Impact of school readiness program interventions on children's learning in Cambodia

To reduce the high repetition rates in early years of primary school, the government of Cambodia piloted a school readiness program (SRP) in the first two months of Grade 1 of primary school. This study examines whether such intervention has effects on students’ immediate acquisition of school readiness skills as well as students’ longer term achievement of formal curriculum. The study finds that children who participated in SRP outperform children that did not participate in both outcomes, controlling for pretest score and background variables. The findings suggest that the intervention may be one alternative model to preschools in countries where access to pre-primary education is limited.     

Second-generation Turkish youth in Europe: Explaining the academic disadvantage in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland

This investigation examines the role of students’ home and school variables in producing the achievement gap between second-generation Turkish students and their native peers in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Using the data from PISA 2006, this study supports past findings that both home and school resources affect the educational outcomes of immigrant students in their host society's school system. Specifically, the findings reveal that in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, second-generation Turkish students had significant disadvantages in terms of allocated resources at home and in school. More often than not, these disadvantages were found to have significantly negative effects in terms of second-generation Turkish students’ test outcomes relative to their native peers. In all three countries, however, the differences between the second-generation Turkish students and their native peers in terms of their family/home resources were found to explain more of the achievement gap than the differences in their schooling resources.     

Parents’ educational involvement: Types of resources and forms of involvement in four countries

Parents’ involvement in schooling and education is highly important for children’s results. Still, both levels of involvement and their effects vary according to social class. Previous research on educational reproduction within the family has, however, largely studied differences between the middle and the working class, and generally ignored differences in the composition of cultural and economic capital. In this article, we aim to fill this gap in the literature by separating cultural and economic resources and investigate their correlation with two kinds of parental involvement in four different European countries. Results show that parents with more cultural resources are more likely to be involved by having future educational expectations, and parents with more economic resources are more likely to be involved in their children’s current schooling (e.g. help with homework) than those with more cultural resources. The association between economic resources and involvement in educational expectations is however stronger in Spain and Iceland than in Belgium and Norway, suggesting an influence from system-level features as well as general economic trends.     

Teachers’ moral values and their interpersonal relationships with students and cultural competence

This study explored whether and how teachers’ beliefs about moral values are reflected in the student-teacher relationships (i.e. levels of control and affiliation in teachers’ and students’ perceptions of this relationship), and in teachers’ cultural competence. A positive association was found between teachers’ paternalist beliefs and their own perceptions of control. A negative association was found between teachers’ liberal beliefs and students’ perceptions of affiliation. Positive associations were found between teachers’ liberal beliefs and the metacognitive and motivational components of cultural competence. We discuss the implications for preparation of teachers to reflect on the manifestations of their beliefs in practice.     

Cultural capital and academic achievement in post-socialist Eastern Europe

Using the 2000 and 2009 waves of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, we examined the relationships between family socio-economic status (SES), cultural capital, and reading achievement among students in five post-socialist Eastern European countries while comparing the findings with three Western bench-marking countries. Findings: In all studied countries, higher-SES students possessed higher levels of cultural capital and exhibited higher reading achievement. Cultural capital was uniformly positively associated with reading achievement. We found the least stratification by SES in Russia both in the distribution of cultural capital and reading achievement. The findings provide no evidence of the overall decline of the importance of cultural capital over time; most of the associations between cultural capital measures and reading achievement remained stable across the waves. Between-country variation in the findings does not indicate East–West divide (with the exception of Russia).     

What PISA and ASPIRES studies tell us about the nuanced influence of cultural capital on student learning: Construct complexity,student outcomes and contexts

This article juxtaposes the evolving scholarship investigating the influence of cultural capital on student learning and the developing trajectory of sociologists employing quantitative research methods. It critically reviews results from 34 studies analysing PISA or ASPIRES data to generate three key insights demonstrating complexities in relationships between cultural capital and student outcomes. First, cultural capital is a complex construct with many variables (different forms of cultural capital, highbrow/non-highbrow cultural capital) varying in their association with student literacy and parents’ cultural capital affecting student literacy both directly and indirectly. Second, the influence of cultural capital may vary with types of student outcomes measured. Specifically, there are cultural variables associated with student literacy in different subjects, some cultural capital variables are more important for student literacy for a subject, and cultural capital influences student aspirations in addition to their literacy. Third, the influence of cultural capital on student literacy may vary with educational and social contexts. Cultural capital is more important in decentralised education systems, in low-achieving schools within differentiated education systems, in higher-quality schools and in more unequal, developed societies. In contrast, it matters less in high-achieving and standardised education systems, and in societies valuing education. Given the complexity in cultural capital, future research can ascertain how each cultural capital variable contributes to student learning and compare their effectiveness. It is also important to identify which cultural capital variables matter for specific student outcomes. Lastly, these insights highlight the need to recognise contextual differences in studies of social inequality.     

