Essay On School Achievement

School consumes the life of your average Irish citizen for at least 14 years. School achievement, an important part in every student’s life, is not only influenced by intelligence. The importance of intelligence depends on your definition of the word. Unlike height or weight; you cannot simply weigh intelligence, or easily explain it. It’s a fluid word, practically a concept, rather than a concrete thing. Here, references to high intelligence means good grades. But while intelligence is relevant, it’s not the sole factor influencing achievement levels. I’ll be asking a simple question- can a student’s skin colour, their parents and the way the student views themselves affect their grades?

The family is from who children learn who they are- to their family, friends and to society, and what kind of futures they’ll likely experience. Families exert an influence on adolescent’s school achievement (Deslandes & Royer, 1994). Different variables in this topic include:

1. Parenting style. Adolescents who describe their parents as treating them warmly, firmly and democratically are more likely than

Primary-aged children who are not well accepted by their classmates tend to do less well than more popular children (Austin & Draper, 1984; Li, 1985) and are at risk for dropping out of High School (Coie, Dodge & Kupersmidt, 1990; Parker & Asher, 1987). Reeder, using grade school children and Stevens, working with college students, found that positive feelings about the self are associated with good academic achievement.

High self-esteem motivates many young people to work harder or longer at school. Brown (1998) said “People who believe they have the ability and hold high expectations of success work harder, persist longer, and often perform better on intellectual and manual tasks”. Duckworth and Seligman (2005) showed that self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did