School Socioeconomic Composition Research Articles

The Role of Opportunity to Learn and School Socioeconomic Composition in Reducing Racial and Gendered Disparities in Mathematics Achievement

Mathematics literacy is crucial in many STEM fields, yet Black and Hispanic students are less likely to achieve high math proficiency. While previous literature investigated potential factors to mitigate racial or gendered disparities in mathematics literacy, few studies attended to the conditions under which the causal interpretation of the results obtained can be established. Guided by intersectionality theory and causal decomposition analysis, we examined the degree to which disparities in mathematics literacy (a) exist at the intersection of race and gender and (b) can be reduced by hypothetical interventions that equalize school socioeconomic status (SES) or opportunity to learn (OTL) across groups. We found large racial/ethnic differences in math literacy favoring Asians and whites and much smaller gender differences. We also found that equalizing school SES may reduce disparities for Black and Hispanic males and females; equalizing OTL may reduce disparities for Black and Hispanic males as well as Asian males and females; compared to white males. Our findings suggest that interventions that target specific race–gender groups are required to reduce disparities in math literacy.

English skills of Puerto Rican students: the effect of gender, SES and school socioeconomic composition

Abstract This study evaluates the effects of gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and school of origin on students’ language performance. We used data from the test Measurement and Evaluation for Educational Transformation (META, for its acronym in Spanish). We analyzed the results of 21,425 eleventh-grade students from 194 public schools in Puerto Rico. The results suggest that there is a significant relationship between students’ gender and their English skills. Female students achieved higher levels of language performance than male students. There was also a significant relationship between SES and language performance. Students with a more advantaged socioeconomic status showed better language outcomes than students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. The socioeconomic composition of the school was found to play an important factor in the linguistic performance of students: a diverse socioeconomic composition is related to better school performance and the narrowing of language disparities. We propose that the composition of schools’ student bodies is a factor that educational linguistic policy makers in Puerto Rico should give more consideration to, as it could have a key role in ameliorating English language attainment and education in general in Puerto Rico’s public schools.

No substantive effects of school socioeconomic composition on student achievement in Australia: a response to Sciffer, Perry and McConney

In this journal, Sciffer et al. (Large-scale Assessments in Education 10:1–22, 2022), hereafter SP&M, conclude that school socioeconomic compositional (SEC) or school socioeconomic status (school-SES) effects in Australia are substantial and substantively important for research and policy. This paper demonstrates that these claims are unwarranted. Their SEC estimates are much larger than estimates from comparable studies and a metastudy. Despite plausible theoretical reasons and empirical evidence, SP&M do not consider that school academic composition is a significant predictor of student achievement independent of SEC. SEC effects are confounded by academic composition and are typically trivial when considering academic composition. The second part of this paper compares SP&M’s estimates with analysis of the same data, from the Australian National Assessments in Performance—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). In a model corresponding to SP&M analyses comprising demographics, SES, school-SES, and student-level prior achievement, the effects of school-SES are small, with standardized effects mostly less than 0.10. With the addition of academic composition measured by school-level prior achievement, school-SES effects are effectively zero. In contrast, academic composition has significant, albeit small, impacts on student achievement. Therefore, contrary to SP&M’s (2022) conclusion, school-SES effects on student achievement in NAPLAN are negligible, whereas school-level prior achievement has small effects. That is not to say that school-SES is always irrelevant, but any assessment of its importance must consider both student- and school-level prior achievement.

Access to senior secondary science and mathematics: examining the evidence for stratification in an Australian school system

AbstractThis research investigates access to senior school science and mathematics subjects offered in the final year of secondary schooling. Using data from the most populous Australian state of New South Wales, we examine whether stratification occurs in access to science and mathematics curricula. We find that the opportunity to study these subjects differs by key school characteristics, including location, socioeconomic composition and school sector. We find that while some science subjects and entry level mathematics are offered in most schools, substantial inequalities exist in access to the most advanced level of mathematics and chemistry. School location, socioeconomic composition, enrolment size and the availability of teachers predict the probability of whether a school offers the least and most advanced science and mathematics subjects. The findings highlight that stratification in curricula offerings occurs systemically and may intensify educational inequalities.

