A Study Of The Influence Of Family Backgrounds On College Students' Engagement

Along with the changes of admission opportunity fair in higher education,the class differences of entrance opportunity is shrinking in the overall.At the same time,the difference and diversity of students' family background will be more and more highlighted in each kind of university.In addition,the development and the popularization of higher education and the great changes in political and social environment around the universities,are making the universities no longer stick to the ivory tower,but as the axis of society and the focus of attention.Therefore,the problem of the quality about higher education is obtained widespread attention from all walks of society.So when we talk about the higher education quality,it is unable to avoid keeping a watchful eye on the process fairness in higher education.Therefore,how to"give both attentions to quality and fairness in higher education" is becoming the first thought to author.In the perspective of the theory of horizontal stratification in higher education,theory of capital and habitus and theory of neo-functionalism,from the angle of "the influence of family background on college students' engagement and the relationship between each other" to analyze and discuss this question,maybe not give the comprehensive solution to the grand theme,but can use the sociological theory investigating the phenomenon of the college students' engagement which is closely related to the quality of higher education,it is undoubtedly a good start point.Through literature review,putting forward the core assumption of this study was:"it is still reflecting the structural characteristic of individual family background on the students' engagement in the field of universities".Around the clue of "the influence of family background(structure)to students engagement(action)and the response and interaction of individual(subjective activity)".Three progressive levels of research problems were designed:1)what is college student engagement?2)Does students'family background have any influence on student engagement?3)what and how happened during the influence process?To delve into the above problems,the dissertation follows the principle of combining the macroscopic analysis and microscopic research,quantitative analysis and qualitative research,dynamic analysis and static study,using literature method,questionnaire survey method,statistical analysis method and interview method to investigate the influence between family background and students engagement systematically.On the basis of reorganizing the College Students Engagement Questionnire(CSEQ),the author investigated the influence among family background,students engagement and education harvest,analyzed the influence mechanism and the effect process between family background and student engagement,Learned about the subject activity in the process of family background's influence on students and the controlled-release role of it.at last,the targeted suggestions to weaken the "structural impact" on student engagement in higher education are put forward.The main findings of this dissertation was:Student engagement is a compound construct can be operationalizationed in the college field.It refers to the students' behavior and psychological state when they participate in the educational purpose activities in the college and universities.The former refers to the students' behavior performance,the latter refers to the degree of students' involvement,such as behavior quality,deeply cognitive strategies and mental state.A purposeful education activity contains both learning in the classroom,and the meaningful educational learning out of the classroom such as extracurricular activities,cooperation and social practices,etc.So student engagement included both academic engagement and social engagement.The construct of student engagement can be measured by CSEQ.It composed by academic engagement subscale and social engagement subscale.Academic engagement includes three second-order factors:general academic engagement performance,selected academic engagement performance,academic engagement degree,and seven first-order factors:auxiliary academic involvement,regular academic involvement,challenging academic involvement,community academic involvement,academic insist and efforts,academic cognitive strategies,academic concentration and energy.Social engagement includes two second-order factors:social engagement performance and social engagement degree,and seven first-order factors:activities and organization involvement,non-academic communication,professional role experience,social concentration and energy,social insist and efforts,social cognitive strategies,social emotional experience.Surveying indexes showed that the two subscales have the good reliability and validity can be used as a tool for further research.Family background affects student engagement and educational harvest,which reflect the characteristics of "structure reproduction" in some degrees.Overall,student engagement has the significantly positive effects on educational harvest in colleges and universities.but look in part,the relationship between them is very complex,different engagement indexes have not consistent effects on different educational harvest,positive and negative effects coexisted.Family background still has the influence on students' educational harvest,which mainly reflected in the positive relationship between subjective family background and the developmental degree of college students.Compared with the elementary education and the secondary education stage,with the pass of time,family background,the ascribed structural factors' influence on student engagement did not disappear in higher education field,but showed a weakening trend.From the influence of the processes and the results,the influence of family background on the students' educational harvest are more concealed,mainly for three changes:the influence of family background on educational harvest has changed from explicit indicators to implicit indicators;the main effect factors have changed from object family background indicators to subject family background indicators;the way of influence have changed from directly to indirectly.Student engagement has the significant mediating effect between family background and educational harvest.It means family background ha the influence on educational harvest through the student engagement,which effect student engagement far more than educational harvest.The influence from family background to student engagement is through a series of two-way interactive process of mediators."Structure reproduction" and "reverse effect"coexist.Overall,family background has the positive influence on student engagement which reflected the characteristic of "structure reproduction" such as "action under the structure".This characteristic is more obvious in the students of strong structure in advantage and strong structure in disadvantage than in other students.Look from the specific elements of structure,the impact is a very complicated process.The effect of subjective and objective family background is not consistent.The subjective family background has the positive effect on student engagement greater than the objective family background;different structural elements have the influences on the different actions(performance and degree)are not the same both in direction and the effect size.Effects among the various elements common to characterize the effect of the structure on action,on the whole,it weakened the influence of structure on the action.Self-efficacy is a partly mediator between family background and student engagement.Locally view,the paths among the different elements of family background,self-efficacy and student engagement are very different.The same family background element maybe has the different effect(direction or size)on the academic self-efficacy and the social self-efficacy,through them,it also has the different effect path to the same result variable.Family background's influence on college students' engagement also realized by some other mediate factors,according to the character,the mediators can be roughly classified into three categories:external support,internal support and tacit rule,self-efficacy belongs to internal support.Same as self-efficacy,different family background elements maybe have the effects on the same mediator at the same time,and the same family background element maybe affect multiple mediators differently.The influence process of family background on college students' engagement,also reflects the obvious role of students' subjective activities(informally speaking,effort),it means that the influence of family background on college students' engagement is not completely "mechanical" one-way replication,in reverse,the subjective activities of students affect their position in the structure,consolidate the order or break it.Subjective activities itself is also affected by the original structure,produced in the restriction of social reality,and restricted into the rational analysis process on condition by three categories of rules and resources to affect motivation intensity,eventually produce actions.The results of action may be turn the constraint factors into conditions further,or make the conditional factors even more powerful,and impact on further actions cyclically,in the extension of space and time eventually reinforcement or alleviate the impact of the structure.The effect of structural restriction of family background on student engagement is changed under the game of different two-way interaction paths.The overall conclusion of this study was:student engagement should be the combination of "breadth" and "depth" in colleges and universities,family background embody the characteristics of "structure reproduction" in certain degree,however,it also has a "strong structure" and "weak structure",and the structural influence realized by the complex mediate process,so it can be changed.And this is what education can work effectively.Research conclusion not only can enrich the theory about student engagement and the influence and relationship from students' family background in colleges and universities,but also can provide a reference for the practice of the higher education quality and fairness.Today,concerned with the problem of higher education quality can not avoid the process fair of higher education.Hereby,the author put forward three suggestions for university education to promote student engagement:rational training to lead the learning freedom;proper compensation to promote the education fairness;family and university cooperation to shape the development force for students.