Family- and School-Related Factors in 9- to 15-Year-Olds Predicting Educational Attainment in Adulthood: A Prospective 27-Year Follow-Up Study

Introduction: This prospective longitudinal study examined several selected family- and school-related factors simultaneously in order to investigate the importance of well known and less examined predictors of educational attainment. Method: The participants were 844 (486 girls) nine-, 12-, and 15-years old comprehensive school students. Family- and school-related factors were assessed by parent- and self-reports in 1980. Educational attainment was assessed 27 years later in 2007 as educational level and years of completed education. Results: Linear regression analyses showed that lower educational attainment was predicted by mother's and father's low education, strict disciplinary style of the mother, student's low school achievement, by student having received detention and by having taken part in remedial instruction. Conclusion: Our findings stress the importance of early school achievement and the role of the family in supporting educational attainment. Furthermore, our results indicate that more research should be directed to examining school detention and remedial instruction and their effectiveness. (Contains 2 tables.)