Relationship among school socioeconomic status, teacher-student relationship, and middle school students' academic achievement in China: Using the multilevel mediation model.

Xin Xuan,Yuhan Luo,Wen Jiang,Cai Zhang,Ye Xue,Mengdi Qi,Yun Wang,Bing Hiong Ngu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0213783

Xin Xuan, Yuhan Luo + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213783

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Mar 20, 2019
Citations: 33	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Beijing Normal University

Abstract

School socioeconomic status (SES) is studied primarily as a variable to explain academic achievement; however, few previous studies have investigated how SES can influence individual student’s academic achievement. The present study used a national representative sample of 10,784 grade 7 to 9 students (53.2% boys and 46.8% girls) in mainland China to examine the links between school SES and students’ math and Chinese achievements, including the math and Chinese teacher-student relationships as mediating factors. The parents provided family socioeconomic information and the students reported on their teacher-student relationships. Achievements in math and Chinese were assessed using standardized tests. Multilevel mediation analyses revealed that school SES was positively related to students’ math and Chinese achievements. Moreover, the link between school SES and students’ math achievement was partially mediated by students’ perception of the math teacher-student relationship. The Chinese teacher-student relationship had no mediating effect. This study indicated that school SES can influence individual student’s academic achievement via their perception of teacher-student relationship. The poverty and lack of resources is obvious, yet low SES schools could make efforts in improving teacher-student relationship’s quality to promote students’ academic performance. Meanwhile, low SES schools should receive more attention from policymakers to improve teaching quality and school climate. Furthermore, the study findings could be used for future research on the gap between low and high SES schools.

Highlights

As a measurement of individual or collective social and economic status, socioeconomic status (SES) reflects existing or potential social resources such as wealth, power, and prestige [1]
School SES was correlated with family SES, suggesting that most high SES families were grouped into high SES schools and a majority of low SES families were grouped into low SES schools
The present study tested the association between school SES and students’ academic achievement and examined the mediating role of teacher-student relationship on this association

Summary

Introduction

As a measurement of individual or collective social and economic status, socioeconomic status (SES) reflects existing or potential social resources such as wealth, power, and prestige [1]. School SES represents the average of each student’s family-based socioeconomic resources. It has attracted considerable attention since Coleman et al [2] discovered the impact of ethnic and school socioeconomic composition on students’ academic achievement. A meta-analysis including nearly 50 studies with samples of 6- to 18-year-old students indicated that both school and class SES have positive effects on students’ academic achievement in areas such as language, math, and science, with little difference in effect among the three subjects [5]. A study examining the changes in the relationship between school SES and 9-year-old students’ reading achievement in Sweden between 1991 and 2001 revealed that the positive effect of school SES on students’ reading achievement has been strengthened over time [6]. Previous meta-analysis reviews and research from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a global survey among OECD countries, found that school SES had a more significant effect on children’s academic achievement than that of family SES [4,8,9,10,11]

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