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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.

We conducted three preregistered studies using the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data to provide a worldwide estimation of the standardized test gap between students from lower and higher social classes. We investigated: (a) the degree to which academic anxiety contributes to this gap and (b) the role of country-level income inequality in widening this gap. In Study 1, we used PISA 2003 data (250,000+ students from 41 countries) and demonstrated that anxiety accounts for approximately one-fifth of the performance gap between students with less educated parents and those with more educated parents. Unexpectedly, the social class test gap was weaker in more unequal countries than in more equal countries. In Studies 2a and 2b, we used the PISA 2012 and 2015 data (totaling over a million students from 65 countries and 72 countries, respectively) and differentiated the cultural dimension (parental education, cultural capital) and the economic dimension (economic capital) of social class. Regardless of the dimension, anxiety again accounted for between one-tenth and one-fifth of the performance gap between students from lower and higher social classes. Moreover, (a) the culturally based social class achievement gap was weaker in more unequal than in more equal countries, and (b) the economically based social class achievement gap was larger in more unequal than in more equal countries. Unexpectedly, we also find a robust association between national income inequality and academic anxiety across all three studies. Results are discussed in relation to the multidimensionality of social class and literature on the psychology of income inequality. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Standardized tests purport to measure of skills, achievement, or ability, in a manner uninfluenced by family background, although social class remains a robust predictor of test performance. Analyses of three Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment data sets (750,000+ students from a total of 70+ countries observed in 2015, 2012, and 2003) showed that academic anxiety contributes to one-tenth and one-fifth of the social class test gap. In addition, national income inequality impacted the social class test gap, in the opposite direction for cultural and economic capitals, as well as increased students' academic anxiety. This research supports the intricate interplay between microlevel socioeconomic factors, macrolevel economic features, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach in interventions aimed at addressing the social class test gap, including both individual processes and broader societal considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

Background: A growing literature focuses on reasons behind achievement goal endorsement, and mastery-approach goals (MG) specifically, and how these reasons influence academic performance. Past research provides evidence that student-level social value-related reasons behind MG moderate the MG-performance link in adolescents and young adults. However, we ignore whether this moderation is best conceived of as a student-level effect (i.e., students' social value-related reasons), a class-level effect (i.e., influence of class-dependent contextual social value), or both. Aims: This research aims at understanding the moderation of the MG-performance link by social value from a multilevel account, which is novel, as the student level has been the default level so far. Sample: The study was conducted on a sample of 436 primary school students, from 3rd to 6th grade. Methods: Students completed a MG scale adapted to their French classes under different instructions: standard, social desirability (answer to be viewed as likeable by your teacher), social utility (answer to be viewed as successful by your teacher), along with a dictation to measure performance, and socio-demographic measures. Results: Results show that the moderation effect of social utility on the MG-dictation performance link is observed at the student level, but that the moderation by social desirability is best accounted for by class-level differences. Conclusions: It is important to consider a multilevel framework when examining reasons behind MG reports, including social value-related reasons, both for future research and teachers in the classroom.

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Copyright of Movement & Sport Sciences / Science & Motricité is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent research has shown that, in a university context, mastery goals are highly valued and that students may endorse these goals either because they believe in their utility (i.e., social utility), in which case mastery goals are positively linked to achievement, or to create a positive image of themselves (i.e., social desirability), in which case mastery goals do not predict academic achievement. The present two experiments induced high versus neutral levels of mastery goals' social utility and social desirability. Results confirmed that mastery goals predicted performance only when these goals were presented as socially useful but not presented as socially desirable, especially among low achievers, those who need mastery goals the most to succeed.

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.