The main factors of schoolchildren agency: empirical analysis

Abstract

The article is devoted to schoolchildren agency, understood as the ability to make decisions and proactively act in various contexts and spheres of public and personal life, supporting or transforming social environment. The focus of the study is aimed at examining interrelationships between the level of schoolchildren agency and factors related to the family environment, as well as academic performance and participation in extracurricular activities. The data were obtained by surveying 4,603 schoolchildren from 4th to 8th grade of schools in Yaroslavl. Another data source was a survey of 1,910 parents whose children attend extracurricular activities, as part of the Monitoring of education markets and organizations (http://memo.hse.ru/en/), from 8 federal districts of the Russian Federation in 2022. The level of agency was assessed using a specially developed methodology that takes into account the child’s activity in different areas (family or relationships with peers). It has been established that the socio-economic status of a family, primarily the parental level of education, is poorly related to the agency level, whereas older age and higher academic performance of schoolchildren demonstrate a slightly stronger positive relationship. The gender factor as a whole is not significant, however, boys display somewhat both higher and lower agency levels, while girls are characterized by average indicators. A strong positive relationship has been revealed between the level of schoolchildren agency and their participation in extracurricular activities most pronounced for classes in specialized organizations outside of school. The strongest relationship with the agency level is demonstrated by sports, art, social activities, technology and crafts.