A social identity perspective on the social-class achievement gap: Academic and social adjustment in the transition to university

© The Author(s) 2018. First-generation students show lower academic performance at university compared to continuing-generation students. Previous research established the value in taking a social identity perspective on this social-class achievement gap, and showed that the gap can partly be explained by lower compatibility between social background and university identities that first- compared to continuing-generation students experience. The present paper aimed to increase insight into the processes through which this low identity compatibility leads to lower academic achievement by examining first-year university students’ adjustment to university in two key domains: the academic and the social domain. These were examined as two routes through which the social-class achievement gap may arise, and hence perpetuate this group-based inequality. Adjustment was examined both through students’ actual integration in the academic and social domains, and their internally experienced concerns about these domains at university. A longitudinal study among 674 first-year university students (13.6% first-generation) showed that first-generation students experienced lower identity compatibility in their first semester, which was in turn related to lower social, but not academic, integration. Lower identity compatibility was also related to more concerns about the social and academic domains at university. Low identity compatibility was directly related to lower academic achievement 1 year later, and this relationship was mediated only by lower social integration at university. These findings show that to understand, and hence reduce, the social-class achievement gap, it is important to examine how low identity compatibility can create difficulties in academic and particularly social adjustment at university with consequences for achievement.

Jaar van publicatie:2019

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BOF-publication weight:1

CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Government, Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open