The first study used data from the longitudinal, three-generation Youth Development Study (N = 422 three-generation triads) to examine the extent to which adolescent self-esteem and economic self-efficacy affect adult educational and income attainment, and whether these psychological resources are transmitted from one generation to the next, accumulating advantage across generations. We present evidence indicating that both self-esteem and economic self-efficacy are implicated in the attainment process. Adolescent economic self-efficacy had a direct positive effect on adult educational attainment and an indirect effect through educational plans. The influence of self-esteem on adult educational attainment was entirely indirect, through school achievement. We also find evidence that economic self-efficacy was transmitted from parents to children. We conclude that future research should more broadly consider psychological resources in attainment processes from a longitudinal multigenerational perspective.
The second study used data from a 15-year panel survey to examine to what extent lower-secondary-school track attendance is associated with individuals’ probability of moving into an academic or vocational program at the upper-secondary level and how this, in turn, predicts the probability of subsequently entering a university when considering study effort and persistence. Structural equation modeling results indicate that lower-secondary track attendance substantially predicted individuals’ probability of transitioning into academic education, even when controlling for human agency. In turn, pursuing an academic rather than vocational program predicted a 47 percentage points higher probability of subsequently transitioning into university. Overall, the vertically differentiated system strongly channeled educational trajectories, with individual agency playing a comparatively minor, albeit not completely negligible, role.
The third study addressed the question whether incongruence between parental and adolescent expectations hinder academic attainment. We used data collected for the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS70) and Next Steps (formerly known as the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England), a cohort of young people born in 1989/90. We found that in both cohorts sociodemographic and achievement-related characteristics are associated with incongruent expectations, and that incongruent expectations are associated with a decreased likelihood of participating in and completing higher education.
The fourth study examined how individual and co-agency predict educational mobility. The study draws on data collected for Next Steps, a nationally representative panel study of individuals born in 1989/90. Path models were run, linking different dimensions of agency assessed during secondary school to educational attainment by age 25. The results suggest that different indicators of agency predicted both enrolment in and graduation from university after controlling for gender, ethnicity, prior academic attainment, and additional markers of parental SES (parental social class, income, and home ownership). In addition, we found evidence of co-agency - highlighting the crucial role of parents in supporting upward educational mobility of their children. The results confirm the importance of multiple dimensions of agency as critical resource factors, facilitating educational resilience among students who are the first in their family to go to university.
