Gender, Socioeconomic Status, and Neighborhood Social Cohesion: Examining Their Influence on Students’ Academic Achievement

This study seeks to investigate how neighborhood social cohesion influences the academic achievement of students from different genders and family socioeconomic statuses. A cross-sectional design and a purposive sampling technique were adopted to collect data from 448 secondary schools students’. The relationship, strength and direction of the relationship among variables was determined by applying Chi-square, Kendall’s Tau-c tests and hierarchical multiple regression tests. The results portrayed that children’s academic achievement was significantly and positively associated with, willingness of the neighbours to assist one another (P<0.05, Tc = 0.168), neighbourhood trust (P<0.05, Tc = 0.092) and imitate relations among neighbours (P<0.05, Tc = 0.310). Furthermore, the results established that family socioeconomic status explained variation in children academic achievement in association with neighbourhood social cohesion, however, no significant difference was observed in the academic performance of students based on gender. In addition, hierarchal multiple regression analysis established that the family’s socioeconomic status, and neighbourhood social cohesion were significant predictors (P<0.05) of students’ academic achievement. These predictor variables explained 48.6 Percent variation in the academic performance of children (R2=0.486). The study’s hierarchical multiple regression analysis yielded a ranking that arranged the most important determinants of academic achievement. In the research region, the most significant predictor of children’s academic achievement was their family socioeconomic level (β = 40.09), followed by neighbourhood social cohesiveness (β = 15.24). The results of the study showed that children living in cohesive neighborhoods, performed better academically compared to children from non-cohesive neighborhoods. Additionally, the study suggested that children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds who lived in cohesive neighborhoods had better academic outcomes than children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.