School socio-economic context and student achievement in Ireland: an unconditional quantile regression analysis using PISA 2018 data

BackgroundThe existence of a multiplier, compositional or social context effect is debated extensively in the literature on school effectiveness and also relates to the wider issue of equity in educational outcomes. However, comparatively little attention has been given to whether or not the association between student achievement and school socio-economic composition may vary across the achievement distribution. Furthermore, with limited exception, comparatively little use has been made of unconditional quantile modelling approaches in the education literature.MethodsThis paper uses Irish data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 and employs ordinary least squares regression and unconditional quantile regression empirical approaches to examine the association between school socio-economic composition and achievement. Reading and mathematics achievement are used as outcome variables and models control for a rich set of school and student characteristics.ResultsFindings from the ordinary least squares regression show that, on average, there is a significant negative relationship between school socio-economic disadvantage and student achievement in reading and mathematics having controlled from a range of individual and school-level variables. From a distributional perspective, unconditional quantile regression results show variation in the strength of the relationship between school socio-economic disadvantage and student achievement, particularly in reading, with a stronger association at the lower end of the achievement distribution. Findings illustrate the need to give nuanced consideration to how students with varying levels of achievement may experience a socio-economically disadvantaged context at school. Our findings also draw attention to the benefit of examining variation in the association between achievement and explanatory variables across the achievement distribution and underscore the importance of moving beyond an exclusive focus on the mean of the distribution. Finally, we emphasise the importance of drawing population-level inferences when using the unconditional quantile regression method.

The relationship between students’ socio-demographics and the probability of grade repetition in Brazilian primary education: is it decreasing over time?

This article aims at a better understanding of the Brazilian education system’s performance concerning the quality and equity over the decade 2007–2017. It examines the extent to which students’ sociodemographic characteristics are related to schooling trajectory without failure in primary education and how such relationships have changed over time. Multilevel logistic models are applied to cross-sectional student assessment data (Prova Brasil), considering the hierarchical structure of four levels. The total number of students covered is 12.4 million. The results suggest a pattern of educational inequity marked by socioeconomically disadvantaged status, gender, and self-declared race/ethnicity. The analyses show that the gender gap increased and the differentials by socioeconomic status and race/skin colour decreased over the decade. The estimates also suggest that the effect of school socioeconomic composition was reduced, but the effect of the proportion of repeating students per school on the individual probability of success was reinforced. In addition, the probability of students’ success varies randomly across schools, municipalities, and states, and such educational disparities across states are increasing over time.

The substantiveness of socioeconomic school compositional effects in Australia: measurement error and the relationship with academic composition

This study examines the effect of school socioeconomic composition on student achievement growth in Australian schooling, and its relationship with academic composition utilising the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) dataset. Previous research has found that school composition predicts a range of schooling outcomes. A critique of school compositional research has been that measurement error may have biased findings of compositional effects. Prior studies have found that socioeconomic compositional effect sizes are small when models include academic composition. The relationship between socioeconomic and academic compositions has yet to be fully determined. Multi-level regressions and structural equation models were compared to estimate the degree of bias in socioeconomic compositional effects due to measurement error. Multi-level path models were used to test if academic composition mediated the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. The results showed that measurement error did not bias compositional effects in the dataset, and academic composition mediates the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. We argue that school value-add research should include academic composition to account for contextual effects. The socioeconomic compositional effect is of practical significance to policy makers and educational researchers due to its relative size compared to average student achievement growth. Potential reforms include ensuring public subsidies to private schools in Australia do not increase school segregation and the amelioration of the effects of residential segregation through school funding reforms.

Does school SES matter less for high-performing students than for their lower-performing peers? A quantile regression analysis of PISA 2018 Australia

BackgroundWhile the relationship between school socioeconomic composition and student academic outcomes is well established, knowledge about differential effects is not extensive. In particular, little is known whether the relationship differs for students with varying levels of academic performance. We examined whether the school socioeconomic composition effect on academic achievement is stronger or weaker for high-performing students than for average- and low-performing students. Australia is a theoretically interesting case study as it has high levels of school socioeconomic segregation compared to other economically developed countries.MethodsWe conducted quantile regression analysis using data from the Australia PISA 2018 sample (N = 14,273 15-year-old students). We examined the effect of school socioeconomic status (school SES) on student performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy.ResultsWe found that the school socioeconomic composition effect is substantial and is similar for all students, regardless of their level of academic performance. The findings also show that school SES is a stronger predictor than student SES for all student performance quintiles, and the size of the school SES effect relative to the size of student SES effect is larger in lower performance quintiles.ConclusionsThese results indicate no differential effect of school SES on reading, mathematical or scientific literacy for students of varying levels of academic performance. The relationship is similarly strong and positive for high-performing students as it is for their lower performing peers. As school SES is a strong predictor for all students regardless of their level of academic performance, we argue that equity of educational outcomes can be best achieved by policies and structures that promote socioeconomically mixed rather than segregated schools. We also call for more research that seeks to identify and understand possible differential effects of school socioeconomic composition on a range of academic and non-cognitive student outcomes.

