BackgroundLow family socio‐economic status (SES) is usually associated with children’s poor academic achievement, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are less understood.AimsThe present study examined the mediating role of parental academic involvement and the moderating role of parental subjective social mobility in this relationship with cross‐sectional data.Sample and methodsA total of 815 fourth‐ to sixth‐grade children were recruited from five elementary schools in China. Family SES (measured by parents’ education, parents’ occupation and family income) and parental subjective social mobility were obtained directly from parents, parental academic involvement was reported by children, and information on children’s academic achievement was collected from their teachers.ResultsThe results showed that (1) both family SES and parental academic involvement were positively correlated with children’s Chinese and math achievement, (2) parental academic involvement mediated the relationships between family SES and children’s Chinese and math achievement, and (3) parental subjective social mobility moderated the path from family SES to parental academic involvement. The models of children’s Chinese and math achievement showed that the association between family SES and parental academic involvement was weak among children’s parents who reported high levels of subjective social mobility.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that there is a pathway from family SES to children’s academic achievement through parental academic involvement and that this pathway is dependent on the level of parental subjective social mobility.
The adverse impact of a low family socioeconomic status (SES) on rural-to-urban migrant children’s academic achievement has been widely demonstrated. However, knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying this relationship is limited. The current study aimed to examine the potential mediating effects of educational expectations and the moderating effects of subjective SES on the relationship between family SES and academic achievement among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents. A sample of 321 rural-to-urban migrant adolescents (48.2% girls; mean age = 11.73 years, SD = 1.16 years) was recruited in China. The results indicated that migrant adolescents’ educational expectations mediated the relationship between family SES and academic achievement. In addition, the link between family SES and educational expectations was weak among adolescents with higher levels of subjective SES. These findings suggest that subjective SES serves as a protective factor buffering the negative effects of a low family SES on migrant adolescents’ academic achievement through educational expectations.
The correlations between a low family socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescents’ poor academic outcomes have been widely documented. However, the mechanisms through which family SES is associated with adolescents’ academic achievement are not well understood. Therefore, this study examined the mediating roles of different types of parental involvement (i.e., parental school-based involvement, academic socialization, and home-based involvement) and the moderating role of adolescents’ subjective social mobility in the relationships between family SES and academic achievement by using multisource data. The valid sample consisted of 842 adolescents ([Formula: see text] = 12.28 years, 40.97% girls) who were recruited from five township public schools in China. The results indicated that all three types of parental involvement partially mediated the relationships between family SES and adolescents’ Chinese and math achievement; parental school-based involvement had the strongest mediating effects, followed by academic socialization, and home-based involvement had the lowest mediating effects. Moreover, the path from parental home-based involvement to Chinese achievement in the mediation model was moderated by the adolescents’ subjective social mobility. In conclusion, parental involvement is an important mediating mechanism through which a low family SES impedes adolescents’ academic achievement, and adolescents’ subjective social mobility can play a buffering role in the relationship between parental home-based involvement and Chinese achievement.
Family socio‐economic status (SES) is significantly related to disparities in children’s executive function. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds perform worse on executive function tasks than their peers from high‐SES families. The protective factors in the relationship between SES and executive function have not been sufficiently investigated, especially from the perspective of parents’ and children’s perceptions and expectations regarding SES. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether parental subjective SES and children’s subjective social mobility separately moderated the relationship between family SES and children’s executive function among 885 participants aged 9–13 years. The results showed that family SES was positively related to the three components of executive function (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory). Moreover, the relationship between SES and cognitive flexibility was weak among the children with a high level of subjective social mobility or those whose parents had high levels of subjective SES. Among children from families with economic hardship, subjective social mobility is a potential protective factor mitigating the negative effects of low family SES on their cognitive flexibility.
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