Educational expectations of students in post-socialist Eastern Europe: Do family background, gender, and rurality matter?

• In Event: Eurasia SIG Highlighted Session: Post-secondary educational transition and social mobility in post-Socialist countries

Abstract

Educational Expectations of Students in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe: Do Family Background, Gender, and Rurality Matter?

I. Objective
Student educational expectations are increasing throughout the world (Bodovski et al., 2013; Jacob & Wilder, 2010). While this is true cross-nationally, students expectations are also related to contextual factors, such as school, family, and personal factors (Bozick et al., 2010; Jacob & Wilder, 2010; Kao & Tienda, 1998). To date, there has not been a systematic analysis of educational expectations of students in post-socialist Eastern Europe. This paper addresses this gap by examining the factors that influence educational expectations in five Eastern European countries (Hungary, Lithuania, Russian Federation, Romania, and Slovenia) using all available waves of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) from 1995 to 2011.

II. Theoretical Framework
Scholars have long theorized that a relationship exists between educational expectations and eventual academic outcomes (Sewell et al., 1969). Near the middle of the 20th century, educational expectations became a prominent factor in research on status attainment, largely due to the development of the Wisconsin model of status attainment (Morgan, 2007). According to the model, adolescent educational expectations serve as a link between the socioeconomic status of their parents and their eventual educational attainment (Sewell et al., 1969; Sewell et al., 1970).
In addition to parental socioeconomic status and education (Ganzach, 2000; Trusty, 1998), student gender (McDaniel, 2010) and rurality (Andres & Looker, 2001; Haller & Virkler, 1993) are often suggested as factors that account for variation in educational expectations. There is a reason to believe that educational expectations in post-socialist countries differ from those in the United States and Western Europe, as inequality has dramatically risen in Eastern European states during the period of the democratic transition (Heyns, 2005; Noelke & Muller, 2011). Furthermore, the period of democratization did not necessarily lead to more gender equity, partly due to the revival of religious and patriarchal values in post-socialist states (Silova & Magno, 2004). With that said, some positive changes were present as well, such as the emergence of new satellite campuses and smaller universities across states that ensured more territorial accessibility. (Bajerski, 2012; Pugach, 2012). Given these factors, this paper examines the following research questions:

1). What is the relationship between family background, gender, rurality, and students educational expectations?
2). How does this relationship change over time within and across countries in Eastern Europe?

III. Data & Methods
For this analysis, we used all waves of TIMSS. Administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), TIMSS provides extensive data on country, school, and classroom learning contexts as well as assessments of student achievement. In this study, we focus on five Eastern European countries: Hungary, Lithuania, Russian Federation, Romania, and Slovenia, from years 1995 to 2011. We used a series of multinomial regression models to estimate the effects of family background, gender, and rurality on the educational expectations of students. We have not only been interested to learn whether the 8th grade students expect to complete a college degree, but also whether or not they have formed post-secondary educational plans at all. As such, we constructed our dependent variable, educational expectations, as three options (0=no expectations, 1=expect less than 4 years college, 2= college degree).

IV. Results
Preliminary analyses showed the following results. Parental education is a consistent predictor of their children’s educational expectations. Students in families where at least one parent completed a college degree are both more likely to go to college and less likely to be undecided about their educational plans. Female students are more likely to expect to go to college than male students in all countries except for Romania in 1995. Students in rural areas are less likely to expect to go to college and more likely to be undecided about their educational plans. One prominent exception to this is Russia, where in 2003 and 2007 rural students were as likely to expect to go to college and to have set educational expectations as urban students. In general, rural students’ disadvantage is less consistent in Russia than in other four states.

V. Significance
This paper sheds light on the relationship between educational expectation and family background, gender, and rurality of 8th grade students in Eastern Europe. The results indicate that while these relationships are similar to the ones observed in Western Europe and the U.S., there is within-region variation that deserves further exploration.

Authors

• Volha Chykina, Pennsylvania State University

• Hee Jin Chung, Penn State University

• Katerina Bodovski, Penn State