The Relationship between School Socioeconomic Composition and Academic Achievement in Turkiye

The socioeconomic distribution of students influences school contexts and learning processes. In this manner, a school’s socioeconomic composition has the remarkable potential to shape school climate. This study examines the relationship socioeconomic status (SES) at both the student and school levels has with academic achievement for the first time in Turkiye with regard to academic and vocational tracks. High-stake assessment data of more than 1.4 million students over the last 10 years have been analyzed using two-level hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). The results show parents’ education level to be a significant predictor for both academic and vocational tracks, while family income significantly predicts academic achievement just in regard to vocational track. The results highlight both students’ and peers’ SES to be significantly related to their academic achievement. Additionally, parents’ education level is a stronger predictor of achievement than family income level. The results also emphasize the importance the recent improvements and academic support programs from the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) have had in alleviating achievement gaps among schools.

Language Choices at Home and Their Relationship With Educational Outcomes, With a Special Focus on Children With Origins in Former Yugoslavia and Turkey in Six European Countries.

Language has been conceptualized as both a measure as well as a predictor of integration among immigrants and their children. However, the relationship between language spoken at home and different educational outcomes remains poorly understood. Many studies indicate that nurturing students' first languages is positively associated with their learning at school. Other research suggests that one of the reasons why children of immigrants tend to perform worse at school is due to speaking a language other than that of instruction at home. In order to shed further light on the role of language choices at home for education, we examine both the correlates of language use at home as well as the relationship between this and reading scores and educational expectations. We differentiate between three language use groups: those who mainly use the language of origin at home, those who only use the language of instruction at home, and those who use both of these. We analyze these relationships using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In order to examine country differences, we place a special focus on two immigrant-origin groups that are present in significant numbers in a number of European countries: children with origins in Turkey and former Yugoslavia. These two groups have also been identified as being at major educational disadvantage across Europe. Our results suggest that continuing to (mainly) use the language of origin at home is more prevalent among children from socioeconomically more disadvantaged families, but is supported by more socioeconomically advantaged and more diverse school environments. In the majority of countries studied, switching to the language of instruction is associated with higher reading scores but not with higher educational expectations than continuing to speak mainly the language of origin at home. These relationships are to a large extent confounded (or in some cases potentially mediated) by family factors such as socioeconomic status and school-related factors such as school's socioeconomic composition. We conclude by highlighting the role that linguistically responsive pedagogies and a positive school climate can play for the education of all young people but in particular newly-arrived immigrants.

Intersecting Inequalities: Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Differences in Math Achievement and School Contexts in California

Abstract Past research extensively documents inequalities in educational opportunity and achievement by students’ race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status (SES). Less scholarship focuses on how race/ethnicity and SES interact and jointly contribute to educational inequalities. We advance this burgeoning line of scholarship by charting math achievement trajectories and school socioeconomic composition by both student race/ethnicity and SES in California from 2014–15 through 2017–18. Linked administrative data allow us to operationalize student SES more richly than point-in-time free meal eligibility, a measure commonly used in education research. We find evidence of considerable racial/ethnic disparities in math achievement and school socioeconomic composition among same-SES students. White and Asian students score substantially higher on math achievement tests and attend higher-SES schools than same-SES Hispanic and Black students. Achievement and contextual inequalities are related: differential exposure to school SES by student race/ethnicity is associated with racial/ethnic achievement disparities within SES groups. Our findings show that SES does not translate into the same contextual or achievement advantages for students of all racial/ethnic groups, demonstrating the importance of jointly considering student race/ethnicity and SES in future research and policy development.

Children’s School Subjective Well-Being: The Importance of Schools in Perception of Support Received From Classmates

Besides educational results, a comprehensive view of childhood should include children’s opinions on their well-being in school. The objective of this study is to determine whether school subjective well-being of children varies according to the school they attend, which would justify identifying related factors (school perceptions, individual affection, and socioeconomic composition). The 3,962 answers of children from Barcelona (Mage = 10.74) in 2017 to the International Survey of Children’s Well-being are analysed. The multilevel analysis shows that classmates play an essential role in school experience: in those schools where more children are very satisfied with their life as students, children have more confidence in receiving support from their classmates if they have a problem and feel less stressed. This has important implications for learning, coexistence, and participation. As the impact of social inequalities on school experience has not been identified, research focused on schools facing situations of social vulnerability is required.

