Centre.
    8. Ian Smith, 2012. "Reinterpreting the economics of extramarital affairs," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 319-343, September.
    9. Silke L. Schneider, 2022. "The classification of education in surveys: a generalized framework for ex-post harmonization," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1829-1866, June.
    10. Fenella Fleischmann & Jaap Dronkers, 2010. "Unemployment among immigrants in European labour markets: an analysis of origin and destination effects," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 24(2), pages 337-354, June.
    11. Chiswick, Barry R. & Wang, Zhiling, 2019. "Social Contacts, Dutch Language Proficiency and Immigrant Economic Performance in the Netherlands," GLO Discussion Paper Series 419, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Guangjun Shen & Chuanchuan Zhang, 2024. "Economic Development and Social Integration of Migrants in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 32(1), pages 1-20, January.
    13. O'Neill, Donal & Sweetman, Olive & Van de gaer, Dirk, 2006. "The impact of cognitive skills on the distribution of the black-white wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 343-356, June.
    14. Michele Raitano & Francesco Vona, 2013. "Peer heterogeneity, school tracking and students' performances: evidence from PISA 2006," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(32), pages 4516-4532, November.
    15. Parker, Philip D. & Jerrim, John & Schoon, Ingrid & Marsh, Herbert W., 2016. "A multination study of socioeconomic inequality in expectations for progression to higher education: the role of between-school tracking and ability stratification," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 6-32.
    16. Antonio Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2019. "English skills, labour market status and earnings of Turkish women," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 669-690, November.
    17. Waitkus, Nora & Minkus, Lara, 2021. "Investigating the gender wealth gap across occupational classes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108206, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. repec:iab:iabfme:201204(de is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Rocco Caferra & Alessandro Cascavilla & Andrea Morone, 2022. "Family affairs or Government's duty? The tax morality of a mobile society," Working Papers 2022/09, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    20. Jaap Dronkers & Nils Kornder, 2013. "Can gender differences in the educational performance of 15-year old migrant pupils be explained by the gender equality in the countries of origin and destination?," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1307, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    21. Michele Raitano & Francesco Vona, 2010. "Peer Heterogeneity, Parental Background and Tracking: Evidence from PISA 2006," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2010-23, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:86:y:2021:i:c:s016028962100012x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.