Family Capital as a Factor of Educational Opportunities for Russian High School Students

Abstract

Yana Roshchina, Ph.D. in Economics, Associate Professor, leading researcher at the Center for Longitudinal Studies, National Research University — Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation. Email: yroshchina@mail.ru
Address: 20 Myasnitskaya St., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. 

The author evaluates how different types of family capital, individual characteristics of young people, and the type of school influence on educational opportunities for 9th grade school students, including their aspirations for higher education. The empirical basis is the first phase of the longitudinal project ‘Monitoring educational and employment trajectories of school and higher education institution graduates’ launched by NRU HSE in 2010 to explore educational and professional trajectories of Russian high school students throughout several years.
Family capital has turned out to be interrelated with the type of school attended by children. It has been revealed that students attending specialized schools and gymnasiums come from families with largest family capitals. Inequality in financial resources of families is exacerbated by territorial differences in educational opportunities.
In general, family capital factors affect educational opportunities of school students, but their already existing achievements and investments in human capital are affected more than educational aspirations. The latter are rather determined by the type of school, academic progress, extra-curricular activities, and the child’s personal traits and efforts.
The fact that family capital factors do not influence educational aspirations significantly is in conflict with a number of earlier studies. The contradiction is supposed to be related with high uncertainty of educational aspirations in 9th grade students.