Better Scores, Better Jobs, an Untested Assumption: Social Mobility and Achievement in Mathematics and Science

• In Event: 44.077 - How Competition and Power Shape Educational Opportunities

Abstract

Although a long trajectory of research has shown a strong relationship between parental socioeconomic status and children’s achievement in American PK-12 education, we know little about how this relationship translates into children’s future occupational prestige. This proposed study analyzes the Longitudinal Study of American Youth 1987-1994 and 2007-2011 data with structural equation modeling to fill this existing research void by addressing two questions:
1) To what extent does student achievement in mathematics and science mediate individuals’ intergenerational social mobility between their parents’ SES and these individuals’ future occupational prestige?
2) How does the mediating effect of student achievement compare with others factors, such as the parental expectation for educational attainment?

Authors

• Haigen Huang, Wake County Public Schools

• Vijay Keshaorao Paralkar, Miami University - Oxford