Self‐affirmation reduces the socioeconomic attainment gap in schools in England

Abstract

Background. Studies in the United States show that school students from some ethnic backgrounds are susceptible to stereotype threat, that this undermines their academic performance, and that a series of virtually zero-cost self-affirmation writing exercises can reduce these adverse effects. In England, however, socioeconomic status (SES) is a much stronger predictor of academic success than is ethnic background.Aims. This study investigates whether self-affirmation writing exercises can help close the SES attainment gap in England by increasing the academic performance of low-SES (but not higher-SES) school students.Sample. Our sample consisted of students aged 11-14 in a secondary school in southern England (N = 562); of these, 128 were eligible for free school meals, a proxy for low SES.Methods. Students completed three short writing exercises throughout one academic year: those randomly assigned to an affirmed condition wrote about values that were important to them, and those assigned to a control condition wrote about a neutral topic.Results. On average, the low-SES students had lower academic performance and reported experiencing more stereotype threat than their higher-SES peers. The selfaffirmation raised the academic performance of the low-SES students by 0.38 standard deviations but did not significantly affect the performance of the higher-SES students, thus reducing the SES performance gap by 62%. The self-affirmation also reduced the level of stress reported by the low-SES students.Conclusions. The benefits of this virtually zero-cost intervention compare favourably with those of other interventions targeting the SES academic attainment gap. Stereotype threatAlthough definitions vary (Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007), in broad terms stereotype threat is the sense of threat that people feel in a given context when they believe that they risk 1 Details and limitations of these and the other calculations in this section are available in Appendix S1. 2 In England, 'Asian' refers to students mainly of Bangladeshi, Indian, and Pakistani backgrounds.518 Ian Robert Hadden et al.

Predictors of mathematical attainment trajectories across the primary-to-secondary education transition: parental factors and the home environment

“…It was expected based upon the wider literature and a previous study conducted by the authors on the same dataset [ 62 ], that IQ and socio-economic status would predict maths attainment trajectories across the transition from primary to secondary education. Research investigating IQ and SES and attainment has found similar results [ 110 – 112 ], with this study adding further support to the existing literature.…”

Internalizing symptoms and working memory as predictors of mathematical attainment trajectories across the primary–secondary education transition

“…This finding is not surprising as research has consistently found links between SES and both general academic achievement (for a review see [72]), and maths performance specifically (e.g. [105]). Although, this study provides additional evidence that children with higher SES progress at a very slightly quicker rate compared with their peers.…”

Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions

“…Yet, values affirmation interventions have been found to benefit other groups in different contexts. In England, with its long history of striking disparities between social classes (Evans, 2006; O. Jones, 2016), a brief values affirmation intervention has been shown to increase the mathematics exam performance of students from low SES backgrounds, reducing the gap with their higher SES peers by a remarkable 62% (covariate adjusted; Hadden, Easterbrook, Nieuwenhuis, Fox, & Dolan, 2019). However, in contrast with the U.S. studies, it found no evidence of benefits to lower performing ethnic groups.…”

“…These psychological barriers are often the consequences of cues within local educational contexts that signal to some groups-usually those with low status that have suffered from inequality in wider society-that they are not valued in educational institutions, are likely to fail at their studies, and are unlikely to reap any benefits from pursuing an education. This can cause members of those groups to feel alienated, uncomfortable, discouraged, and demotivated, impeding their engagement, persistence, progress, and performance within education (Easterbrook, Hadden, & Nieuwenhuis, 2019). These psychological barriers can therefore account for a substantial proportion of the differences in educational attainment between groups (Walton & Yeager, 2020).…”