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How does family background affect children's educational achievement? Evidence from Contemporary China

The Periodical of Chinese Sociology volume v, Article number:13 (2018) Cite this article

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Abstract

Education is a lasting process. Academic performance in primary education plays a crucial role in obtaining farther educational opportunities. Thus, it is necessary to examine how family background affects children's academic achievement at an early phase. Through analysis of data from the Chinese Family unit Console Study in 2010(CFPS2010), this paper proposes two pathways through which family unit influences children'due south academic performance. Firstly, parents compete for high-quality educational opportunities for their children and better educational opportunities lead to better academic operation. Secondly, parenting behavior and educational support for their children could cultivate children'south learning habits and affect academic performance. We likewise detect urban students' bookish operation are more than heavily affected by their families' socioeconomic condition compared with rural students. These findings acquit important implications for how to reduce the class divergence in students' academic performance and promote educational disinterestedness in contemporary Cathay.

Introduction

Teaching is the basic mechanism for enhancing the population quality of a nation, and pedagogy during babyhood is the foundation for the formation of human labor-forcefulness quality. Babyhood education not just affects the achievement and happiness at the individual level, only besides shapes the labor force quality and chapters of innovation (Heckman 2011) to decide the potentiality of the evolution of a nation. With the spread of enforcement of compulsory instruction and the expansion of schools beyond China, the boilerplate schooling years of Chinese citizens has been improved significantly. In spite of this, due to the scarcity of educational resource and its unequal distribution, various conditions of didactics inequality has nonetheless to be addressed and improved (Yang 2006). Equally a response, the national Council executive meeting of 2010 has passed the National Mid-and-long Term Education Development and Reform Plan, targeting "raise educational equality, develop equal education opportunities that benefits the whole population", which is listed among the nigh significant strategic development goals of the nation.

On the ane manus, educational (in) equality may be rooted in institutional organisation, i.e., its role of smoothing or even hampering the effect of family with different social economic status on educational opportunities. On the other hand, educational (in) equality is shaped by the different opportunities and capacities that families take in participation in education. Therefore, the relationship betwixt family groundwork and educational achievement has become a critical indicator in evaluating educational (in) equality. Past studies showed that since the Open and Reform of China, family social economic status has become increasingly important in determining personal education achievement, which has not been dampened with the expansion of schools (Deng and Treiman 1997; Zhou et al. 1998; Li 2003, 2010: Li 2006;Liu 2008;Wu 2009;Wu 2013a; Li 2016).

Existing research has mostly focused on the touch on of family background on the eventual education attainment, specially the attainment of higher instruction, only it is worth noticing that educational activity attainment is a continuous process in which the instruction achievement of the prior stage affects the later on-stage achievement both cumulatively and probabilistically. Without access to high-qualified primary school and center school instruction, one barely has much adventure to proceed to higher teaching. The continuous and accumulative nature of didactics means that the contest for educational opportunities of individuals initiates e'er since the principal school and heart schoolhouse stages. Therefore, without a thorough analysis of the educational processes, it is difficult to fully understand the mechanisms of how family background affects children'due south educational opportunities and academic accomplishment. Moreover, at that place will exist straight-frontward policy implications to explore the relationship between academic achievement and family background from the starting betoken—the phase of compulsory education.

The goal of compulsory educational activity is to ensure the equality at the starting point of one's education, and its compulsory and equal nature should in theory guarantee that the impacts of family background on the children's schoolhouse entering to be the lowest. All the same, because of the scarcity of loftier school and college opportunities in current didactics organisation of Cathay, academic accomplishment has remained the primary standard of educational selection. So in fact, the education attainment of individuals is highly related to their academic achievement of each stage. Therefore, the equality of compulsory pedagogy should not merely exist reflected on its equal opportunities of school inbound, but besides its independence of family background.

In fact, not but that the schoolhouse quality may bear on students' bookish achievement during compulsory instruction, merely also the ways and abilities of the participation of parents in their children's compulsory education may directly bear on students' academic achievement. Distinctive from by research which focuses on the effect of family background on the final education attainment, this paper concerns through what mechanisms and paths that family unit background affects the children's academic achievement during the compulsory education period.

Literature review

Families touch children'southward learning behaviors and bookish achievement in important ways, as they are the master and most significant environments that the children are exposed to. Coleman'southward report (1966) shows that families may play even more of import roles in student's academic achievement than schools and communities. Since so, the line of empirical research on family unit background and children's achievement has found that the family social economical statuses may affect children'due south bookish achievements more than the touch of schools (Coleman et al. 1966; Peaker 1971; White 1980;Sirin 2005; Cheadle 2008). The Coleman's hypothesis has been supported by some inquiry and fieldworks based on some Chinese provinces and cities too. For instance, Fang and Feng (2008) plant that the family's social economic status affects children's academic scores significantly using the survey data of the middle school students of Nanjing. Sunday et al. (2009) found a significant positive upshot of the parent'due south income and educational levels on the academic achievement of chief school students based on a Longitudinal Survey of Families and Children in Gansu province.

