Performance Beyond Expectations: Academic Resilience in South Africa
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP19/2019Publication date: December 2019
Author(s):
Socio-economic status and educational outcomes are strongly linked across countries and education systems. However, a growing body of research documents the existence of students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds who manage to achieve exceptional academic results. The present study, located in the South African context, uses data from the Progress In Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 to explore the factors at the individual and institutional level that are associated with exceptional academic performance in the face of socio-economic disadvantage The first research objective is to identify academically resilient students in the PIRLS 2016 and TIMSS 2015 datasets. I consider how these students are distributed across schools of differing quality, and how they perform relative to the median student in their school. My second research objective explores the ways in which these students differ systematically from their lower-achieving peers. The analytical strategy employed aims to identify factors at the level of the individual and the school that are associated with unusually high results in the absence of crucial inputs such as an affluent home background. Contributing to a growing body of literature that finds associations between student attitudes and academic achievement using large-scale assessment data, I find that the probability of exceptional reading performance in Grade 4 and mathematics performance in Grade 9 in South Africa is also strongly related to these variables. Like a number of existing studies, I find that the constructs aimed at capturing self-confidence, in particular, are strongly associated with the probability of academic resilience in both PIRLS and TIMSS.
JEL Classification:I20, I21, I24, I29
Keywords:Resilience, student attitudes, literacy, mathematics, challenging contexts
Download: PDF (2.2 MB)Login
(for staff & registered students)
Upcoming Seminars
Monday 21 July 202512:00-13:00
Izak Odendaal: Old Mutual Wealth Chief Investment Strategist
Topic: "Diverging fiscal policies and what it means for markets"
12:00-13:00
Dr Neil Rankin: Ceo Of Predictive Insights & Stellenbosch University
Topic: "TBC"
12:00-13:00
Prof Willem Boshoff: Stellenbosch University
Topic: "Two competing approaches in South African competition policy: merger control and anti-cartel enforcement over the past 30 years"
BER Weekly
4 Jul 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act passes as tariff pause deadline loomsThis week brought a flurry of data releases alongside a heavy dose of political drama, both locally and globally. Yesterday’s stronger-than-expected US jobs report was the standout global data release. Domestically, tensions persisted in the DA-ANC relationship. On the international stage, headlines were dominated by the passage of the One Big Beautiful...
Read the full issue
Upcoming Seminars
Monday 21 July 202512:00-13:00
Izak Odendaal: Old Mutual Wealth Chief Investment Strategist
Topic: "Diverging fiscal policies and what it means for markets"
12:00-13:00
Dr Neil Rankin: Ceo Of Predictive Insights & Stellenbosch University
Topic: "TBC"
12:00-13:00
Prof Willem Boshoff: Stellenbosch University
Topic: "Two competing approaches in South African competition policy: merger control and anti-cartel enforcement over the past 30 years"
BER Weekly
4 Jul 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act passes as tariff pause deadline loomsThis week brought a flurry of data releases alongside a heavy dose of political drama, both locally and globally. Yesterday’s stronger-than-expected US jobs report was the standout global data release. Domestically, tensions persisted in the DA-ANC relationship. On the international stage, headlines were dominated by the passage of the One Big Beautiful...
Read the full issue