EFFECT OF PERSISTENCE ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SOCIALLY ADVANTAGED AND DISADVANTAGED SECONDARY STUDENTS

The concept of social disadvantage is a broad concept. Bernstein (1960), first used the term socially disadvantaged to cover a large group of factors, for handicapped children in schools, keeping them away from fully using their potentialities, and who have parents of low educational level. The term persistence has been used to refer to subjects momentary goals as revealed by their remarks about successes and failure and their modes of attack on the problems assigned them. Persistence is an important individual social motivation, which is also related to the achievement motivation. Hoppe (1930) represents persistence as a person’s expectations, goals, claims or his future achievement in a given task. Secondary students are the young people who make choices that will have an important bearing on the rest of their lives. Persistence has been defined as an acquired behavioral tendency for continuing or pursuing an achievement goal in a face of obstacles. The focus of the present study was to analyze the academic achievement of socially advantaged and disadvantaged secondary students and the effect of persistence on their academic performance.