Family Socioeconomic Status and Students School Burnout

Abstract

Burnout is a construct firstly applied to job context but later its also found among students. As for its formation factors, a vast majority of studies have mainly focused on demographic aspects and individual traits, taking family socioeconomic status (FSES) into little consideration. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to comb the existing literature elucidating association between FSES and school burnout to understand the research status quo and encourage further studies. After a thorough study of the available research, this paper finds that FSES in academic achievement has been well discussed but its potential impact on school burnout was noticed only until recent years with related literature relatively rare. But researchers have agreed on that FSES can negatively predict school burnout and some moderating variables (e.g., self-resilience, self-control, boredom) and mediating variables (e.g., parental rearing style, subjective well-being) have been studied separately. To date, however, no consensus has been reached on the exact extent of effect FSES on school burnout, moderation and mediation variables still remains rather poorly understood, and other factors like gender, grade and cultures need further consideration. This paper combs the historical background, research status quo and future research directions of the issue on correlation between FSES and school burnout, which not only enriches studies on school burnout but also will provide some reference for parents, schools or social institutions to adopt more targeted ways for better school burnout prevention and treatment.