Thursday, March 4, 2021
This presentation, drawn from a wider MA study, explores how societal culture influences educational success, particularly the impact of parental and socio-cultural factors on the positive student achievement of African students. The study confirms that parental factors play a critical role in student achievement. For these students, the parental dimension has a significant impact on their increased academic attainment, influencing future educational behaviour in terms of higher education participation rates. This is as a result of support and encouragement from home as well as high aspirations transmitted through parents, both of which could also support other underperforming student groups. Although participants in this study acknowledge that school and individual factors were important in achieving educational success, there was consensus among African families that the parental dimension was the overriding factor. The pernicious effects of poverty and racism was brought to the fore and interestingly, it showed how these can act to motivate success. Finally, the study found that contrary to existing research, socio-economic status was not perceived as a significant hindrance to the strong educational achievement of African students.
