Schooled societies and social class inequalities of performance
Creators: name: Claes, Nele
name: Kuppens, Toon
name: Kavadias, Leandros
Publisher: name: OSF Registries
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Social Psychology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology

description: MAIN RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The role of school institution extends beyond to socialize children, it also shapes future social status. This seems particularly true with the development of schooled societies, where educational institutions become central, creating a legitimate framework for organizing various aspects of human life (Baker, 2014). The schooled societies encompasses three related but distinct dimensions (Kavadias et al., 2023): (i) the educational expansion, reflecting the growing number of people attending in the school system, (ii) the culture of education, centered on the idea that education is a fundamental right but also the solution to societal problems, accompanied by the expansion of an educated and expert elite, fostering the belief that schooling can and should be for all, and (iii) the education-based stratification, corresponding to the centralization of education within the social hierarchy. In schooled societies, the school system increasingly become the central pathway for social mobility but also for social reproduction (Hout et al., 2006, cited by van Noord et al., 2021). In this context, the perceived value of academic success rises, and school performance become threatening for all families, driving potential intergenerational social upward or downward mobility. 
However, school performance is not solely the result of talent and effort, it remains associated with the social class background, even after partialling out the variance accounted for by heritability (Krapohl et al., 2014), language proficiency (Goudeau et al., 2023), or academic ability (Machin &amp; Vignoles, 2004). Moreover, these inequalities vary depending on local and national context, such as national income inequality (Wang &amp; Wu, 2023, Workman, 2022). One explanation for these variations is that context impacts the perception of the value of academic success, moderating the processes involved in these inequalities, like parental investment in children education or the importance of one’s social class identity (Easterbrook &amp; Hadden, 2020). 

Because schooled societies are conceived to legitimize educational success and the meritocratic dimension of performance, we wonder whether the centrality of education in countries moderates the educational based social class inequalities of performance. The culture of education and the promotion of a more ‘egalitarian’ conception of school in schooled societies might imply more institutional investment/effort in reducing the social class test gap. In such, we can expect that schooled societies are associated with a lower social class inequality. However, the educational-based stratification and more centrality of education in the social status might increase the social class inequalities throughout several processes for individuals from higher social classes like more parental self-efficacy in school and more parental investment in school to ensure the intergenerational transmission of status.

In this research, we wonder whether the schooled society moderates the social class inequalities of performance.
We have made two competing main hypotheses:
• MH1. The higher the societies are “schooled”, the stronger the effect of educational based social class on school performance.
• MH2. The higher the societies are “schooled”, the weaker the effect of educational based social class on school performance.

Additionally, we are interested to distinguish the dimensions of the schooled societies, namely the institutionalization of schooling (i.e. the historical growth of schooling, school systems, etc.), and the school-based allocation (the categorizing, testing, selecting and allocating role of schooling). We have made the following hypotheses:
MH3. The higher schooling is institutionalized, the stronger the effect of educational based social class on school performance.
MH4. The higher the societies allocate roles to school, the stronger the effect of educational based social class on school performance.

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In addition, literature has recently shown that national income inequality was associated with school outcomes, including higher perceived competitiveness (Sommet et al., 2019) and anxiety (King et al., 2024), lower sense of belonging (King et al., 2023 but see Sommet et al., 2019). Regarding school performance, the pattern is less clear, depending on the included variables (Chiu, 2010, King et al., 2024) or the school domains (Workman, 2021). However, recent research suggest that income inequality impacts the school performance depending of children’s social class. Income inequality improves achievement for students from families with high economic capital while it impairs achievement for those from low-economic-capital families (Claes et al., R&amp;R). But also, income equality boosts achievement for children from families with high cultural capital but hampers achievement for children from families with low cultural capital (Wang &amp; Wu, 2023). One explanation for this result is based on the idea that because social class is a multidimensional construct and the causes of the social class inequalities can vary across contexts. In unequal countries, parents are more concerned about their children’s success as the economic return to education is higher (Doepke et al., 2019), leading to adopt more intensive parenting including more financial investment in their children (Schneider et al. 2018). In this context, the social class inequalities are more dependent on economic capital than other factors, such as cultural capital (Wang &amp; Wu, 2023). In more equal countries, the economic differences account less and the non-economic dimensions of social class matter to a greater extent (i.e., the performance disparity between students from families with more vs. less cultural capital becomes wider), increasing it effect in the social class test gap.
Following this reasoning and the fact that individuals are more conscious of their educational category in schooled societies (van Noord et al., 2022), we might expect similar mechanisms that income inequality for schooled societies. Both national factors (i.e., centrality of education and income inequality) increase the salience of social hierarchy but impact distinct dimensions of social class as well as the social class inequalities of performance.

In this research, we wonder whether the schooled society moderates the social class inequalities of performance depending on social class indicators.

We have made the following hypothesis:
AH1. The higher the societies are “schooled”, the weaker the effect of economically based social class on school performance.