Parental involvement of Eastern European immigrant parents in Canada: whose involvement has capital?

Abstract

This study focuses on the parental involvement among Eastern European immigrant parents of elementary school students in Canada. Interviewed parents (N?+?19) were educated in several Eastern European countries and had children attending elementary schools in the province of Ontario at the time of the study. The analysis was informed by the concepts of social and cultural capital developed by Pierre Bourdieu. It was found that Eastern European immigrant parents see their role supporting children mainly in the home by emphasizing academic achievement and extracurricular activities. Despite high levels of cultural capital there was a variation in the amount of social capital available to immigrant parents. Those who managed to recreate rich social networks in the new country communicated with teachers more successfully and were satisfied with school.     

Demand (and supply) in an inter-district public school choice program

This study examines parents’ demand for sending their children to a public school located outside their residential school district. Using a unique data set that contains information concerning both inter-district transfers and rejections of transfer applications, I am able to identify which school district characteristics attract the greatest demand for incoming transfers. The analyses reveal that mean student test scores are stronger predictors of transfer demand than both students’ socio-economic characteristics and school district spending, suggesting that parents care more about outcomes than inputs. In addition, while districts are only supposed to reject transfer students due to capacity concerns, districts’ supply decisions are also correlated with differences in student performance across neighboring districts.     

Cultural capital and habitus in context: the importance of high school college-going culture

While an extensive body of research has examined the role of cultural capital in reproducing social class inequality in educational outcomes, the role of habitus and school context has received less attention in quantitative studies. We attend to this gap in the literature by considering the relationship between cultural capital, habitus, and the transition into higher education across high schools with low and high college-going cultures in the United States. Findings indicate that the relationship between cultural capital and transition into higher education is context specific and manifested only in schools with a high college-going culture. In addition, students from less advantaged family backgrounds benefit more from cultural capital than their more advantaged counterparts, but this is the case primarily in schools with a high college-going culture. Habitus, however, is related to the transition into higher education regardless of the high school context and benefits all students equally.     

What can teachers do to raise pupil achievement?

Improving weak teaching may be one of the most effective means of raising pupil achievement. However, teachers’ classroom practices and the teaching ‘process’ may matter more to student learning than teachers’ observed résumé characteristics (such as certification and experience). There may also be important differences in teacher characteristics across government and private schools which may help explain the large documented public-private achievement differences often found in studies. This paper delves into the black-box representing ‘teaching’ to uncover the teacher characteristics and teaching practices that matter most to pupil achievement. This is done using unique school-based data, collected in 2002-2003 from government and private schools from one district in Punjab province in Pakistan. The data allow exploitation of an identification strategy that permits the matching of students’ test scores in language and mathematics to the characteristics of teachers that teach those subjects. Within pupil (across subject rather than across time) variation is used to examine whether the characteristics of different subject teachers are related to a students’ mark across subjects. The data are also unique in asking all subject teachers questions pertaining to their teaching practices and these, often unobserved, ‘process’ variables are included in achievement function estimates. Our pupil fixed-effects findings reveal that the standard résumé characteristics of teachers do not significantly matter to pupil achievement. Perversely, however, teachers are found to be rewarded with higher pay for possessing these characteristics, highlighting the highly inefficient nature of teacher pay schedules. Our findings also show that teaching ‘process’ variables matter significantly to student achievement. There are important differences across school-types.     

