An official website of the United States government
The present research investigates how the cultural value of collectivism interacts with socioeconomic status (SES) to influence the basis of action. Using a U.S. national sample ( N = 2,538), the research examines how these sociocultural factors jointly moderate the strength of two precursors of environmental support: beliefs about climate change and perceived descriptive norms. SES and collectivism interacted with climate change beliefs such that beliefs predicted environmental support (i.e., proenvironmental behaviors and policy support) more strongly for those who were high in SES and low in collectivism than for all other groups. This interaction was explained, in part, by sense of control. For descriptive norms, SES and collectivism did not interact but rather norms predicted action most strongly for those high in collectivism and high in SES. These findings demonstrate the theoretical and applied importance of examining multiple sociocultural characteristics together to understand the factors that drive action.
more »
« less
Socioeconomic status biases among children and adolescents: The role of school diversity and teacher beliefs in Nepal
Investigating socioeconomic status (SES) biases, Nepalese children and adolescents (N = 605, 52% girls, Mage = 13.21, SDage = 1.74) attending schools that varied by SES composition were asked to anticipate whether a peer would include a high or low SES character as a math partner. Novel findings were that students attending mixed SES schools were more likely to expect inclusion of a low SES character than were students attending high SES schools. With age, high SES participants attending mixed SES schools increasingly expected the inclusion of the low SES character. Moreover, teachers' democratic beliefs in high SES schools predicted inclusive expectations. Teacher beliefs and school diversity play a significant role for fostering students' inclusivity in educational contexts.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1728918
- PAR ID:
- 10329630
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Child Development
- ISSN:
- 0009-3920
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract Low levels of social interaction across class lines have generated widespread concern 1–4 and are associated with worse outcomes, such as lower rates of upward income mobility 4–7 . Here we analyse the determinants of cross-class interaction using data from Facebook, building on the analysis in our companion paper 7 . We show that about half of the social disconnection across socioeconomic lines—measured as the difference in the share of high-socioeconomic status (SES) friends between people with low and high SES—is explained by differences in exposure to people with high SES in groups such as schools and religious organizations. The other half is explained by friending bias—the tendency for people with low SES to befriend people with high SES at lower rates even conditional on exposure. Friending bias is shaped by the structure of the groups in which people interact. For example, friending bias is higher in larger and more diverse groups and lower in religious organizations than in schools and workplaces. Distinguishing exposure from friending bias is helpful for identifying interventions to increase cross-SES friendships (economic connectedness). Using fluctuations in the share of students with high SES across high school cohorts, we show that increases in high-SES exposure lead low-SES people to form more friendships with high-SES people in schools that exhibit low levels of friending bias. Thus, socioeconomic integration can increase economic connectedness in communities in which friending bias is low. By contrast, when friending bias is high, increasing cross-SES interactions among existing members may be necessary to increase economic connectedness. To support such efforts, we release privacy-protected statistics on economic connectedness, exposure and friending bias for each ZIP (postal) code, high school and college in the United States at https://www.socialcapital.org .more » « less
-
The impact of technology on workforce development and socio-economic prosperity has made K-12 computing engineering and STEM in general a national educational priority. However, the integration of computing remains obstructed by resources and lack of professional development to support students’ learning. Further challenging is that students’ STEM attitudes and interest do not matriculate with them into higher education. This issue is especially critical for traditionally underrepresented and underserved populations including females, racial/ethnic minority groups, and students of low-socioeconomic status (SES). To help mitigate these challenges, we developed an unplugged (computer-less) computing engineering and robotics lesson composed of three introductory computing concepts, sequencing, debugging, and sensing/ decision- making, using a small robot-arm and tangible programming blocks. Through students’ sequencing of operations, debugging, and executing of complex robotic behavior, we seek to determine if students’ interest or attitudes change toward engineering. Nine one-hour introductory pilot lessons with 148 students, grades 6-10, at two public middle schools, and one summer camp were conducted. For 43% of students, this was their first time participating in an engineering lesson. We measured students’ engineering interest and attitudes through a 15 question pre- and post-lesson survey and calculated aggregate factor scores for interest and attitudes. We found low-SES students’ a priori interests and attitudes tend to be lower and more varied than those of their high-SES peers. These preliminary results suggest that the integration of introductory computing and robotics lessons in low-SES classrooms may help students reach similar levels of engineering interest and attitudes as their high-SES peers.more » « less
-
Even the least severe forms of exclusionary discipline are associated with detrimental effects for students that attend schools that overuse them. With a nationally representative longitudinal study of high school students, we utilize propensity score weighting to limit selection bias associated with schools that issue high numbers of in-school suspensions. Accounting for school social order and individual suspensions, we find that high-suspension schools are negatively associated with students’ math achievement and college attendance. We also find that when we account for high and low-suspension schools, attending an urban schools is associated with an increase in both math achievement and college attendance.more » « less
-
Math achievement in U.S. high schools is a consistent predictor of educational attainment. While emphasis on raising math achievement continues, school-level interventions often come at the expense of other subjects. Arts courses are particularly at risk of being cut, especially in schools serving lower socioeconomic status youth. Evidence suggests, however, that arts coursework is beneficial to many educational outcomes. We use data on 20,590 adolescents from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to answer two research questions: (1) Does student accumulation of fine arts courses across different topic areas relate positively to math test scores in high school? (2) Does school SES differentiate this potential association? Results indicate that youth attending higher-SES schools take more art courses and taking music courses is related to higher math test scores. However, this benefit only seems to only apply to more socially advantaged student bodies. Results reveal a site of additional educational advantage for already privileged youth.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13796
