Achievement goals and income inequality: How inequality weakens the positive association between mastery-approach goals and achievement

The achievement goal perspective highlights the importance of mastery-approach goals in facilitating students’ academic achievement. However, a socio-ecological lens would suggest that the effectiveness of these mastery-approach goals might vary across different levels of income inequality, specifically national- and school-level income inequality. Understanding the role of income inequality is essential for advancing a socio-ecologically sensitive achievement goal approach. This study examines whether the association between mastery-approach goals and academic achievement is moderated by national- and school-level income inequality. Our hypothesis is that the adaptive benefits associated with mastery-approach goals are weaker in socio-ecological contexts with higher national- and school-level income inequality. The study involved 273,269 students nested in 10,785 schools from 33 countries. The results revealed that both national- and school-level income inequality significantly moderated the associations between mastery-approach goals and academic achievement in the three focal subjects of mathematics, reading, and science. Both national- and school-level income inequality weakened the positive role of mastery-approach goals, and this was especially pronounced for lower socioeconomic status students. These findings underscore the importance of considering socio-ecological contexts when evaluating the impact of mastery-approach goals on academic outcomes, highlighting the need to address both achievement goals and broader socio-ecological contexts to support academic success for all students.