Can children break the cycle of disadvantage? Structure and agency in the transmission of education across generations

Cultural and social reproduction; Educational stratification; Inequality; PISA; Structure/agency; Social Psychology; Education; Developmental and Educational Psychology; Sociology and Political Science

Abstract :

[en] Research has shown that parents tend to pass educational advantage or disadvantage on to their children. However, little is known about the extent to which the intergenerational transmission of education involves children’s agency. In this study we drew from two traditions in sociological and social psychological theorizing—the theory of cultural and social reproduction and the theory of human agency—to examine whether agency influences children’s educational performance, and if so, whether this influence can be observed among children across social classes. We used data from the Spanish sample of the Program for International Student Assessment (N = 25,003 15-year-olds). Results indicate that the level of child agency was weakly positively related to social class, that child agency impacted on a child’s educational performance, and that the positive effect of agency on educational performance did not vary by social class. This suggests that strategies to enhance disadvantaged children’s agency may prove useful in reducing social gradients in educational performance. More generally, our findings may ignite a debate about the role that social structure and human agency play in shaping social inequality and mobility.

Disciplines :

Social & behavioral sciences, psychology: Multidisciplinary, general & others

Author, co-author :

BURGER, Kaspar ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Social Sciences (DSOC) > Centre for Childhood and Youth Research ; Centre interfacultaire en droits de l’Enfant, Université de Genève (Valais Campus), Sion 4, Switzerland

Walk, Marlene; Indiana University, Indianapolis, United States

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Can children break the cycle of disadvantage? Structure and agency in the transmission of education across generations

Publication date :

December 2016

Journal title :

Social Psychology of Education

ISSN :

1381-2890

eISSN :

1573-1928

Publisher :

Springer Netherlands

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

695 - 713

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11218-016-9361-y.pdf

Available on ORBilu :

since 30 November 2023

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