Studies have explored the mechanisms of families affecting children's academic accomplishment based on the study of Coleman, from the human capital theory, cultural capital theory and social capital theory then on. The human majuscule theory claims that education is an important human capital investment, where the "cost-benefit" framework is the primary principles for families to make educational investment decision, and the difference in children's educational achievement is mainly caused by the difference of family unit educational investment. Considering of the limitation of family unit resources, parents of poor families usually are not able to invest sufficiently in their children'south instruction, which affects their children'due south bookish achievement (Becker 1964). Gross (1993) showed that students' cognitive skills are positively related to their parents' socioeconomic condition.

The cultural capital theory stresses that family cultural resource and environment determine children'due south educational aspirations and performances. Compared to families with insufficient cultural capital, parents with rich cultural capital are more than aware of the rules of schools, invest more cultural resources, pay more attention to cultivate the children'due south educational aspiration and interest, help children with school curriculum, and enable them to perform in academics outstandingly (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Sewell and Hauser (1993) showed that parents' educational expectations take meaning effects on inferior students' academic performances. Social capital theory emphasizes the participation of parents in didactics and children'southward learning behaviors and achievement; parents with college social economic status ordinarily participate in their children'south learning activities more intensively, pay more than attention to communication with teachers, manage the children's school absence and other risky behaviors, and meliorate the children' bookish performance (Coleman 1988). Empirical studies showed that parental educational participation, such as discussing school things with children, checking their homework, and participating in schoolhouse activities, could improve children's bookish performances (Pong et al. 2005).

Due to the heterogeneity of allocation of educational resource across rural and urban areas, districts, and schools, when talking about the relationship between family unit background and educational achievement of children in Communist china, scholars likewise regard the schoolhouse quality equally an important factor. The outstanding teaching resources and peers that concentrate in key schools have of import impacts on the accessibility of educational opportunities of the next stage for children. Families with college social economic status can make use of their advantages to gain admission to better teaching opportunities for their children, to enhance their possibilities of obtaining higher pedagogy (Li 2006; Liu 2008; Zhao and Hong 2012). Research shows that the parental social economic status can affect their children'due south schooling quality significantly. The higher the social economic status of a family, the improve schools their children attend (Wen 2006; Chen and Fang 2007; Li 2008; Wu 2013b).

In spite of the dissimilar theoretical perspectives, nearly research pays attention to the paths and mechanisms of how the social economic status of a family unit affects the children's academic achievements. Amongst these, human being capital theory stresses the function of the economic resources of family and educational investment in children'southward education, cultural capital and social capital theory pays more attention to the role of parent's educational level and participation on children's academic performance, and the perspective of schoolhouse quality argues that the social economic status of a family affects children's bookish functioning and adventure of continuing schooling through affecting school qualities.

Actually, the impacts of any type of factors cannot exist independently. All family economic resources, family environment and school qualities are important. The effect is that all of them are exogenous factors which only have effect through students' behaviors, i.e., through children'southward academic achievements.

Assay framework and research hypothesis

Based on existing studies, this article aims to explore the mechanisms and paths of the impact of family socio-economic status on the children's academic achievement at the microlevel. Through the organizing of existing literature, combined with the situation of education in Mainland china, the following analysis framework (Fig. 1) is proposed.

Fig. 1

Analysis framework

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The daily experience shows that the impact of family socio-economical status on children's bookish accomplishment is not direct, simply rather through the following two paths:

Start, families with relatively high socio-economic condition will strive to secure quality educational opportunities for their children, such as those provided by key schools and markets in the system, which in turn will affect their academic achievements. The key schools, which have excellent teachers and students, not only have a direct touch on their differences in bookish achievement, only too affect their learning attitudes and behaviors through teachers and peers, thereby affecting their academic achievement and further educational opportunities.

In improver, the evolution of the didactics and private tutor market that are related to primary and secondary education provides alternatives and supplements to formal school education. Families with improve economic weather condition can purchase boosted educational products and services for their children (such as domicile tutoring and tutoring classes), thus consolidating the influence of family unit SES on children's bookish achievement.

Second, family socio-economical status affects children'due south learning beliefs and academic functioning by affecting parents' educational expectations towards children and their educational participation. Parents' educational expectation and behavioral support for children are, to a sure extent, too affected by their socio-economic status, resources, and power. In that location are significant differences in the educational back up that families of different resources can provide. Parents' behavioral back up for their children'due south educational activity (such as checking homework, discussing school atmospheric condition, etc.) can foster the formation of good study habits of children and influence their bookish performance (Steinberg et al. 1992; Fan and Chen 2001; Zhao and Hong 2012).

Based on the discussions, this paper proposes four inquiry hypotheses.

