The Uncrossable Gap? Education Achievement and Social Mobility

This systematic review evaluates how contemporary research on educational achievement engages with the broader discussion of socioeconomic inequality in the United States, highlighting the impact of individual family background and socioeconomic status upon shaping their educational trajectories with inequality. Therefore, by analyzing 329 academic research studies, 12 of them provide us a clear understanding of the causal relationship between educational achievement and socioeconomic status, with deeper interconnections of specific mediating and moderating variables that are derived from different levels of institutional forces, situationally affecting students performance, especially in college admissions. Through the lens of ecological system theory, we are better able to classify those factors and precisely apply them to the discussion of the causal mechanism, and the results offer important information for future research.