Comparison of students with high academic achievement from different socio-economic backgrounds in Turkey

Abstract

The research problem is comparative portrayals of qualities of students with high academic achievement levels, at economically disadvantaged and advantaged schools (in views of school administrators in the TIMMS-2011 data set, Turkey), in relation to socio-economic background and highlight on the potential relationship between achievements of disadvantaged students and academic resilience despite their poor conditions. The study group of the research that employs comparative survey methods consists of 520 students. When the research findings are holistically considered, it could be suggested that opportunities of economically advantaged and disadvantaged students with high academic achievement vary in terms of almost every indicator. When the fact that being socio-economically disadvantaged increases the risk of academic failure is considered, what is recalled here, as in this research, is that high academic achievement levels of students in insufficient conditions in many aspects could relate to academic resilience. © Kamla-Raj 2016.