Hypothesis ane: Family unit socioeconomic status has an important touch on on the quality of the educational opportunities that children take access to. The college the family's socioeconomic status, the higher the qualities of children'south educational opportunities attend.

Hypothesis 1a: Controlling other variables, the college the family'southward socioeconomic condition, the higher the quality of children's schoolhouse omnipresence.

Hypothesis 1b: Controlling other variables, the higher the family unit's socioeconomic status, the more educational services children receive from the marketplace.

Hypothesis 2: Parents' participation in their children's pedagogy is affected by their socioeconomic condition. The college the family unit's socioeconomic status, the higher the degree of participation in educational activity for their children is.

Hypothesis iii: Parental educational activity participation and the quality of children'due south educational opportunities affect children'south learning attitude and behavior.

Hypothesis 3a: Controlling other variables, the better the school quality the children attend, the more active their learning behaviors are.

Hypothesis 3b: Controlling other variables, the more parental education is involved, the more active the children'due south learning behaviors are.

Hypothesis 4: Parental participation in children's education and the quality of children's educational opportunities affect their academic achievement.

Hypothesis 4a: Controlling other variables, when the level of parental education participation is higher; the children'southward bookish performance is amend.

Hypothesis 4b: Controlling other variables, the better the quality of the school the children attend, the better their academic performance is.

Hypothesis 4c: Controlling other variables, the more educational services children receive in the market, the ameliorate their academic operation is.

Data, measurement, and methods

Data

The data in this paper is from the Chinese Family Panel Studies 2010 baseline survey information (CFPS2010). CFPS2010 covered 14,960 households in 25 provinces, municipalities, and democratic regions in Prc involving three questionnaire surveys for each household: namely the family questionnaires, adult questionnaires for those aged sixteen and above, and the children's questionnaires for those aged 16 and under. The children's questionnaire was divided into the office reported by the parents and by the function by children themselves (10–15 years former). The inquiry object of this article is children aged ten–fifteen years who are having compulsory education and who take filled in cocky-administered questionnaires. We matched the data obtained from the children's questionnaire with the data from the family and parent questionnaires while removing samples containing missing variables. Finally, we obtained 2750 cases for assay in the paper.

Measurement

Family unit SES is one of the fundamental explanatory variables of this article. The post-obit three indicators were used in the analysis for measurement. The first indicator is the net income of households per capita in 2009; the second is the years of education of the begetter; the third indicator is the years of education of the mother.

Parental participation in their children's education is an important mediator of the influences of family SES on the bookish accomplishment of children. In the surveys, iv interview questions were engaged to measure the parents' participation in their children'southward education. First, "when the child is learning, will you ever cease watching your favorite TV programs?" Second, "have you lot often discussed what happens in schoolhouse with the child since the offset of this school year?" Third, "Do you often ask the child to complete his homework?" Fourth, "Exercise you often check the child's homework?". The measures are ordered from 1 to v, indicating never, rarely (in one case per month), occasionally (one–two times per week), frequent (two–3 times per week), and very frequently (6–7 times a week). In the multiple regression analysis, nosotros took the boilerplate of these measures as the value of parents' educational participation for analysis.

The quality of the school that children attend has a very important influence on their learning behavior and academic accomplishment. Four measurements were used to measure the quality of children's school omnipresence: first, children'southward satisfaction with the school; second, children'south satisfaction with the class advisor; third, children'due south satisfaction with the Chinese teacher; and quaternary, children's satisfaction with the Mathematics teacher. The calibration of these indicators ranged from 1 to 5. The higher the value means the higher level of the satisfaction. In the multiple regression assay, we take the boilerplate of these iv as the value of the schoolhouse quality. Although the subjective evaluation of children may not fully reflect the quality of the school they nourish, it still reflects to a great extent their perception and evaluation of the quality of the school. Nosotros look forrad to further studies that can make up for the deficiencies in the school's quality measurement in this paper.

The educational services that children received in the market are measured by the following two indicators: starting time, whether the children participated in a remedial class in the previous semester, and, second, children's extracurricular tutoring/tutoring expenditures last year.

The measurement of children's learning beliefs, including their daily learning habits, was surveyed with the post-obit four interview questions. First, "I study very hard"; second, "I concentrate on learning in class"; third, "I only play after completing my homework"; and 4th, "I check it several times to make sure information technology is correct after finishing my homework." The measurements of the variable range from 1 to 5, representing very disagree, disagree, neutral, hold, and concord very much respectively.

The measurement of children's bookish achievement involves two types of indicators. Kickoff, the parental assessments of linguistic communication and mathematics scores, which were surveyed with "What do y'all know about the language/mathematics scores of your child final semester". It is an ordinal variable ranging from 1 to 4, with 1 poor, 2 medium, 3 good, and 4 excellent. The 2d category includes the CFPS2010 criterion scores of children'due south words and math ability, with the degree of difficulty adapted based on the level of children's education. The scores were standardized according to the province of the child and the form of enrollment in the assay.

