Students’ Family Background: Associations Between Different Family Background Constructs and Students’ Motivation and Achievement

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Using Data to Help Bring More Evidence to Family Engagement Practices

Abstract

The association between students’ family background and academic outcomes is well documented. Whereas most studies looked at the socioeconomic status and parental involvement as indicators of family background, there is a broad array of further background variables (e.g. Pomerantz, Grolnick, & Price, 2005) that have not been sufficiently studied. We used a more differentiated conceptualization of family background and analyzed its associations with students’ motivation and achievement.
Using data from 1573 parents and their children, we could show that cultural process variables (e.g. family interest in math) and social process variables (e.g. child disclosure) were statistically significantly related positive to students’ motivation and achievement in math, in addition to students’ socioeconomic status and parental involvement.

Authors

• Isabelle Häfner, University of Tübingen

• Barbara Flunger, University of Koblenz-Landau

• Anna-Lena Dicke, University of California - Irvine

• Hanna Gaspard, University of Tübingen

• Brigitte Maria Schreier, Tuebingen University

• Benjamin Nagengast, Tuebingen University

• Ulrich Trautwein, University of Tubingen