How students socially evaluate interest: Peer responsiveness influences evaluation and maintenance of interest

Social influences (e.g., by teachers, parents and peers) on students’ experience of interest are typically described in terms of affecting students’ initial choice of and/or completion of specific educational activities. When considered within the framework of the Self-Regulation of Motivation (SRM) model, however, other people may influence the interest experience even after activity completion, by influencing how a person evaluates that past experience. Previous experimental research showed that when students talked about a game upon completion, listeners’ responsiveness influenced their evaluation of interest. The present research examined whether peer responsiveness when undergraduates talked about topics covered in actual classes predicted students’ evaluation of class interest. In Study 1, we examined responsiveness in the context of conversations that took place as a structured part of an online psychology class (i.e., discussion board), and found that the frequency of replies from classmates to students’ posts (but not the reverse) predicted students’ interest in the class measured at the end of the semester. In Study 2, we examined responsiveness in the context of students’ reported everyday conversations about two completed interesting class topics or two completed class exams in an introductory physics course. Perceived listener responsiveness in conversations about class topics (but not about exams) predicted students’ concurrent evaluation of class interest, even when controlling for anticipated interest at the beginning of the semester. Moreover, listeners indirectly affected interest measured at the end of the semester via their influence on interest during the semester.     

Going Global: Understanding the Choice Process of the Intent to Study Abroad

This study applies an integrated model of college choice to better describe students who do and do not intend to study abroad. Although internationalization through study abroad is widely touted as a preferred means of developing globally competent college graduates, very little is known about the factors that influence students’ predisposition to study abroad. This research explores the impact of financial, human, social, and cultural capital on students’ intent to study abroad. Analysis of data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNSLAE) demonstrates a complex interplay between SES, accumulated pre-college capital, and capital acquired during the freshman year. Important implications for national policy makers, senior administrators, study abroad professionals and higher education researchers are discussed.     

Creative arts outreach initiatives in schools: effects on university expectations and discussions about university with important socialisers

ABSTRACT

For youth in disadvantaged schools, university expectations and participation are often limited by access to social and cultural capital that support expectations. This study investigated the utility of creative arts outreach initiatives (CAI) in supporting students’ university expectations and building cultural capital in homes, schools and neighbourhoods in the southwest corridor of Perth, Western Australia. Cultural capital was operationalised as discussions about university with parents, teachers and friends as important socialisers. The CAI provided task-based programs that connected students with industry professionals and university academics to access new social and cultural capital, develop skills that satisfied learning objectives and increase navigational capacity for higher education participation. Multi-group latent growth models were estimated for university expectations across 3 time points and university discussions with important socialisers at time 3 using a propensity-score matched sample comprising 176 students aged between 11 to 18 years from eight high schools (program group?=?88, control group?=?88, females?=?64%). Results indicated stability in levels of university expectations for program participants and increased discussions about university with parents, teachers and friends. Findings support the inclusion of people-rich, co-curricular creative arts programs such as CAI in disadvantaged schools to build social and cultural capital that supports and potentially widens higher education participation in this region.     

Children’s conversion of cultural capital into educational success: the symbolic and skill-generating functions of cultural capital

Abstract

A prominent explanation of intergenerational educational inequality is Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory. Indeed, previous studies have frequently shown that children’s cultural capital relates to academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear how children convert their cultural capital into achievement. While Bourdieu argued that cultural capital influences academic outcomes primarily by biasing teachers’ grades, other researchers have proposed the alternative explanation that children’s cultural capital absorption directly translates into academic skills. Using survey data on 2975 fifth graders from the German National Educational Panel Study, we disentangle these two mechanisms of children’s cultural capital conversion; and argue that the main conversion mechanism depends on the cultural capital dimension examined. The results of our structural equation model suggest that both mechanisms are at work and that the main conversion mechanism depends on the dimension of cultural capital examined.     

“Science capital”: A conceptual,methodological, and empirical argument for extending bourdieusian notions of capital beyond the arts

