The family is the basic social unit, and it functionally supports and protects its members.
Its core function is deemed to be providing care for children. Moreover, it is closely
associated with social inequality since it reflects and reproduces such inequality. Family
background, the lifestyles of family members, material resources, and cultural and social
capital all have significant effects on children’s lives, options, and opportunities. In
particular, economic polarization can make it difficult to overcome inequality stemming
from family factors, so the family environment can be considered a key element that
impacts inequality of opportunities.
Research (Jang Sang-su, 2000; Bang Ha-nam & Kim Ki-hyeon, 2002; Koo In-hoe,
2003; Park Chang-nam et al., 2005; Kim Gwang-hyeok, 2008; Yeo Yoo-jin et al., 2007;
Kim Yang-boon et al., 2014a; Kim Yang-boon et al., 2014b; Eom Moon-young et al.,
2014) examining the relations between family background and academic achievement has
shown that social policy intervention is required to narrow the academic gaps attributed
to a lack of familial economic resources. However, some studies (Kim Tae-ill, 2005; Lim
Cheon-soon et al., 2004) have argued that private education requiring economic resources
actually has negative effects on academic achievement. Others (Lee Joo-ri, 2010) have
pointed out that it is human resource-related factors, such as parental support and parentchild
relationships, rather than economic resource-related elements that affect academic
achievement. As a result, it is insufficient to focus simply on a lack of familial economic
resources.
Not only a family’s scarcity of financial resources, which is indeed a major factor, but
also human resources (parents) should be included in the family background associated
with children’s academic achievement. Therefore, vulnerable families as used herein
refers to those families that lack any of the following three elements: economic resources,
human capital, and social capital. Childcare-related polices for supporting vulnerable
families suffering from a shortfall in family resources need to be carried out at a national
level as key investments in future generations.
Policies to support school-age children in vulnerable families need to be based
on an analysis of the effects of human and social capital on academic achievement,
including economic resources, parent-child relationships, and family capabilities. Family
factors, especially income gaps, are likely to lead to differences in children’s academic
achievement, future occupation, and social status, resulting in an intergenerational
transmission of poverty. Moreover, it is also necessary to consider socio-environmental
changes, such as increasing economic polarization, the slowdown in intergenerational
upward mobility, and limitations in opportunities for individual achievement. Against this
backdrop, learning support policies for school-age children in vulnerable families should
be implemented for the purpose of relieving the restrictions on learning opportunities
attributable to family factors.
This paper is designed to identify the effects of family factors on academic achievement
and suggest ways to promote related policies and thus improve the effectiveness of
learning support policies for children in vulnerable families.
Supporting school-age children in vulnerable families in learning more effectively is
a policy measure to relieve the limitations on opportunities for academic achievement
stemming from family factors. Prior research has shown that measures to address
family factors affecting academic achievement must be crafted in order to enhance
the effectiveness of learning support policies. These results need to be reviewed and
examined.
To this end, the longitudinal effects of poverty on children’s academic achievement,
as well as the related paths, were analyzed in order to verify the mediating effects of
parenting style on children’s academic achievement. Next, the path through which
family factors impact children’s academic achievement were identified, based on which
we attempted to devise measures to improve and modify policies to help children in
vulnerable families learn more effectively.
