Socioeconomic Status and Student Learning: Insights from an Umbrella Review

Abstract Socioeconomic status (SES) has been widely argued to be an important predictor of students’ learning outcomes; the corollary is that low-SES students face immense challenges in their learning. The present study employed an umbrella review, comprising a thematic review and second-order meta-analysis, of 48 reviews relating SES to student learning to critically examine this argument. Results elucidate three sets of insights on the relationship between SES and student learning. First, researchers need to expand the conceptualization of SES from being an objective, individual attribute measuring hierarchical differences in access to resources to a more comprehensive construct incorporating (a) objective and subjective evaluations of (b) individual and collective SES attributes; (c) emphasizing students’ mobilization of capital; and (d) adopting a more diverse, asset-based perspective of SES. Second, the umbrella review provides a nuanced evaluation of the influence of SES in student learning. It yields a mean SES effect size of r = .22 (deemed as large with reference to educational benchmarks, expected students’ achievement gains, and percentile points in achievement tests) but SES effects may be confounded with other demographics. Third, SES needs to be examined from an ecological perspective, given the different mediating and moderating processes pertaining to SES in student learning. The results imply that policies for improving low-SES students’ learning outcomes should comprehensively address multiple factors influencing student learning and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, enhance disadvantaged students’ access to educational opportunities and resources, affirm the strengths that disadvantaged students bring to their learning, and address structural and systemic inequalities related to poverty, classism, and segregation.