Does school socioeconomic composition matter more in some countries than others, and if so, why?

ABSTRACT International research has consistently found that the socioeconomic segregation of schools may worsen inequalities in schooling outcomes through the socioeconomic compositional effect. This study examines whether the socioeconomic compositional effect varies between developed countries and potential mechanisms by which national schooling systems moderate its effect. The results suggest that the socioeconomic compositional effect does vary between developed countries and that national differences in its size were partially explained by policies of tracking age and the proportion of students that attend public schools. We conclude schooling systems in developed countries would require substantial reform to reduce the detrimental effects of school composition on disadvantaged students.

Overweight and obesity by school socioeconomic composition and adolescent socioeconomic status: a school-based study

BackgroundThe main objective of this study was to investigate the interaction effect of school socioeconomic composition (SEC) and adolescent socioeconomic status (SES) in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among a representative sample of French adolescents of the third most populous département of France.Methods1038 adolescents agreed to participate (response rate: 91.4%). They self-reported anthropomorphic variables, SES, school lunch and physical activity. The body mass index was divided into six categories according to the Center for Disease Control. Multivariable binary logistic regressions analysis without and with interaction term were performed on overweight or obesity. Models fit was compared using the Aikaike Information Criterion. Odds-ratios (OR) and their 95% accelerated-bootstrap confidence interval (95%BCa CI) were computed to estimate overweight or obesity risk.Results8.9% of the adolescents were overweight. 3.4% were obese. No school-SEC effect was observed among low-SES adolescents. Medium-SES adolescents were at greater risk in low-SEC (OR = 10.75, 95%BCa CI = 2.67–64.57) and medium-SEC (OR = 5.08, 95%BCa CI = 1.55–24.84) compared with high-SEC schools. High-SES adolescents in low-SEC schools were at greater risk compared with those in medium-SEC (OR = 5.94, 95%BCa CI = 1.94–17.29) and high-SEC schools (OR = 4.99, 95%BCa CI = 1.71–13.14). A social gradient was observed in medium-SEC (ORlow/high = 2.79, 95%BCa CI = 1.22–7.41) and high-SEC (ORlow/medium = 6.86, 95%BCa CI = 1.06–5.22*106) schools.ConclusionsPhysical activity and lunch at and outside school help to understand these differences. Implications for obesity prevention initiatives are discussed.

Comment on M.G. Sciffer, L.B. Perry, & A.M. McConney, “critiques of socio-economic school compositional effects: are they valid?”

In a recent article in this journal, Sciffer, Perry, and McConney identify the risk of relying on insufficient within-unit variation as a serious flaw in a number of studies using student fixed effects regression to identify the effects of school socioeconomic composition (school SES) on academic achievement, including one by Armor, Marks, and Malatinszky. In this comment, we revisit our estimates in light of this potential risk, and we demonstrate that within-student variation in school SES in the three settings studied was substantial and sufficient for the use of student fixed effects regression. In further sensitivity analyses, we find that the original results, as well as their levels of precision, are robust to the exclusion of students moving between schools, who Sciffer et al. suggest to be the unreliable major source of longitudinal variation in school SES.

High School Composition and Health Outcomes in Adulthood: A Cohort Study.

Background: A multitude of empirical evidence documents links between education and health, but this focuses primarily on educational attainment and not on characteristics of the school setting. Little is known about the extent to which aggregate characteristics of the school setting, such as student body demographics, are associated with adult health outcomes. Methods: We use the U.S. nationally representative National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort to statistically assess the association between two different measures of high school student composition (socioeconomic composition, racial/ethnic composition) and two different health outcomes at age 40 (self-rated health and obesity). Results: After adjusting for confounders, high school socioeconomic composition, but not racial/ethnic composition, was weakly associated with both obesity and worse self-rated health at age 40. However, after adding adult educational attainment to the model, only the association between high school socioeconomic composition and obesity remained statistically significant. Conclusions: Future research should explore possible mechanisms and also if findings are similar across other populations and in other school contexts. These results suggest that education policies that seek to break the link between socioeconomic composition and negative outcomes remain important but may have few spillover effects onto health.