In studies of the human relationship between children's academic achievement and family unit background, the ranking of family socio-economic condition is unremarkably measured at the national level. Information technology is necessary to pay special attending to the fact that the opportunities of secondary education for children in Prc are rather regional, and the choice of eye schools from elementary schools, of loftier schools from heart schools, and of colleges from high schools is implemented based on the regional (county, city, and province) processes gradationally. The admission to educational opportunities at a higher level does not depend on the children'south ranking at the national level, but on their relative location within the region. In the same way, their competitors are also not country-level students but the peer group in that specific region.

Therefore, both the influence of family background and the measurement of bookish achievement should exist relative and regional based. In the multiple regression analysis, we controlled the regional differences in children'due south academic accomplishment and family socioeconomic status by adding provincial dummy variables. In the structural equations, we also standardized measures such as children'southward academic achievements, remedial class expenses, and family socioeconomic statuses according to provinces and grades, that is, decision-making for the differences in grades and regions in the analysis. For that, the control variables also include gender and ethnicity.

Tabular array one reports the sample distribution and descriptive statistics of each of the measured and latent variables. In our sample, urban samples took 38.3%, rural samples 61.vii%, boys accounted for 50.6%, and girls 49.4%; 63.seven% of children enrolled in primary school and 36.three% enrolled in middle school.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the primary variables (N = 2750)

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Method

To simultaneously estimate the relationship betwixt appreciable indicators and latent variables and the human relationship inside these latent variables themselves, structural equation model is used to estimate the relationship between family unit background variables and children'south academic achievement. Based on the assay framework (Fig. i) and enquiry hypotheses of this paper, the structural equation model was gear up as follows (see Fig. ii). For the respective human relationship between latent variables and measured indicators, please refer to Table one.

Fig. 2

The setting of the structural equation model

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Start, the socio-economical status of exogenous latent variables has a straight impact on children's quality of schoolhouse attendance, education services children receiving on market, parental instruction participation, and children'southward academic behavior, and indirectly affects children'southward academic achievement. We set the socio-economical condition of the family as the only exogenous variable other than gender, ethnicity, and region. Past research shows that parents' parenting fashion, the quality of children'south school, and children's own educational expectations and learning behaviors are all affected by the socio-economic condition of the family extensively.

Second, primal schools typically have first-class teachers and students, which not simply has a direct impact on children's bookish achievements, but also affects their learning attitudes and behaviors through teachers and peers. We propose that the quality of children's school and parental didactics participation tin can straight affect children'due south bookish achievement and tin also accept an indirect effect on children's bookish achievement through the mediator of children's bookish behavior.

Third, at that place is no direct measure for laten variable children's academic achievement in Fig. 2. Instead, in the model, information technology is regarded equally a high-level latent variable measured by the children's benchmark test (Test) and functioning ranking (Rank).

Fourth, every bit it tin be arbitrary to presume the correlation between the measurement error terms of the variables which is to be adjusted according to LISREL, it is assumed that the fault terms of all endogenous variables are non relevant.

Fifth, the urban-rural differences in the mechanisms of family background affecting children'due south academic achievement are examined by comparing the urban sample with the rural sample.

Multiple regression analysis results

Table 2 reports the results from the multiple regression analysis of the children's words and math criterion test scores. Model 1, model 2, model three, model 4, and model 5 respectively control for the urban and rural areas, family socioeconomic status, and parental teaching participation scores.

Table 2 The multiple regression analysis of the children's benchmark exam scores

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In terms of urban-rural differences in children'due south academic accomplishment, model 1 shows that later controlling for variables such every bit provinces, grades, and ethnicities, urban children's benchmark scores are 0.755 units higher than those in rural areas. Every bit the hateful value of children'due south benchmarks is 21.775 and the standard deviation is 7.706, the urban-rural difference in children's academic achievement accounts for about 0.1 standard deviation. After controlling the household per capita income and years of education of parents, model 2 shows that the divergence betwixt children's criterion scores in urban and rural areas is statistically insignificant. This shows that the deviation between urban and rural areas is largely due to differences in the socio-economic status of the family unit.

The results of model 2, model 3, model four, and model 5 consistently show that the family's socioeconomic status, parental pedagogy participation, whether children attend tutorial classes, the quality of children'due south school, and the extent of children's learning efforts all have significant result on the bookish achievement of primary and secondary school students.

The results of the full model (model five) show that the higher the family'due south socioeconomic status, the amend children's academic achievement: for every one yr of increase in parental didactics, the child'due south criterion score will increase by 0.118; for every 1% increase in household income, the kid'south benchmark exam score volition increment by 0.26. The higher the parental education participation scores (such as checking homework, discussing schoolhouse bug, etc.), the better the children'south academic functioning achieved. In terms of the bear upon of educational opportunities on children'south academic achievement, the quality of children's school omnipresence, and the educational services provided by the market (whether attended a remedial form) have significant positive furnishings on academic functioning. The more satisfied the kid is with the school, the college the score of the benchmark examination. Controlling other variables, the benchmark score of the child who participated in the remedial class is 0.46 higher than children who did not nourish the tutoring form.

