Identifying the role of high school in educational inequality: A causal mediation approach

2024/09/14 by Sho Fujihara · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities #Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies #School Choice and Performance

paper · doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2024.103077

openalex publication_date 2024/09/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Although the effect of socioeconomic background on children's educational attainment has long been investigated, the extent to which high school mediates this effect has not been assessed from the causal mediation framework. This study investigates the direct effect of family income on educational attainment not mediated by the rank of high school, using data from longitudinal surveys of ninth-grade students in Japan (n = 1,790). Regression with residuals (RWR) analysis reveals that, although high school type mediates the effects of family income on university enrollment and relative educational attainment to some extent (approximately 25% and 33%, respectively), the direct effects of family income are considerable. The result also suggests a positive interaction effect between family income and high school selectivity, implying a boosting advantage pattern rather than a compensatory advantage. I argue that the analytical framework can be applied to many methodological settings in sociological studies.

Citations

• Is a College Degree Still the Great Equalizer? Intergenerational Mobility across Levels of Schooling in the United States
• Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects
• Education and Social Stratification Processes in Comparative Perspective
• Stratification and the formation of expectations in highly differentiated educational systems
• Endogenous Selection Bias: The Problem of Conditioning on a Collider Variable
• Horizontal Stratification in Postsecondary Education: Forms, Explanations, and Implications
• The Table 2 Fallacy: Presenting and Interpreting Confounder and Modifier Coefficients
• Explaining Causal Findings Without Bias: Detecting and Assessing Direct Effects
• Sensitivity Analysis in Observational Research: Introducing the E-Value
• Pipeline Dreams: Occupational Plans and Gender Differences in STEM Major Persistence and Completion
• What Is Your Estimand? Defining the Target Quantity Connects Statistical Evidence to Theory

Discussions

• 藤原翔教授が解説している論文の書誌情報 ・”Fujihara, S. (2024). Identifying the role of high school in educational inequality: A causal mediation approach. Social Science Research, 124, 103077." ・オープンアクセスになっているので下記URL先で [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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