What kinds of teacher-related and school-related factors foster student resiliency to socioeconomic status in Turkey?

Abstract

This study investigated teacher- and school-related factors that could lead to literacy achievement differences among socioeconomically disadvantaged students in Turkey. Two discriminant analyses were conducted to examine the discriminating power of these factors over whether disadvantaged students become low-achievers or resilient. The sample data of PISA 2012 consisted of 4848 participants. To find out students‟ attitudes towards school regarding the learning activities and their outcomes and, students‟ perceptions about student-teacher relations and sense of belonging to school, four dimensions of PISA student questionnaire comprised of 22 items were utilized. The analyses revealed that becoming a resilient or a low-achieving student could be explained by examining some of these items. The results of this study offer an insight into designing policies to reinforce resilience of socioeconomically disadvantaged students.