Support or Interference? Support and Academic Achievements Among Majority and Minority Groups of Undergraduate Students Studying Together

Abstract

Research indicates differences between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority groups in Israel in terms of academic achievements. Some explanations refer to cultural and social differences between the groups, which are expressed in greater reliance on family support among the students of Arab origin. The present research examined the relationship between social support from family and friends and first-year grades, of undergraduates studying together. In order to examine these questions, 204 students studying together were examined, half of them of Arab origin and half of them of Jewish average. For all the subjects, grades over time, the degree of social support, and a number of other variables were examined. The findings indicate a complex association between level of social support and student grades. Among students who sensed a high level of threat, social support actually correlated with lower grade levels. This effect was found mainly regarding family support among the students of Arab origin, and mainly regarding support from friends among the students of Jewish origin.

Received: 9 December 2023 | Revised: 23 January 2024 | Accepted: 6 February 2024 

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Oz Guterman: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Ari Neuman: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Efrat Gill: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration.