Koliko daleko padaju jabuke od stabla? Odnos obrazovnih postignuća djece i obrazovne razine njihovih roditelja
How Far Does the Apple Fall from the Tree? The Relationship between Childrens Educational Achievement and the Educational Level of their Parents

Summary/Abstract: Many studies on various determinants of educational attainment have been conducted. A significant number of researchers put their attention to the issue of transgenerational determinants of educational achievement, attempting to describe, explain and understand the relationship of educational attainment of parents and educational achievement of their descendants. In this research the relationship between student achievement and parents education level is examined at the end of two levels of primary compulsory education in Croatia at the end of grade 4 (age 10) and grade 8 (age 14). Students' achievement is operationalized by their results in a series of standardized school-subject-knowledge tests. The study included 48,232 students in grade four and 46,196 students in grade eight of all 844 regular elementary schools in Croatia, which gives additional importance to the results. The obtained results testify in favor of the existence of substantial relationship between student achievement and educational levels of their parents. In all comparisons done, students with more educated parents had significantly better academic achievement than students with lower levels of parents education. The results do not provide support for different effects of educational level of mother or father on their childrens achievement. Furthermore, it does not provide stronger support for the partial relationship between father's educational level and achievement of their sons and mother's education level and achievements of their daughters or vice versa. In the paper, the possible implications of these results were discussed.

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