This paper sets out an argument and approach for moving beyond a primarily arts‐based conceptualization of cultural capital, as has been the tendency within Bourdieusian approaches to date. We advance the notion that, in contemporary society, scientific forms of cultural and social capital can command a high symbolic and exchange value. Our previous research [Archer et al. (2014) Journal of Research in Science Teaching 51, 1–30] proposed the concept of “science capital” (science‐related forms of cultural and social capital) as a theoretical lens for explaining differential patterns of aspiration and educational participation among young people. Here, we attempt to theoretically, methodologically, and empirically advance a discussion of how we might conceptualize science capital and how this might be translated into a survey tool for use with students. We report on findings from a survey conducted with 3658 secondary school students, aged 11–15 years, in England. Analysis found that science capital was unevenly spread across the student population, with 5% being classified as having “high” science capital and 27% “low” science capital. Analysis shows that levels of science capital (high, medium, or low) are clearly patterned by cultural capital, gender, ethnicity, and set (track) in science. Students with high, medium, or low levels of science capital also seem to have very different post‐16 plans (regarding studying or working in science) and different levels of self‐efficacy in science. They also vary dramatically in terms of whether they feel others see them as a “science person.” The paper concludes with a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues and implications for practice. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 922–948, 2015.     

Cultural capital as an explanation of variation in participation in higher education

Cultural capital is frequently referred to as a construct in the analysis of inequality in higher education. It has been suggested that variations in cultural capital contribute to social class differences in levels of participation, distribution of students between elite and other universities, and the likelihood of dropping out. However, recent analyses of quantitative data suggest that once students’ attainments are included in analysis of levels of participation the effects of social class disappear. One possibility is that cultural capital affects the likelihood of participation in higher education independently of the common measures of social class variation (parental occupation and education). In this analysis we include a measure of students’ cultural capital to investigate whether it exerts an effect on the likelihood of participation that is independent from students’ attainment. We also present and evaluate a practicable method of measuring students’ cultural capital.     

Do parental attitudes toward and expectations for their children's education and future jobs matter for their children's school achievement?

The traditional discourse in the scholarship on cultural capital theory has focused on how exclusive participation in elite status culture by students from higher socioeconomic status families benefits their learning in schools, the effects of which are most evident in linguistic subject areas such as reading achievement. However, some scholars have argued that cultural capital is not restricted to elite status culture but could include parental familiarity with school evaluation standards and job market requirements, and that the effects could transcend languages to include performance domains with more objective evaluation that are susceptible to school influences (e.g. mathematics and science). The present study systematically examines this position using data involving 96,591 15‐year‐old students from 3602 schools in eight countries who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012. Results of three‐level hierarchical linear modelling showed positive relationships between seven cultural capital variables and student mathematics achievement. The cultural variables comprised: home educational resources; parental educational attainment and occupational status; parental expectations of their children's educational attainment, future career in mathematics and school; and parental valuing of mathematics. In particular, the three parental expectations variables had substantively larger effect sizes on student achievement than the other cultural capital variables. The results demonstrated that parental familiarity with school evaluation standards and future job requirements, especially as measured by parental expectations, may constitute cultural capital that privileges student mathematics achievement in schools.     

The effect of class composition by gender and ability on secondary school students’ school well-being and academic self-concept: A literature review

In the field of educational effectiveness research, the influence of a class’ student body on students’ individual achievement scores has been a popular research interest for many years. Yet, few studies have focussed on the effects of class composition on students’ non-achievement outcomes, and up to now, hardly any attempts have been made to summarize the findings of previous studies on this topic by conducting a literature review. The current study tries to fill in this gap and focuses on the effects of class composition in secondary education in terms of ability and gender on students’ school well-being and academic self-concept. The results of this literature review indicate that ability grouping is beneficial for strong students’ school well-being, but rather detrimental for the school well-being of weak students. The reverse holds for students’ academic self-concept. Furthermore, our results show that single-sex classes are advantageous for girls’ school well-being and academic self-concept. As for boys, the results are inconclusive.     

Selling education through “culture”: responses to the market by new, non-government schools

The move to a market model of schooling has seen a radical restructuring of the ways schooling is “done” in recent times in Western countries. Although there has been a great deal of work to examine the effects of a market model on local school management (LSM), teachers’ work and university systems, relatively little has been done to examine its effect on parents’ choice of school in the non-government sector in Australia. This study examines the reasons parents give for choosing a nongovernment school in the outer suburbs of one large city in Australia. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu specifically his ideas on “cultural capital” (1977), this study revealed that parents were choosing the non-government school over the government school to ensure that their children would be provided, through the school’s emphasis on cultural capital, access to a perceived “better life” thus enhancing the potential to facilitate “extraordinary children”, one of the school’s marketing claims.