Table three farther reports on the influence of family socioeconomic status on parental education participation, whether children attend tutorial classes, the quality of children's schoolhouse attendance and children'southward learning efforts. Amongst them, whether the children are on the tutorial form is analyzed with a binary logistic regression approach, and the residuum outcomes are analyzed with multiple regression analysis.

Tabular array 3 The effect of family unit SES on mediators

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Statistics show that urban families and families with higher socioeconomic status place greater emphasis on children's didactics participate more in the children'due south education, are more likely to purchase education services for their children in the market, and strive for quality educational opportunities. In terms of parents' participation in education, urban parents' education participation score is 0.23 higher than that of rural parents. For every 1-yr increase in years of instruction of parents, their educational participation score would increase by 0.050. In terms of educational opportunities, urban children are more than likely to participate in extracurricular tutorial classes and attend meliorate-quality schools. The incidence of urban children participating in extracurricular remedial classes was 4.66 (e^1.54) times higher than that of rural children, and urban children rated their school 0.049 higher than rural children. The level of didactics of parents and family per capita income both have significant positive effects on children's quality of attention school and participation in tutorial classes.

In terms of children's learning behavior, nosotros constitute that the college the family unit's socioeconomic status, the lower the enthusiasm children take towards learning. The enthusiasm for learning among urban children is significantly lower than that among rural children. And unlike from family SES, parental educational activity participation and quality of schooling have pregnant positive effects on children's learning behavior. The higher the degree of parental education participation, the more than active the children's learning behaviors are. The better the quality of children's school is, the higher their enthusiasm for learning. This implies that college family socioeconomic status cannot directly increase children'south enthusiasm for learning, but must exist mediated past parent's education participation.

Results from the structural equation models

Multiple regression assay provided preliminary evidence for agreement the influence of family background on children's bookish achievement and diverse mediator variables. However, multiple regression analysis cannot simultaneously clarify the intrinsic relationship among the independent variables. The assumption that all variables are not biased due to measurement error may not be realistically either. To improve deal with measurement errors issues and to farther clarify how the family groundwork affects children's bookish accomplishment, nosotros introduce structural equation analysis.

The goodness of fit of the structural equation model

The evaluation of the goodness of fit of the structural equation model is a prerequisite for explaining the relationship between the measured and the latent variables. In general, χ ², χ ²/df, RMSEA (Residual Error Root Mean Square), GFI (Model Fit Index), and AGFI (Adjusted Model Fit Index) are often used as the main tests of the goodness-of-fit.

χ ² statistic reflects the differences between the model-estimated covariance matrix E and the sample covariance matrix S. The smaller the χ ² value is, the better the model fit is. However, the χ ^two value and χ ^two/df value are very easily afflicted by the sample size. With large sample, a slight divergence volition make χ ² and χ ²/df to yield meaning results. GFI and AGFI are traditionally used indicators for evaluating the goodness of fit of structural equations. The closer their values are to 1, the improve the model fits. RMSEA not only excludes the influence of sample size, just tin can also perform statistical tests on the values. Therefore, RMSEA is usually used as the primary indicator for evaluating the merits of the model. The smaller the RMSEA value is, the better the model fits. It is generally accepted that RMSEA less than 0.08 is an adequate model, less than 0.05 is a better model, and less than 0.01 is considered a perfect model (Markus 2012; Kline 2015).

Tabular array 4 reports the goodness of fit of implementing the model in the total sample and subsamples. In the hypothetical model (Fig. 2), the χ ² value is 676.5, the caste of freedom is 176, and the χ ^two/df is iii.8, which meets the general evaluation criteria that χ ²/df is less than 5 in the instance of large samples. Besides, the RMSEA is 0.032, with a probability of less than 0.050 being 1, both GFI and AGFI are also closer to one. According to the results of goodness-of-fit tests with various subsamples, our hypothetical model fits the inherent structure of data quite well.

Table 4 Goodness of fit tests of the structural equation model

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Table 5 summarizes the relationship between the measured and latent variables. The analysis shows that the gene loading of the measurement alphabetize is statistically significant, and the loading of almost measurement indexes reaches 0.5. This shows that, overall, the indicators used in the analysis have a high degree of validity, and the latent variables are measured well. Information technology should be noted that in the measurement model, the loading of three measurement indicators is less than 0.v: the loading of children's mathematics test score is less than 0.5, which indicates that the mathematics test does non reflect the children's linguistic communication and math ability well. The loading of parents requiring that their children finishing homework is too less than 0.5, which means that the measurement indicator also does not reflect the parental education participation very well. Although the loading of the log of household per capita income is less than 0.5, only as an exogenous variables, factor loading does not reflect the extent to which the indicator measures the latent variables of family socioeconomic status, only bespeak how much the household per capita income can explain the differences in family unit socioeconomic status. Therefore, it is not a measurement that nosotros focus on. We look forward to further research that tin make upwardly for this article's ambiguity nigh children's academic achievement and parental education participation measurement.

