Household social composition and academic performance in primary school: Univariate and multivariate effects of family occupation and education in Europe

Abstract

Studies linking inequality in educational achievement to social inequality often use parental occupation and educational attainment, but considering only the highest value of one parent for both variables. This approach masks the household joint effect, limiting the range of variability in performance. The aim of this study is to analyse the aggregate effect of household social composition on educational outcomes. We will examine the combined effect of the occupational and educational level of both parents on student performance in Maths and reading and assess the improvement in the explained variance compared to solely considering the highest occupational or educational level of one parent. Data come from TIMSS-2019 (maths) and PIRLS-2021 (reading), with two samples of 57,735 and 69,849 4th grade students from 12 European countries. One- and two-way ANOVA models were estimated to identify the effects of household occupational and educational conditions, and their interaction, on educational performance. The results indicate that the significant variation in performance is higher when both parents are considered, for either education or occupation, as well as when both variables are included in the two-way model. The inclusion of the household aggregate effect reveals greater inequality in student performance between more disadvantaged households, with lower cultural (related to education) and material (related to occupation and income) resources, and more socioeconomically advantaged households, with more resources. We argue that the household represents more accurately the effects of inequality of educational opportunity on students with lower socioeconomic and cultural resources

Los estudios que relacionan la desigualdad de resultados educativos con la desigualdad social recurren habitualmente a la ocupación y los estudios de los progenitores, tomando el valor más alto de cada variable. Este procedimiento invisibiliza el efecto conjunto del hogar, limitando el intervalo de variabilidad del rendimiento. Nuestro objetivo es analizar el efecto agregado de la composición social del hogar en los resultados educativos. Estudiaremos el efecto combinado del nivel ocupacional y educativo de ambos padres en el rendimiento y evaluaremos la mejora en la varianza explicada frente a la sola consideración del nivel ocupacional u educativo más alto de uno de ellos. Utilizamos datos de TIMSS-2019 (matemáticas) y PIRLS-2021 (lengua) de dos muestras de 57.735 y 69.849 estudiantes de 4º de Primaria en 12 países europeos. Estimamos Modelos ANOVA de una y dos vías para identificar los efectos de la condición ocupacional y educativa del hogar y su interacción sobre el rendimiento académico. Los resultados muestran que la variación significativa del rendimiento del alumnado es mayor cuando se considera a ambos progenitores frente a uno, tanto con estudios como con ocupaciones, así como cuando se incluyen ambas variables en el Modelo. El efecto agregado del hogar muestra la mayor desigualdad de rendimiento del alumno/a, entre los hogares más desfavorecidos, con menos recursos culturales (asociados a estudios) y materiales (ocupación y renta), y los más favorecidos. Sostenemos que el hogar representa con mayor precisión los efectos de la desigualdad de oportunidades educativas del alumnado con menores recursos socioeconómicos y culturales.