Who’s Doing the Learning? The Roles of Family and Teachers in Motivating Student Learning

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 19. International Topics in Student, Family and School Relationships: China

Abstract

Studies have extensively examined how family socioeconomic status influences students’ academic achievement. Yet, while parents indeed heavily influence children’s school performance, the role of students themselves are underexplored. This study instead focuses on student motivation to learn and factors that are associated with student learning motivation. Using data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), we highlight the importance of teachers vis-a-vis parents in fostering students’ learning motivation. Our results are consistent with previous findings in showing that students with strong learning motivation have high academic performance. Both family background and teachers play a pivotal role in promoting student learning motivation. Privileged students tend to have higher level of learning motivation; students who frequently interact with teachers in the classroom are also more motivated in learning than those who do not. Importantly, in learning Math and Chinese, student-teacher interaction depends on family SES and fully mediates the association between family SES and learning motivation, and the association between student-teacher interaction and learning motivation is stronger among high-SES students compared to students. Conversely, student-teacher interaction cannot fully explain the correlation between family SES and student learning motivation, indicating that English learning motivation may depend more on family cultural capital. These findings reveal a possible mechanism of reproduction of class inequality through the school system. We discuss the implications of our findings on educational inequality in Chinese society.

Authors

• Ran Liu, University of Pennsylvania

• Yi-Lin Chiang, National Chengchi University