Search

Background: Teacher social support (TSS) has been identified as one of the most important factors of success and well-being for students. Yet, there is a gap in the literature regarding the impact of students' socioeconomic status (SES) on their perceptions of TSS, and whether SES may impact the strength of the relationship between teacher social support and students' sense of belonging to school (SBS). Aims: In this preregistered study, we aimed at filling this gap by testing the moderating role of SES on the TSS-SBS link, along with the direct associations between these variables. Sample: We used data from the French sample of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 (PISA; N = 6308). Methods: TSS was primarily assessed as a latent construct based on three indicators provided by PISA--teacher support, teacher emotional support and teacher feedback. Regarding SES, we primarily focused on family wealth possessions and parents' highest level of education. Results: Using structural equation modelling, findings confirmed that the TSS-SBS link was stronger for high-SES than low-SES students. We also found a negative association between teacher support and SES. Importantly, preregistered additional analyses highlight that findings depend on the SES and TSS indicators considered. Conclusions: Findings support the importance of SES effect on students' perceptions of their interactions with teachers and the extent to which they perceive they belong to the school. The implications and limitations of this research are discussed.

In most Western countries, girls outperform boys in academic engagement, scholastic achievement, and school completion. In the current study, researchers assessed the developmental trajectories of European French and North African French boys' (N = 549; M[subscript age] = 11.9 years) perceptions of girls' and boys' ability to succeed in school. Boys reported their perceptions of the academic aptitude of boys and girls annually across the four years of French middle school. Results indicated that both ethnic groups perceived girls to have greater school aptitude than boys in Grade 6, with a larger difference among European French than North African French boys. Boys' perceptions of the school aptitude of boys declined over the four years among both groups, with no ethnic differences in the size of pro-female bias by Grade 9. Implications are considered for developmental theory, including the importance of cultural beliefs that youth experience in the home and school settings.

Research has suggested mixed results regarding the relations between dimensions of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) and academic outcomes. Furthermore, little scholarship has explored the mechanisms that underlie these relations. In the current study, we investigated the longitudinal relations of 2 dimensions of ERI (embedded achievement, and ethnic affirmation and belonging) with achievement approach goal orientations, and we tested whether these relations were mediated by valuing of school among North African French middle school students (N = 336). Adolescents completed surveys annually during the last 3 years of French middle school (Grades 7, 8, and 9). Results of path analyses indicated positive direct effects of Grade 7 embedded achievement on Grade 9 performance-approach goals. Grade 7 ethnic affirmation/belonging negatively predicted Grade 9 performance approach goals. The anticipated indirect effects of Grade 7 embedded achievement and affirmation/belonging on performance and mastery-approach goals via students' Grade 8 reports of valuing of school were nonsignificant. These results clarify ways in which aspects of ERI might have different relations with achievement striving among ethnic/racial minority youth, thereby enriching theorizing vis-à-vis ERI and academic motivation in an understudied population in psychological and educational science.

In 2 field experiments, we relied on the very features of real testing situations--where both math and verbal tests are administered--to examine whether order of test administration can, by itself, create vs. alleviate stereotype threat (ST) effects on girls' math performance. We predicted that taking the math test before the verbal test would be deleterious for girls' math performance (ST effect), whereas taking the verbal test before the math test would benefit their math performance. We also explored whether ST (if any) may spill over from the math test to the verbal test in a real-world testing situation. The studies were conducted among French middle-school students (Ns = 1,127 and 498) during a regular class hour. In both studies, whereas girls underperformed on the math test relative to boys in the math-verbal order condition (ST effect), they performed as well as boys in the verbal-math order condition. Moreover, girls' math performance was higher in the verbal-math order condition than in the math-verbal order condition. Test order affected neither girls' verbal performance (no ST spillover) nor boys' verbal or math performance. In Study 2, additional measures pertaining to students' self-evaluations in and perceptions of the math and verbal domains provided complementary evidence that only girls who took the math test first experienced ST. Implications of order of test administration for women's experience in math, for ST effect and ST spillover research, and for educational practices are discussed.

Trajectories of gender identity were examined from Grade 6 (Mage  = 11.9 years) to Grade 9 in European French (n = 570) and North African French (n = 534) adolescents, and gender and ethnic group differences were assessed in these trajectories. In Grade 6, boys of both ethnic groups reported higher levels of gender typicality and felt pressure for gender conformity than girls. European French girls and boys and North African French girls reported decreasing gender typicality from Grade 6 to Grade 9, whereas North African French boys did not change. Felt pressure decreased among girls, did not change in European French boys, and increased in North African French boys. Ethnic and gender differences in gender identity development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]