It’s the comparison that matters: How local subjective social status and school belonging predicts academic achievement and retention among adolescents

• In Event: Understandings of Subjective Social Status and Predictors of Educational Achievement among Youth

Abstract

Although educational achievement is supposed to be meritocratic, feeling wealthier, specifically having a higher subjective social status, is associated with better academic outcomes. This effect persists even when controlling for objective financial and educational resources (e.g., income, school quality, parental education). Importantly, subjective social status (SSS) largely depends on social comparisons, and the transition to college drastically alters the available social comparisons. Students who feel socioeconomically “better off” than their peers may be more likely to think they are the type of person who belongs at college (e.g., Berkowitz et al., 2017). Perceived belongingness has been shown to be associated with greater engagement in the college environment and more academic success (Walton & Cohen, 2007).
In the current study, we investigated whether adolescents’ SSS during the first year of college was associated with their first-year GPA and second-year college retention. We were especially interested in whether comparisons with other college students (i.e., local comparisons or relative standing on the “local ladder”) were more strongly associated with academic achievement than comparisons with people in the US (i.e., global comparisons or relative standing on the “global ladder”), and whether this differed between comparisons at the beginning of the school year versus the end of the school year. We also examined whether this relationship was mediated by perceptions of school belonging.
In a longitudinal study, first-year college students (N = 1,643) attending a land-grant, public institution reported their relative perceived wealth at start and end of their first year of college. The majority of participants identified as White (n = 1,262), followed by Black (n = 133), Hispanic (n = 80), multi-racial (n = 64), Asian (n = 36), American Indian or Alaskan native (n = 3), and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (n = 3). The MacArthur ladder (Adler et al., 2000) was used to assess local (“compared to other students at this university”) and global (“compared to other people in the US) subjective SES. School belonging was assessed at the end of the first year, and GPA and academic retention were obtained from university records. Race, gender, first-generation college status, and high school achievement were included as controls.
Using hierarchical linear regressions, results indicated that local and global SSS was associated with cumulative first-year GPA but not with retention to the second year of college. For example, higher local SSS at the end of the school year was a significant and positive predictor of GPA, B = 0.101, p < .001, controlling for high school index, race, gender, first-generation status. Further, as shown in Figure 1, as predicted, perceived belongingness mediated the relationship between local level SSS and college retention.
This suggests that students’ perceptions of their socioeconomic status are important predictors of their academic achievement when they begin college, and that comparisons to other college students are especially important. Feeling low on that local ladder is associated with feeling a lower sense of belonging, which in turn predicts lower odds of staying in school.

Authors

• Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie McKee, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jazmin L. Brown-Iannuzzi, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ellen Usher, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xiao-Yin Chen, University of Georgia
  Non-Presenting Author