Impact of school SES on literacy development
Salas, Naymé (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura i de les Ciències Socials)
Pascual, Mariona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura i de les Ciències Socials)

Date:	2023
Abstract:	Effective literacy skills are essential to actively participate in today's society. However, little research has been conducted that examined the impact of contextual variables on literacy development. The present paper addressed whether and how the socioeconomic status of the school (S-SES) children attend affects their literacy achievements. Eight-hundred and seventy-eight 2nd and 4th grade children participated in the study. Data were collected in low-SES (vulnerable) and in mid-high-SES (non-vulnerable) schools. Children completed a large battery of language, cognitive, and literacy tasks in Catalan, a language spoken in a region in Spain where virtually all children are at least bilingual (they also speak Spanish) and it is the main language of instruction. Results showed that children in vulnerable schools were outperformed by children in non-vulnerable schools across all literacy competencies, but particularly affected higher order skills; that is, text quality and reading comprehension. Differences with their non-vulnerable peers remained, even after controlling for context-level covariates, including familial SES. However, S-SES ceased to exert significant influence once children's cognitive and, especially, linguistic skills were considered. The study adds to previous research claiming that school SES has an effect on students' literacy skills, above and beyond children's home SES. However, our findings also suggest that literacy performance is ultimately mostly dependent on educationally actionable, subject-level skills. Educational implications are discussed.
Grants:	"la Caixa" Foundation 2015ACUP00175 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2019-108791GA-I00 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00205
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Effective literacy skills ; Schools's Socioeconomic status ; Primary education ; Competències efectives en lectoescriptura ; Nivell socioeconòmic de les escoles ; Educació primària ; SES
Published in:	PloS one, Vol. 18 (December 2023) , ISSN 1932-6203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295606
PMID: 38127961

17 p, 479.8 KB

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