Why does the ethnic and socio-economic composition of schools influence math achievement? The role of sense of futility and futility culture

Abstract: Although a number of studies in many countries have investigated the impact of the ethnic and socio-economic composition of schools on academic performance, few studies have analyzed in detail how and why compositional features matter. This article presents an examination of whether pupils ’ sense of futility and schools ’ futility culture account for the impact of ethnic and socio-economic status (SES) composition of schools on the academic achievement of their pupils. Multilevel analyses of data based on a survey of 2,845 pupils (aged 10–12 years) in 68 Flemish primary schools revealed that higher proportions of immigrant and working-class pupils in a school is associated with lower levels of math achievement in both immigrant and native Belgian pupils. However, by analyzing at a deeper level, by taking control variables into account, our study found that the ethnic composition of the school no longer had a significant effect on pupils ’ achievement, while the SES composition still did. Most importantly, our results indicated that the remaining impact of SES composition can be explained by pupils ’ sense of futility and schools ’ futility culture. The implications of these findings for educational policy are discussed