The (Unequal) Interplay Between Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills in Early Educational Attainment

Abstract

Cognitive and noncognitive skills are key indicators of educational success and merit. However, even when accounting for inequalities in skill formation by family socioeconomic status (SES), a wide SES-gap in college enrolment remains. According to the compensatory advantage hypothesis, SES-gaps in educational transitions are largest among cognitively weak students, but little is known on mechanisms. It has long been argued that noncognitive traits such as effort and motivation might be at least as important as cognitive skills over the status-attainment process, and these skills might interact by being complements or substitutes. Thus, I test whether advantaged students substitute low cognitive skills in test scores by high returns to conscientiousness—rated by teachers— in the transition to academic secondary schools. I draw data from the German National Educational Panel Study to study a cohort of students from Grades 1 to 5, when early tracking is enforced. I estimate linear probability models with school fixed-effects and moderation. To account for measurement error, I also use composite latent skills across elementary education. I report three main findings: (a) High-SES students at the same level of cognitive and noncognitive skills than low-SES schoolmates are more likely to attend the academic track bridged to college; (b) in line with the compensatory hypothesis, these SES-inequalities are largest among low cognitive performers; (3) cognitively weak students from high-SES families get the highest educational returns to conscientiousness in comparison to high cognitive performers or low-SES peers, validating the skill substitution hypothesis. These findings challenge the liberal conception of merit as the sum of ability plus effort in assessing equal opportunity in education.

Youth organizations, social mobility and health in middle age: evidence from a Scottish 1950s prospective cohort study

“… 27 One important factor appears to be the access socioeconomically advantaged young people have to resources that develop non-cognitive skills outside of the formal education system and the protection this offers them to failure within the school system and early life through ‘compensatory advantage’ 28 and then the benefit it offers them in competing in the labour market after leaving education. 29 Several mechanisms have been proposed as to how youth development programmes could improve social mobility. These include the broadening of social networks to aid social advantage, the acquisition of psychological capital (including resilience, self-efficacy and optimism required for competitive workplace advantage) and the acquisition of social and human capital (leading to stronger job prospects and subsequent social mobility).…”

Social stratification in downgrading during secondary school after ambitious track choices

“…Bernardi & Cebolla-Boado, 2014a, 2014bF. Bernardi & Triventi, 2020;Gil-Hernández, 2021;Holm et al, 2019;Neugebauer, 2010). Our paper makes two contributions to this growing body of literature.…”

“…The institutional context described in this section makes Germany an interesting case for testing our theoretical arguments: Because most German parents are aware that secondary track placement is a strong predictor of later educational attainment, the incentive for making ambitious transitions is high. However, the institutional barriers leave only limited room for parental choice (Gil-Hernández, 2021). The relatively strict ability-tracking and the low mobility between tracks enable us to conduct a stringent test of CA.…”

Understanding the stickiness in high-SES students’ educational expectations: The role of private schools

“…However, most of them are silent on how that result occurs. Just a handful of studies have analysed mechanisms such as the involvement of parents in homework, hiring private tutors, changing schools, or the development of non-cognitive skills (Bernardi and Grätz, 2015; Gil-Hernández, 2021; Huang, 2020), and none of them have studied expectations as the outcome.…”

“…Surprisingly, research on the mechanisms that help high-SES low-performing individuals to remain ambitious is scarce. A handful of studies have investigated how high-SES families compensate for poor academic performance (Bernardi and Grätz, 2015; Gil-Hernández, 2021; Huang, 2020), but none have analysed educational expectations as the outcome. I intend to fill this gap by examining one particular mechanism: private schooling.…”