Science achievement and socio-economic status: A ... - Pisa

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The “Cultural competence” construct is made up by the following single items:In general, how often do your parents:a) Discuss political or social issues with you? Never or hardly ever. A few times ayear. About once a month. Several times a month. Several times a week.b) Discuss books, films or television programmes with you? Never or hardly ever. Afew times a year. About once a month. Several times a month. Several times aweek.c) Listen to classical music with you? Never or hardly ever. A few times a year.About once a month. Several times a month. Several times a week.Finally, the construct “Cultural possessions” consists of the following items:In your home, do you have:a) classical literature (e.g. Shakespeare)?. Yes or No.b) books of poetry? Yes or No.c) works of art (e.g. paintings)? Yes or No.C. Social capitalThere are one construct used that explicitly measures social capital. The construct iscalled “Social competence”, and three single items are applied:In general, how often do your parents:d) Discuss how well you are doing at school? Never or hardly ever. A few times ayear. About once a month. Several times a month. Several times a week.e) Eat the main meal with you around a table? Never or hardly ever. A few times ayear. About once a month. Several times a month. Several times a week.f) Spend time just talking to you? Never or hardly ever. A few times a year. Aboutonce a month. Several times a month. Several times a week.D. Parents’ occupations as a measure of socio-economic statusIn PISA, the parents’ occupations are also used as a measure of socio-economicstatus. The questions asked about the parents’ occupations are as following:1. What is your mother’s main job? (e.g. School teacher, nurse, sales manager)If she is not working now, please tell us her last main job.Please write in the job title:_________________2. What does your mother do in her main job? (e.g. Teaches high school students,cares for patients, manages a sales team).If she is not working now, please tell us her last main job.Please use a sentence to describe the kind of work she does or did in that job.The same questions are asked about the student’s father. Firstly, the occupationsgiven are coded by the use of a system called the International Standard Coding ofOccupations (ISCO). This is a detailed classification system for occupations whereeach occupation is given a four-digit code. Ganzeboom and Treiman (1996) havedeveloped an algorithm for defining socio-economic levels for each of the occupationcategories. This has been done by the use of data from several countries. The indexused is called the International Socioeconomic Index of Socioeconomic status (ISEI).4
The ISEI scale is a combination of the average education and income levelassociated with each occupation category.Q2: Is the concept of socio-economic status useful and relevant in scienceeducation research?I will now address the second question I stated in the introduction: Is the concept ofsocio-economic status useful and relevant in science education research? Before Igo further, I have to stress that my perspective may be somewhat biased, andperhaps strongly flavoured by my Norwegian background. However, in Norwegianscience education research, gender can be characterised as probably the mostimportant background variable, traditionally. This research has given a lot ofinteresting results over a relatively long time period. The concept of socio-economicstatus has not to the same extent been applied, and I will argue that this conceptshould be utilised to a much larger extent in future research within the field of scienceeducation. One of the key aims of science education research is to discuss howteaching could be adapted to the individual students’ backgrounds. My view istherefore that there are strong reasons to include the concept of socio-economicstatus within the field of science education research.However, it is interesting to discuss how the concept of socio-economic status can beused in science education. What characterises a relevant research question relatedto socio-economic status? I will open for comments on this, but first I will presentsome selected research questions that will be addressed in the main internationalpublication on achievement and socio-economic status in PISA. Are any of theseresearch questions relevant to us as science education researchers? And if not,which alternative questions can be formulated?- How does the correlation between socio-economic status and performance inscience differ between countries?- Are there substantial differences in the SES-performance relationship betweenthe three test domains of reading, mathematics and science?- Does family type influence performance in science? Or can the differences thatare found be explained by (confounding) socio-economic factors?- Do father’s and mother’s occupational status/educational background havedifferential effects on student performance in science? Are their effects differentfor boys and girls?- To what extent are the effects of ethnicity reduced once student’s socio-economicbackground is taken into account?- How important is wealth as an influence on performance in science relative tooccupational status, parents’ education, and cultural capital?5
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