Table 5 Goodness of fit of measured models (Due north = 2750)

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Path analysis of family background affecting children's academic achievement

Figure 3 and Table half-dozen study the path diagrams and examination results of the relationship between the latent variables. Overall, the model specified in this paper explains 1.2% of the difference in quality of schools that children attend, the 33.3% of the departure in children's admission to market place education services, xx.3% of the difference in parental education participation, 10.4% of the difference in children'south learning behavior differences, and 34.4% of the difference in children'south academic accomplishment. The following shows the relationship from the family socioeconomic status to the mediating variables to the children'south bookish accomplishment variables.

Fig. iii

Path analysis of family unit social economical status affecting children's academic achievements

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Table 6 The path coefficients of family SES affecting children'due south academic achievement (Northward = 2750)

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Differences in family socioeconomic status and educational opportunities

The scarcity of quality schooling resources makes the competition to be fierce. From Fig. 3 and Table half dozen, it tin be seen that the consequence coefficient of family socio-economic status on the quality of school children attending is 0.xi standard units, that is, if the family's socioeconomic status is increased by ane standard unit of measurement, the quality of children's school would be increased by 0.eleven standard units. The research hypothesis 1a in this article (the higher the family socioeconomic status, the higher the quality of the children's school) is supported by the data. However, family unit socio-economical status does not explain the quality of children's schooling to a large extent. The family background only explains the 1.2% departure in the quality of children'due south schoolhouse. This shows that in the compulsory instruction stage, due to the restriction of the nearest admission principle, the influence of family socio-economic status on children's quality of attention schools is relatively limited, and the difference in the quality of their schooling may be mainly due to factors other than the family unit, such as differences betwixt urban and rural areas and regional differences. Information technology should be noted that this may be related to our utilise of household-based survey data and bereft measurement of schoolhouse quality.

Unlike the mechanism for obtaining quality schoolhouse opportunities, the extracurricular remedial class is an educational activity service provided by the market. Families are gratis to purchase. The mechanisms affecting their conquering are mainly the market accessibility and family buy willingness and power. The results of the analysis support the hypothesis 1b of this study (the higher the family's socioeconomic status, the more than probable the kid receives educational services in the market). From Tabular array half dozen, it can be seen that family socio-economic status explained 33.3% of the deviation in children's access to market place education services, and its standardized consequence coefficient was 0.577.

Family unit socio-economic status and parental education participation

Although parents in China by and large have loftier educational expectations for their children (Ma 2010), parents of dissimilar socioeconomic status may provide different behavioral support for their children's education due to constraints in their ain abilities and resources (such every bit discussing what happens in schools with their children and checking the homework for their children).

Figure iii and Table 6 show that family socio-economic status explains 20% of the difference in parental support for children'south didactics, with a standardized coefficient of 0.45. Even though nigh parents recognize the importance of education, families with different socioeconomic status may create different learning environments (Zhao and Hong 2012; Wang and Shi 2014). Thus, the hypothesis 2 of this report (the higher the social economical status of the family unit, the college the degree of parental participation in the education of the children) is supported by the information.

Family unit background and children'south learning behavior

The evolution of children'due south learning behaviors and habits cannot be separated from the influence of the imperceptible and enduring influence of parents. The results of the assay in Tabular array half-dozen show that family unit socioeconomic status has a pregnant negative impact on children's learning enthusiasm. The higher the family unit's socioeconomic status, the lower the enthusiasms for learning the children take. Parental education participation has a pregnant positive effect on children's learning beliefs. The more parents participate in educational activity, the more than active the children's learning behavior is (hypothesis 3a is supported). Although children's learning behavior is afflicted to a certain extent by family background, these variables only explain a small part of children'southward learning beliefs differences. A reasonable speculation is that children's learning behavior is more influenced by factors outside the family (schools, communities, peers, etc.).

Differences in educational opportunities and children's learning behaviors and academic achievements

High-quality schools not only accept excellent teachers, but also have a good source of students. The quality of the school children attend not only directly affects children's academic achievement, but also affects their learning behavior through teachers and peers. From the analysis with results shown in Table six, the quality of the children's school not but has a significant positive effect on their bookish achievement (hypothesis 4b that the higher the quality of the child's schoolhouse, the meliorate his/her academic operation is supported), only also positively affects their learning behavior (hypothesis 3b the improve the quality of the children's school, the more than active is their learning behavior) is supported by the information. The analysis likewise shows that children's participation in extracurricular tutoring and tutoring expenses has a significant positive consequence on their academic accomplishment. Research hypothesis 4c (the more education services children receive in the marketplace, the better their academic operation) is supported.

