Family Background, School, and Student Academic Performance: Taiwan in Comparative Perspective

• In Event: 207 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 18. Variation in the Transmission of Status

Abstract

This paper uses data from the 2009 PISA survey to assess the relationship among family background characteristics, school context, and student academic performance. Using test scores in reading, math, and science as outcome variables, we break from the common, and methodological problematic, practice of measuring only one dimension of academic performance at a time. Following Hauser’s (2009) suggestions, we ask three questions: 1) Is student academic achievement one-dimensional in relation to family background characteristics and schools? 2) Do academic achievement constructs respond similarly to background characteristics and school factors? and 3) How do these relationships vary across countries? To address these questions, we incorporate a multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) model with a two-level HLM analysis and carry out cross-national comparisons. We compare Taiwan with South Korea and the Czech Republic to understand how selected institutional features of national education systems shape the role of family and school in academic achievement among students aged 15-16 and enrolled in the tenth grade. The results indicate that the effects of family characteristics and schools on student performance are not in the same proportionality for different subjects within countries, and that these effects vary across countries. It is also evident that there are greater inequalities in academic achievement by family background and between schools in more diversified and stratified systems, as opposed to school systems with a higher degree of standardization.

Authors

• Shu-Ling Tsai, Academia Sinica

• Michael Lee Smith, Institute for Social and Economic Analyses

• Robert M. Hauser, National Research Council