LATVIJAS TRŪCĪGO ĢIMEŅU SKOLĒNU SOCIĀLO ELASTĪGUMU VEICINOŠO FAKTORU SOCIOLOĢISKA ANALĪZE

• Authors: Kārkliņa Ieva

Title variants

EN

SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SOCIAL RESILIENCE OF STUDENTS FROM ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED FAMILIES IN LATVIA

• Languages of publication: LV EN RU

Abstracts

EN

Latvia has some of the highest poverty and social exclusion rates in the European Union. Consequently, also the proportion of secondary school students with high risk of academic failure is high. There exists a direct relationship between students’ socioeconomic background and educational achievements: on the whole, students from well-off background shave higher educational performance than pupils coming from economically disadvantaged families. At the same time, studies have shown that a certain number of economically disadvantaged students are capable to positively adapt to critical situation and to earn high educational achievements despite all difficulties and problems caused by material deprivation. The article deals with the factors contributing educational achievements of children from economically disadvantaged families in Latvia and focuses on the aim to find out the possibilities for improving school performance of children from such families. The theoretical framework is constructed according to author’s model that includes P. Bourdieu, J. S. Coleman and C. Buchmann views on family and school capital effect on students’ achievements, B. Bernstein and A. Lareau approach to the interpretation of cultural capital, and ideas of individual social capital theorists’ – H. Flap and N. Lin – , as well as R. Burtand and X.S. Briggs. The research project includes analysis of information gathered from interviews with members of economically disadvantaged families, reflects on the circumstances of those families, and characterizes restrictions in provision of education caused by economic deprivation. Factors contributing to high educational achievements of students from economically disadvantaged families in Latvia as well as social resilience – result of interaction among those factors ñ have been assessed based on data from the internationally comparative education study OECD PISA2006. M. Ungar approach to social resilience as the concept construed in certain society and culture as result of interaction between positive changes contributing factors – is implemented. Using the guidelines of capital theory, implemented by V. Meņšikovs within the sociological analysis of Latvian Youth, and the concept of social resilience, it is concluded that economically disadvantaged families do not form a homogenous group – although they share a similar socio-economic status, they are different with regards to other forms of family capital: human, cultural and social capital. Socially resilient students from economically disadvantaged families use these other forms of family capital along with school-level capital and personal capital to reach high educational achievements.

Keywords

EN

students,; economically disadvantaged families,; factors affecting educational achievement,; OECD PISA 2006,; social resilience in education,; Latvia.

• Publisher: Daugavpils University, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Journal: Sociālo Zinātņu Vēstnesis
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 57-83

Contributors

author

Kārkliņa Ieva

Identifiers

ISSN

1691-1881