A Partial Simulation Study of Phantom Effects in Multilevel Analysis of School Effects: The Case of School Socioeconomic Composition

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is often used to estimate the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on academic achievement at different levels of an educational system. However, if a prior academic achievement measure is missing in a HLM model, biased estimates may occur on the effects of student SES and school SES. Phantom effects describe the phenomenon in which the effects of student SES and school SES disappear once prior academic achievement is added to the model. In the present analysis, partial simulation (i.e., simulated data are used together with real-world data) was employed to examine the phantom effects of student SES and school SES on science achievement, using the national sample of the United States from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment. The results showed that the phantom effects of student SES and school SES are rather real. The stronger the correlation between prior science achievement and (present) science achievement, the greater the chance that the phantom effects occur.

How Schoolmates Affect Your Chances of Getting into College: School Socioeconomic Composition and Inequality in Access to Higher Education

The problem of socioeconomic inequalities in Russian education takes on particular significance in the context of massification and increasingly differential quality of higher education. Relevant research is mostly focused on individual student characteristics and regional aspects. Less often, researchers’ attention is attracted to school factors, such as school socioeconomic composition (SEC) — one of the most powerful school predictors of student achievement. The effect of school composition on students’ educational trajectories remains underinvestigated, although higher education is more important for life chances than school achievement. In the present study, Russian data (the Higher School of Economics’ project Trajectories in Education and Careers) is used for the first time to measure the effect of school SEC on educational choices and chances of getting into college. This effect is analyzed successively for key decisions and outcomes at every stage of long-term educational trajectories. Analysis is performed with due regard to the specifics of Russian education and the sorting of students into the academic and hybrid tracks in pursuit for college degrees. School composition is found to be positively associated with proceeding from middle to high school, obtaining a college degree, and pursuing a Master’s degree. The largest influence of school SEC on college enrollment is observed for students who enroll in vocational studies after middle school. The compositional effect is extremely robust and persists even when student achievement and family characteristics are controlled for. Adding school SEC to the model offsets the effect of individual socioeconomic status on the likelihood of going to college, which means that exclusion of SEC from analysis may lead to invalid inferences in educational research. The effects detected cannot be explained by differences in achievement, so it would be reasonable to explore the social mechanisms behind the compositional effect in further research. School desegregation measures suggested on the basis of prior findings may turn out to be hasty and overly drastic in practice.

School Socio-economic Composition as a Factor of Educational Inequality. Review of Measurement Approaches and Relation with Academic Outcomes

School Socio-economic Composition as a Factor of Educational Inequality. Review of Measurement Approaches and Relation with Academic Outcomes

School Socioeconomic Composition and Adolescent Socioeconomic Status Interaction Effect, Physical Activity and School Lunch in Overweight and Obesity

Background: Adolescent school socioeconomic composition (SEC) and socioeconomic status (SES) are negatively linked to overweight and obesity. No study has investigated the interaction effect between these two indicators. The main objective of this study is to investigate this relationship. Methods: 1038 adolescents from 11 public high-schools of the third biggest French region accepted to participate (response rate: 91.4%). They self-reported anthropomorphic variables, SES, school lunch and physical activity (PA) levels. The body mass index was divided into six categories according to the Centers for Control of Disease. Adjusted-multivariable binary logistic regressions analysis without and with interaction term were performed in overweight or obesity (overweight|obesity). Models fit was compared using the Aikake Information Criterion. Odds-ratio (OR) and their 95% accelerated-bootstrap confidence interval (95%BCa CI) were computed to estimate overweight|obesity risk. Findings: An interaction effect was observed between adolescent SES and school SEC. Among low-SES adolescents, we observed an absence of school-SEC effect. In contrast, medium-SES adolescents were at greater risk in low-SEC (OR=10.75, 95%BCa CI=2.67-64.57) and medium-SEC (OR=5.08, 95%BCa CI=1.55-24.84) compared with high-SEC schools. High-SES adolescents in low-SEC schools were at greater risk compared with those in medium-SEC (OR=5.94, 95%BCa CI=1.94-17.29) and high-SEC schools (OR=4.99, 95%BCa CI=1.71-13.14). A social gradient was observed in higher-SEC schools. In medium-SEC and high-SEC schools, low-SES adolescents were at greater risk compared with high-SES (OR=2.79, 95%BCa CI=1.22-7.41) and medium-SES (OR=6.86, 95%BCa CI=1.06-5.22*106) adolescents, respectively. Interpretation: Adolescent PA, lunch at- and outside-school help to understand these differences. Implications for obesity prevention initiatives are discussed. Funding Statement: The authors declare that have no funding for this research. Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The study was also approved by the Aix-Marseille University Ethics Committee (No. 2019-23-05-003).