Stratifying Dimensions among the Students from Schools with Different Reputation

<p>The purpose of this project is to identify latent factors underlying school stratificational structure using factor analysis and correspondence analysis. We made emphasis on the design of social class structure by schoolchildren due to the fact that, traditionally, there is more attention is paid to the academic success of students, their socio-economic background and aspirations in the sphere of educational inequality, and the school space itself is on beyond of research interests. For this reason, in this project I intend to fill this gap in theory using two similar methods of data analysis &ndash; correspondence analysis and factor analysis.</p><p>In order to achieve this purpose the following objects will be addressed:</p><p>1) To identify the signs of stratification in mass and prestigious schools through correspondence analysis.</p><p>2) To identify the signs of stratification in the massive and prestigious schools using factor analysis.</p><p>3) To compare the results of using measures of adequacy of correspondence analysis and factor analysis.</p><p>In this project we kindly asked 360 students of Moscow and Moscow to evaluate 2 most popular classmates, 2 least popular classmates and the friends of respondents according 13 characteristics reflecting the values of schoolchildren. Based on these data we have constructed maps of perception and conducted factor analysis. As thhe result we revealed some stratification variables, underlying social structure in the classes in different types of schools. These results were interpreted (perception cards - according to M.A. Shafir technique), and then we compared the two methods of analysis.</p><p>What is about school stratification, we found that the main principle of stratification in the prestigious and mass schools is different: in prestigious schools individual characteristics and school affiliation to high-status group, focused on self-development, are the most important, while in mass schools it is crucial to have characteristics that ensure participation to any group and its approval. Moreover, intelligence in mass schools may be a factor of person marginalization and ostracism.</p><p>Also we found both negative and positive aspects of the correspondence analysis and factor analysis methods.</p><p>The strong point of correspondence analysis is that we can refer the visual representation of data with the combination of the objects as well as points of attributes on the map. At the same time, factor analysis has a unit of statistical hypothesis testing, which allows us to conduct a representative study.</p><p>Nevertheless, in our opinion, both methods have unique and valuable benefits. It allows us to offer the combination of methods within a single study.&nbsp;</p>