Socioeconomic Disadvantage Limits Benefits of Optimistic Expectations for Educational Attainment: A Sibling Comparison Study

• In Event: 3-016 - Differential Effects of Socioeconomic Contexts Over Time and Over Individuals on Health and Educational Attainment

Integrative Statement

Introduction: More adolescents from all social backgrounds expect to go to college now than ever before (Goyette, 2008). However, a pervasive income-achievement gap in the US results in the under-representation of low income students in colleges and universities (Reardon, 2013). It may be that the degree to which college expectations impact college attainment varies by SES. On the one hand, youth who lack financial resources and social capital may not get to college no matter how much they want or expect to go to college. On the other hand, a strong desire to attend college may help adolescents from low-income backgrounds compensate for the lack of social or financial capital that might otherwise prevent them from attending.

Hypotheses: Typically, it is difficult to determine whether adolescents’ college expectations promote academic achievement or just reflect a reasonable forecast of what is likely to happen to them. Thus, the current study used a sibling comparison design to test whether associations between college expectations and college attainment remain after accounting for unobserved family factors that may shape both college expectations and college attainment. First, we expected that adolescents with more optimistic college expectations, compared to a sibling with less optimistic college expectations, would be more likely to attend college. Second, we hypothesized that family SES would moderate effects of college expectations on college attendance, although we did not make specific predictions about the direction of the effect given theoretical grounds for different moderator patterns.

Study Population: We used a sample (n = 1766) of same-sex, full biological siblings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Interviews at Wave I when adolescents were 11-17 years old assessed college expectations, grades, intelligence, demographics, and family SES (i.e., parent-reported family income and parent education). At Wave IV, when participants were 24-32 years old, participants reported on their own college attendance (yes/no attended at least some college).

Method: Random effects logistic regressions were performed to estimate whether within- and between-family differences in college expectations were associated with within- and between-family differences in college attendance. We controlled for age, IQ, and grades at Wave I, which can differ among siblings and are associated with educational expectations and outcomes. Next, we tested whether family-level SES moderated the effect of individual-level college expectations on college attendance.

Results: Adolescents with more optimistic college expectations compared to their sibling were 43% more likely to attend at least some college (OR = 1.43, 95% CI [1.15, 1.77], p = .001), even controlling for age, grades, IQ, and family SES. Family SES significantly moderated this effect (OR = 1.27, 95% CI [1.08, 1.50], p = .01), such that the effect of college expectations on college attendance was strongest among youth living in higher socioeconomic status families. The association between college expectations and college attendance was not significant among youth living in households one or two standard deviations below the mean of SES. This moderator pattern suggests that low SES overwhelms the benefits of optimistic college expectations for making it to college.

Authors

• Lauren Brumley, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Sara Jaffee, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author