Parental educational activity participation and children's academic achievement

The results of Table six also lend back up to Coleman's argument that parental teaching participation non simply has an indirect effect on children'due south bookish accomplishment through affecting children's learning attitudes and behaviors, but besides has a direct impact on children'south academic operation. The higher the degree of parent participation, the improve the academic operation of children, and the hypothesis 4a is supported by information. The research of Zhao and Hong (2012) also showed that parents who accept more abundant social network uppercase can have meliorate communication with teachers and other parents, which indirectly improves children's academic performance.

The total effect of family unit background on children'due south bookish achievement

Table 7 further reports the standardized total effect of various factors on children's academic accomplishment then that nosotros tin can compare their relative importance. It can be seen from Table 7 that family socioeconomic condition has the greatest touch on the total issue of children's academic achievement (the full standardization effect is 0.394), followed by the child'due south ain learning behavior, followed by parental education participation and children'southward school quality, and finally the education services provided by the market (the total standardization outcome is 0.103). This shows that even during the stage of compulsory educational activity that entreatment to social disinterestedness, the family unit background still has a relatively large impact on children'southward academic accomplishment. At the aforementioned time, we can also see that the influence of family unit socioeconomic status on children'due south academic achievement is not simplistic and directly, and there is a big room to improve children's academic performance through the family and school.

Tabular array 7 The standardized total effects of various factors on children'south academic achievement (N = 2750)

Total size table

How family background affects vary across urban and rural

Nowadays in China, regional factor (urban or rural) is an of import variable affecting education. Not only does the distribution of education resource across urban and rural areas differ tremendously, only urban and rural households besides take quite dissimilar socioeconomic status, lifestyles, and instruction patterns. The analysis in Tabular array two shows that urban children have significantly better academic performance than rural children. With the structural equation model, we further compare the paths of the outcome of family unit background across urban and rural areas.

Table 8 reports the path coefficients among the various latent variables and the explanatory power of the structural equation model. In general, in that location are 3 differences in ways that family background influences the bookish achievement of rural students and urban students. First, the influence of family socioeconomic status on urban students' achievement is greater than that of rural students. The socioeconomic condition of the family explained 20.eight% of the departure in academic performance for urban students, and six.4% of the difference in the academic performance of rural students. ^{Footnote ane} Second, the family background has meaning urban-rural differences on the buy of education services, and the family unit socio-economic status explains 29.5% of difference in the purchase of educational services past urban families, and 11.half dozen% of difference in the purchase of education service by rural students. Third, the rural student's academic achievement is more explained by their own learning behavior; the path coefficient of the learning attempt on the academic performance for rural children's is 0.16 college than for urban children.

Table viii The differences in the path coefficients of family unit SES on children's academic achievement

Full size table

Conclusions and word

Children's didactics is related to the quality of the time to come labor forcefulness of a state and thus the country's competitiveness. Almost of the existing studies focus on the influence of family groundwork on college education attainment. Actually, the educational attainment of the higher educational activity is affected by the education attainment during their childhood menstruum. In the literature of the human relationship betwixt family background and academic performance in middle school (Fang and Feng 2008) and high school (Yang 2005), the discussion is as well limited in the correlation between family background and academic achievement. There is a lack of discussion on the mechanisms of babyhood bookish achievement, that is, the path through which the family background tin bear upon education attainment during childhood, which needs further exam in the enquiry of teaching. Therefore, this article tries to explore the mechanisms producing the differences in children's bookish achievement during the compulsory education catamenia and the influence of family background from the starting point.

Based on the empirical analysis of Mainland china Family Console Studies Baseline Information (CFPS2010), the study institute that:

Commencement, the family background has a large impact on children'south bookish accomplishment, which is consistent with the conclusions of existing studies. Contrary to the findings of existing enquiry, this written report found that factors such as family background, differences in educational opportunities, and children'south learning behavior explained 34.4% of differences in children'south test scores, inside which family SES explained 15.five% of the divergence. ^{Footnote ii} This shows that, on the one manus, the family background still has a great influence on children's academic accomplishment, even in the menstruation of compulsory education that appeals to social justice. It is in this sense that extensive public policy efforts in promoting teaching disinterestedness at the phase of compulsory education are needed. On the other mitt, the influence of family socioeconomic status on children'south academic achievement is not simplistic and direct. There is a large room for schools and families to take action in improving children's academic operation.

Second, differences in educational opportunities and parental education participation are ii important paths for families to affect children's academic accomplishment. The existing studies separately demonstrate the bear on of educational opportunities and parental interest. Still, these two forces act on the children simultaneously. The analysis using the structural equation model shows that although Chinese parents hold relatively high educational expectations for their children, but family unit socio-economical condition still has a greater impact on children's educational opportunities, no matter via providing quality schooling opportunities or providing market-based educational resources. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, parents with different socio-economical condition are too heterogeneous to a great extent in their beliefs support for children.

