Sociological Background Variables Affecting School Achievement

This study involves investigation of the relationships between a number of sociological background variables (in cluding general categories of Social Class, Family Structure, Sibling Structure, and Religion) and school achievement at various periods in the child's academic career. The twelve achievement variables were organized into categories of Intelligence, Objective Achievement, Early Citizenship, High School Achievement, and After School Aspirations. The data was obtained from school files for 663 high-school graduates in a Midwestern city. Using a regression analysis, significant relationships between sociological variables and achievement were exam ined. Each relationship was further investigated with the variables of socio-economic status and intelligence held con stant in order to eliminate the effects of these two well-known predictive variables. ONLY THE MOST naive believe that a child's academic performance is a simple function of his innate ability. Some theorists go so far as to ques tion the very concept of innate intelligence saying that even achievement behavior measured on in telligence tests is learned behavior reflecting the child's social environment. Although we are not concerned with the validity of this issue in its extreme form, it is assumed that environmental factors do play a large role in the child's academic performance. Obviously, the child's assimilation of a set of values regarding education and suc cessful performance, in part, determines his moti vation to perform and, consequently, his actual performance. The type of behavior repertoire learned in the home generalizes to the school en vironment thus providing a source of differential response to the academic setting. Exposure to different types of stimuli outside of the school environment similarly may produce different lev els of performance independent of ability. Thus, all children do not proceed with their academic careers on an equal footing due to their socializa tion experiences in the home environment. Such differential performance may be postulated to perpetuate itself throughout the child's career for at least two reasons. First, an initial advantage at the onset of the child's academic career should tend to place him in a superior position with respect to his peers. The social advantages de rived from a favored position should provide a strong motivation to maintain that position. Sec ond, the cultural advantages or disadvantages within the family setting should continue to in teract in the child's development, continuing to reinforce the individual's initial position. Thus, i it is relevant to examine characteristics of the j family situation in order to determine specific effects on the child's academic success not only at the beginning of the child's schooling, but at S successive points throughout his academic career. j This investigation concerns the relationship between family background variables and aca demic success in public schools. The predictive variables to be examined here may be classified as gross sociological variables characteristic of large numbers of families. Variables included in the correlation analysis are measures of socio economic status, religion, sibling structure, family size, and the like. It is hypothesized that certain of these gross background characteristics provide the child with advantages or disadvantages in the school setting. Some of these effects should be visible throughout the child's career while others may effect only certain types of achievement be havior or only certain periods in the child's devel opment. Specifically, the analysis consists of ex amining the sociological correlates of five cate gories of achievement behavior obtained at differ ent times in the child's academic career. The categories for classifying academic behav ior have been derived from a factor analysis of twenty-two achievement variables (20). Results | of this factor analysis indicated that three major I types of achievement assessments appeared to be j operating independently of one another in the child's academic record. Items having the high I est loadings for each are presented in Table 1. I Descriptions of the items can be found in the appendix. These items appear to define three types of achievement behavior. The most sig nificant finding of this analysis is the lack of