Personality Traits of Students in Resilient and Struggling Schools: Different Children or Different Schools

Abstract

Roman Zvyagintsev, Junior Research Fellow, Pinsky Center of General and Extracurricular Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Doctoral Student, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Address: Bld. 10, 16 Potapovsky Ln, 101000 Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: rzvyagincev@hse.ru One of the most important facets of educational inequality is the globally observed wide socioeconomic gap in academic outcomes across schools and individual students. However, there are resilient schools that manage to be effective in adverse circumstances. In order to find out what may stand behind resilience of disadvantaged schools, personality traits of their students are compared to those of students attending schools that perform low in equally challenging contexts. Empirical data for this study was collected in Leningrad Oblast in 2019 and includes information about schools’ academic outcomes and socioeconomic status (SES) as well as students’ personality traits that have been traditionally associated with psychological resilience. Personality traits are assessed using the Academic Resilience Scale (ARS‑30), the academic motivation subscale, and the grit and self-regulation scales. Factor structure of the questionnaires is verified using confirmatory factor analysis. No differences are revealed in personality traits of students between resilient and non-resilient low-SES schools, which confirms the previous findings that academic resilience is built through managerial strategies of school principals, school and state educational policies, and practices to improve school effectiveness.