3rd, the assay of this paper also shows that there are significant urban-rural differences in the path and machinery of the influence of family background: family unit socioeconomic status has a greater touch on urban student'south academic performance than for rural students. Too, compared with urban students, the bookish achievement of rural students is more than dependent on their own learning behavior. In summary, there are 2 paths of family background affecting children's bookish achievement: Beginning, families employ their social and economic resources to compete and purchase quality educational resources (key schools in the state system and educational services in the market) and thus affect children's academic accomplishment. Second, parents cultivate children's interest in learning and learning habits through educational participation and behavioral support for their children, thereby affecting children's bookish achievement.

The empirical assay of these two paths contributes to the existing literature on family unit groundwork and education for educators. At the same time, it also provides clear implications to assist reduce the class differences in children'south academic achievement during the compulsory education period, and thus raise the overall quality of China's human capital, and promote instruction fairness. At the family level, family education is very important for children's academic functioning. Parents with lower socioeconomic status can cultivate good learning behavior of children through their own educational participation (such as through intendance and supervision of their children's study, and agile communication with teachers). This would improve children's academic functioning and reduce the impact of family unit socioeconomic status on children's academic achievement and thus reduce the class differences in schooling progression and fifty-fifty in the labor marketplace. At the school level, nether a given allocation of educational resource, schools can improve students' academic achievement through the following two ways: start, enhancing teachers' knowledge and pedagogy skills; and second, through communication with parents, creating a positive educational atmosphere in schoolhouse and at home, enhancing children's involvement in learning, and cultivating good learning habits of children. At the national level, relevant departments shall strive for the success of every school providing compulsory educational activity, amend school facilities, upgrade the quality of teachers, and reach a balanced allocation of educational resources, thereby reducing the affect of schoolhouse factors on children's academic functioning.

Given the applicability of the data, at that place are however issues that need attention by time to come research. First, with cross-sectional data, this report cannot fully capture the causality of certain paths, such as the bear on of participating in extracurricular tutoring classes on children'due south academic achievement. Second, the measurements in the quality of schoolhouse children attend and parents' instruction participation demand further improvement. Third, further examination is needed on the interaction between family unit and school to better explore the issue of families and schools on individual'south teaching attainment.

Notes

1. This may exist explained past the higher heterogeneity in family unit background and educational opportunities in urban areas compared to the rural counterpart. But this argument needs further information analysis and tests to confirm.

2. This tin be learnt from the proportions of ability explanation of each latent variable by the structural equation model and the simplified model in Table 6.

Abbreviations

AGFI:

Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (LISREL), like GFI but adjusts for model complexity (like adapted multiple r-squared), theoretically ranges from 0 (poor fit) to 1 (perfect fit), considered satisfactory when > .ninety

CFPS2010:

The baseline of Chinese Family Panel Report in 2010

DF:

Degree of liberty

GFI:

Goodness of Fit Index (LISREL), similar multiple r-squared, theoretically ranges from 0 (poor fit) to 1 (perfect fit), considered satisfactory when > .ninety

RMSEA:

Root Mean Square Error of Approximation, calculates the size of the standardized residual correlations, theoretically ranges from 0 (perfect fit) to ane (poor fit), considered satisfactory when < .05

SES:

Social-economical condition

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Institute of Social Science Survey at Peking University for collecting information for this study.

Funding

This study received funding from the Ministry of Education in Red china Fund of Humanities and Social Sciences for Youth Scholars Project No.17YJC840024.

Availability of data and materials

The data used in this paper is from "China Family Panel Studies" collected by Institute of Social Scientific discipline Survey, Peking University. It is publicly bachelor, and nosotros were authorized to utilize CFPS 2010 for this study.

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Affiliations

1. College of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, People's Commonwealth of Red china

   Zhonglu Li

2. Center for Sociological Research and Development Studies of Cathay, Peking Academy, Room 106, the Scientific discipline Edifice 5, Yiheyuan Road five, Beijing, 100871, People'south Republic of Prc

   Zeqi Qiu

Contributions

ZQ contributed to the study conception and design. ZL participated in the analysis and interpretation of information. ZL prepared the manuscript. ZQ was responsible for the critical revisions of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the last manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zeqi Qiu.

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Li, Z., Qiu, Z. How does family background impact children's educational achievement? Testify from Contemporary China. J. Mentum. Sociol. 5, thirteen (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40711-018-0083-8

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• Received: 07 June 2018

• Accepted: 13 September 2018

• Published: 02 October 2018

• DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40711-018-0083-8

Keywords

• Family unit Groundwork
• Instruction Opportunity
• Parental Participation
• Bookish Achievement

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