Why Some Students Succeed Against the Odds
Academically?

Abstract

While there is a well-documented correlation in the literature between a student’s socioeconomic background and their academic performance, some students stand out from this pattern. Despite coming from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, some students are able to succeed academically during their schooling, and transition successfully into tertiary education. These students represent a minority in the general population. However, an even smaller subset within this group comprises those who, in addition to coming from
disadvantaged families, also begin school with low academic performance yet manage to make remarkable progress, complete their schooling with high achievement, and ultimately gain
access to tertiary education. This study focuses on these students, often regarded as outliers due to their exceptional academic journeys, labelling them as the ‘Success Against the Odds’(SAO) group.
The central question of this study is:
What skills, supports, and circumstances enable students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who initially struggled academically, to make significant improvements during their school years and succeed against the odds?
The study’s first stage involved a secondary analysis of a rich Chilean national longitudinal dataset, tracking students from the age of 10 through to higher education (n = 95,156), covering socioeconomic, socioemotional, attitudinal, and academic variables. The analysis revealed that disadvantaged students who believe their intelligence is adaptable and capable of improvement were more than three times as likely to belong to the SAO group, demonstrating largely above-
average academic progress from the beginning to the end of their schooling. Additionally, disadvantaged students attending selective Bicentennial Schools had more than four times the likelihood of being part of the SAO group.
These correlations prompted further investigation in stages 2 and 3 of this thesis. Stage 2 utilised a structured literature review of prior evidence to assess whether a causal relationship exists between a growth mindset and academic performance. This involved a review and analysis of the selected 26 Randomised Control Trials (RCTs), screened for quality assessment using the Sieve methodology (Gorard, 2021) to evaluate trustworthiness. It revealed that the most robust studies showed minimal or negligible effect sizes (ranging from -0.008 to +0.054), suggesting that growth mindset interventions are unlikely to help disadvantaged students
succeed against the odds. No substantial evidence of causality could be established.
Stage 3 examined the impact of Bicentennial Schools, a group of highly selective institutions in Chile. Secondary data was analysed in light of regulatory changes restricting selective
admissions, allowing for adequate control of selection effects. This novel analysis, leveraging the 2016 regulation that gradually limited schools’ selective admissions, demonstrates that students in cohorts where schools could select applicants outperformed their peers from non-selective schools, with attending a selective school accounting for up to 0.9% of variance in language and 2.3% of variance in mathematics. Conversely, when selection was reduced, the
apparent impact diminished, approaching zero (0.1% in language and 0.3% in mathematics). This suggests that the positive outcomes associated with Bicentennial Schools primarily reflect the pre-existing academic abilities of the enrolled students rather than any superior educational quality of the schools. These findings indicate that attending a Bicentennial School does not directly enhance the academic performance of SAO students; rather, these schools tend to enrol SAO students at disproportionately high rates, possibly explaining why disadvantaged students attending Bicentennial Schools are 450% more likely to be part of the SAO group.
In the final research phase, as the factors most strongly correlated with SAO students were not causally related to their success, the study revisited the central question from an exploratory perspective. This stage encompassed 36 semi-structured interviews with disadvantaged students, including pupils who were and were not part of the SAO group, allowing them to tell their individual stories. The interviews explored a range of perceived influences, including family background, school experiences, personal characteristics, influential individuals, and topics raised by the students themselves.
Findings from this stage suggest, unsurprisingly, that no single factor explains why a small number of disadvantaged students with initially low academic performance are able to improve so considerably. Instead, various circumstances could lead to a shift in their attitude towards learning. Influential individuals may enter their lives at pivotal moments, such as a supportive stepparent, a concerned grandparent, or a dedicated teacher. These played a key role, as may school interventions like grade retention, which pushed students to apply themselves with greater effort, or, in some cases, psychological support that helped students with out-of-school issues. For other students, internal psychological growth led to a newfound focus on school.
In conclusion, it does not appear that there is a single characteristic or circumstance that enables these students to make substantial academic gains. Rather, a series of incidental life circumstances and influential figures could shape their academic journeys. This may explain
why the traits explored in stages 1 and 2, which are strongly associated with SAO students, appear to be consequences rather than causal factors. However, most SAO students could
identify important adults who entered their lives at a crucial point and to whom they attributed an influential role in their life and academic success.
As education systems strive to promote social mobility and equal opportunities for disadvantaged individuals, this thesis provides critical insights for policymakers aiming to
support students from underprivileged backgrounds. The findings indicate that short, targeted interventions, such as growth mindset programmes, do not meaningfully enhance academic performance, and that enrolment in a selective school is not inherently beneficial. The beliefs of disadvantaged students about academic excellence and their ability to perform beyond expectations may actually be natural traits within a subgroup. Established interventions may not demonstrate any widespread impact on a larger disadvantaged population. Instead, deep, supportive relationships with individuals like family members, teachers, social workers, and counsellors, who can provide ongoing support and guidance, may play an important role in enhancing academic success for disadvantaged students. The findings from student narratives reveal that stability and support from positive adult relationships can provide students with the emotional strength, support, and motivation needed to improve their academic performance.
The research findings emphasise that not all students who experience lifelong socioeconomic disadvantage are destined to fail in their academic journey. The existence of a group of students who, despite coming from highly economically disadvantaged backgrounds and beginning their schooling with low academic performance, manage to overcome their difficulties, catch up, and ultimately succeed—finishing school with strong academic outcomes and gaining access to higher education—should serve as a source of hope for society. It should also serve as a powerful motivator for all those involved in education systems, from policymakers who design educational policies to practitioners who implement them in classrooms and parents who strive to support their children's learning. At the same time, this reality imposes a responsibility on education systems to better understand and foster the conditions that enable such success. Education systems must offer effective support to students living in economically disadvantaged situations, giving them a better chance to overcome adverse life circumstances and academic underachievement and to succeed against the odds.