(Israel) Melkman, E., Benbenishty, R., Zeira, A., & Refaeli, T. (2016) An empirical test of a model of academic expectations among youth in residential care.

1. E R A N M E L K M A N , R A M I B E N B E N I S H T Y ,
A N A T Z E I R A , T E H I L A R E F A E L I
H A I F A U N I V E R S I T Y , B A R I L A N U N I V E R S I T Y
& T H E H E B R E W U N I V E R S I T Y O F J E R U S A L E M
AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF A MODEL OF
ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS
AMONG YOUTH IN RESIDENTIAL CARE
Funded by The Jacobs Foundation

2. BACKGROUND
 Care leavers - of the most socially excluded groups
in society (Stein, 2006)
 Education - key for social mobility and breaking ‘the
cycle of poverty’
 A very small proportion of care leavers enroll in
higher education
• The Result:
• Care leavers’ earnings and integration into society
are impeded
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

3. ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS
 Marker for educational and occupational
attainment in adulthood (Ashby & Schoon, 2012; Beal & Crockett, 2010)
 Aspiring youth have higher chances of:
• Enrolling in college
• Earning a degree
• Getting a high status job (Dubow et al., 2009)
 Models of academic expectations among at-risk
youth are used to guide interventions
(Byun et al. 2012; DeCivita, Pagani, Vitaro, & Tremblay, 2004)
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

4. RESEARCH GOAL
To develop and test a model in order to
predict the academic expectations of
Israeli adolescents placed in residential
youth villages
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

5. ACADEMIC ASPIRATIONS: DEVELOPING A MODEL
 Status attainment models (Ashby & Schoon, 2010; Sewell et al.,
1970)
 The social mobility patterns of individuals
 Contribution of:
• Parents’ SES
• Academic achievement
• Encouragement from significant others (parents,
teachers)
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

6. ISRAELI YOUTH VILLAGES
 The most common form of out-of-home
placement in Israel
 Children of families from the geographic or social
periphery of Israel (e.g., immigrants)
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

7. ISRAELI YOUTH VILLAGES
 Large facilities with a school on premise
 Two sets of significant adults:
o Teachers
o Staff
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

8. MODEL OF ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS FOR YOUTH IN RESIDENTIAL CARE
Achievements
Parents’
Aspirations
Staff Support
Teacher
Support
Youths’
Expectations
Parents’
Education
Immigrant

9. METHOD
• Sample: 1,360 adolescents from 34 youth villages
 Attempt to survey all relevant youth (31% response
rate)
 Mean age=17.7; 40% girls
 67% of immigrant origin(they or their parents)
 Mean length of stay in facility=3.14 years
• Procedure: Structured self-report questionnaires
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

10. TESTING THE MODEL

11. STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING
 SEM with the Mplus 7.11 program (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012)
 Confirmatory factor analysis: χ2(95, N = 1360) =
479.89, p < .001, TLI = .94 , CFI = .96, SRMR = .036,
RMSEA = .055
 Structural model: goodness of fit: χ2(182, N =
1360) = 508.57, p < .0001, TLI = .94, CFI = .95 , SRMR
= .031, RMSEA = .036.
 Accounting for clustered nature of sample
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

12. Parents’
Aspirations
Achievements
Youths’
Expectations
Teacher
Support
Staff
Support
.11
-.09
.26
.38
.42
Parents’
Education
Mother: Edu1
Mother: Edu2
Father: Edu1
Father: Edu2
-.09
-.11
-.10
-.08 -.08
.08
-.09
Omitted from the figure are some correlations between exogenous variables
-.08
Structural Equation Modeling of Academic Expectations
among Youth in Residential Care
statistically significant paths ( p < .05)
Immigrant

13. FAMILY
 Family matters! Even when growing up away from home
 Intergenerational continuity of academic achievements
and expectations(Lee, Hill, & Hawkins, 2012)
Less educated parents
Lower parental aspirations Lower youth achievements
Lower youth academic expectations
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

14. YOUTH ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS
 Salient predictor of expectations (Tynkkynen, Tolvanen, &
Salmela-Aro, 2012)
 Component of academic self-schema (Garg et al., 2007)
Low achievements of youth in care (Berridge, 2012)
?
Lower post-secondary expectations (Kirk et al., 2012)
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

15. YOUTH VILLAGES’ SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
TEACHERS
 Promoting equality of educational opportunity
(Coleman, 1966)
 More prominent in the lives of youth in care?
 Neglected role of “gate keepers” to higher
education?
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

16. YOUTH VILLAGES’ SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
RESIDENTIAL FACILITY’S STAFF
 Staff support:
• Compensates for lack of educational
resources
• Buffers negative impact of low achievements
 Care leavers - on slow track to education
(Courtney et al., 2011)
 The importance of expectations, even if
fulfilled at a later stage
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

17. IMMIGRANT STATUS
 Immigrant over-representation in residential care
(Kalve & Dyrhaug, 2011)
 Professional-client cultural discrepancies (Kromhaut,
Elderling & Knorth, 2000)
• Immigrant youth
• Lower levels of teacher/staff support
• Lower academic expectations
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

18. LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
 Low response rate limits generalizability
 Teacher’s role in settings with off-campus schools?
 Cross sectional design, unanswered questions of:
• causality (e.g., achievements- expectations)
• change over time of expectations(post-care)
• associations with future educational attainment
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

19. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
 Integrative approach encompassing multiple adult
functions in care (teachers, staff, parents)
 Experiences of success in school- that’s where
academic expectations begin
 Greater attention to the complex needs of immigrant
youth
EUSARF, Oviedo 2016

20. FOR MORE INFORMATION
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