Making it against the odds: How individual and parental co‐agency predict educational mobility

Abstract

This study examines the role of individual agency and parental co-agency as resource factors enabling educational mobility (university enrolment and degree completion) among firstgeneration students. Methods: The study is based on Next Steps, a nationally representative cohort of UK students. Path models were run, linking different dimensions of agency assessed at age 13/14 to educational attainment by age 25/26, controlling for academic attainment and socio-demographic factors. Results: Educational mobility was predicted by student's expectation to go to university, their expectation of success, and school engagement during secondary school. In addition, parental coagency played a significant role -highlighting the importance of parents in supporting upward educational mobility of their children. Conclusions: Multiple dimensions of agency are necessary for disadvantaged students to achieve academically. To support first-generation students, schools need to provide opportunities for them to become engaged in education, to experience mastery and to develop realistic expectations of success.

Socioeconomic origin, future expectations, and educational achievement: A longitudinal three-generation study of the persistence of family advantage.

“…Educational expectations are the beliefs about future educational attainment. They motivate student effort (Domina et al, 2011) and may ultimately influence educational attainment (Schoon et al, 2021). Educational expectations can be conceptualized either as idealistic expectations (hopes) or as more realistic anticipations of future educational attainment; the former being what an individual hopes to attain if all went well, the latter what they think they might actually be able to attain given their circumstances (cf., Beal & Crockett, 2010; Lee et al, 2012).…”

The influence of parenting on building character in adolescents

“…It is relevant to the duties of adolescents' development, namely relevant to their state as people get older and they start to widen their social circle. Schools become one of the socialization media by adolescents ( Ahmed et al., 2020 ; Schoon et al., 2021 ). This is in line with the functions of school education as a socialization media, namely providing required knowledge and skills to develop the intellectual capacity to make adolescents as students have a decent life ( Chen et al., 2020 ; Sundgot-Borgen et al., 2020 ).…”

“…Besides schools and teachers, peers also play an important role in building adolescents’ characters ( Karłyk-Ćwik, 2020 ; Martínez et al., 2021 ; Schoon et al., 2021 ). Peers play a vital role for adolescents, primarily related to attitude, topics of discussion, interests, appearance, and behavior.…”

The Influence of Parenting and Friendship on Self-Esteem in Adolescents

“…The parents' communication pattern in their positive parenting directly affects self-esteem formation in adolescents. The parents are the first place affecting the formation and the development of self-esteem in adolescents [17]. The quality of the parents-children relationship will strongly determine the quality of interaction in it [18].…”

“…Furthermore, the researcher tried to see if the items on the scale had difficulties in using words, language or incorrect answer choices. The conclusion is that the invalid items in the validity test obtained from the SPSS program analysis were 9 items including items number 16,17,27,30,33,40,42,51, and 57 so that the total valid items in this learning motivation psychological scale are 51 items. Meanwhile, the reliability test showed that the scale is above the threshold so it is declared to be reliable.…”