School Location and Academic Achievement in Primary Education: A Comparative Study of Two Contexts in the Region of Murcia
Keywords:
academic achievement; socio-educational context; Primary Education; educational inequality; family-school relationship.Abstract
This study analyses the relationship between school location and academic achievement in Primary Education, understanding location as an indicator of the students’ surrounding socio-educational context. A descriptive-comparative, non-experimental design was implemented with a sample of 85 students from the final stage of Primary Education enrolled in two schools in the Region of Murcia (Spain): one located in an urban context and the other in a peri-rural setting. An ad hoc questionnaire was administered to students in both schools, and an additional questionnaire was completed by families in one of the centres. Family, socioeconomic, cultural, school-related and study-support variables were examined, together with mean grades as a descriptive indicator of achievement. Findings reveal clear differences between contexts: the urban school shows greater family involvement in homework, higher participation in extracurricular activities, better access to household resources, and a higher mean grade (8.50 versus 7.05). In the peri-rural school, students rely more frequently on private tutoring or autonomous homework completion, have fewer home study resources, and show a higher proportion of foreign nationality. The study concludes that school location does not act as an isolated explanatory factor, but through socioeconomic, cultural and family conditions that shape learning opportunities and may affect academic performance.
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