Can Social Support Buffer Inequality? Evidence from PISA 2022 on Objective-Subjective Status Gaps and Perceived Social Mobility

Family socio-economic status is a major structural determinant of adolescents’ educational trajectories shaping academic performance and access to future opportunities, and expectations of success across their life course (OECD, 2023). Socioeconomic advantage provides students with material, cultural, and relational resources that increase the likelihood of favourable school outcomes and access to educational and occupational pathways. Yet adolescents do not experience inequality only through objective family background. Their social position is also interpreted through everyday relational contexts, including support from teachers and family, experiences of belonging, and social comparison at school. Thus, relationships may shape how young people make sense of both current status and future prospects (OECD, 2024). Research increasingly shows that subjective social status (i.e., how young people perceive their position in the social hierarchy) captures a distinct psychosocial dimension of inequality that extends beyond objective socio-economic background alone. Subjective socioeconomic status is consistently associated with adolescent health and well-being even after accounting for objective socio-economic conditions, supporting its relevance as an independent dimension of stratification (Quon & McGrath, 2014). However, objective and subjective status are positively associated but only partially aligned (Sweeting & Hunt, 2014). This partial overlap implies that some adolescents perceive themselves as socially lower or higher than expected given family background, allowing examination of the discrepancy between structural position and perceived social standing. Examining this discrepancy, and the potential protective role of relational support, may offer a more nuanced understanding of how inequality is internalised and shapes adolescents’ perceptions of present status, future opportunities, and upward social mobility. Using data from the Italian PISA 2022 sample (N=10,552) of 15year-old students, this study examines whether a discrepancy exists between adolescents’ objective socio-economic status and their perceived subjective social status, and whether perceived support from family and teachers is associated with this discrepancy and with adolescents’ future expectations. Objective socio-economic status is measured through the OECD’s ESCS Index. Students are asked to think about their country’s society in terms of money, education and job positions. Given this input, subjective social status and perceived future opportunities are captured through students’ selfplacement on a 1–10 scale in response to the questions, “Where would you say your family stands at this time?” and “Where do you think you will stand when you are 30?”, respectively. Indicators of perceived family’s support, teacher’s support, and sense of belonging are included in the analysis as key relational resources. Preliminary findings confirm a meaningful discrepancy between objective and subjective status, with 5.6% of students perceiving themselves lower than expected based on their ESCS, 53.2% showing alignment, and 41.2% perceiving themselves higher than expected. Initial analyses suggest that relational support plays a protective role: students reporting a stronger sense of belonging tend to show more positive future expectations and higher perceived opportunities for upward mobility, even when objective socio-economic status is considered. Overall, these findings suggest that inequalities’ stratification is not only structurally distributed but also subjectively interpreted, and that supportive relationships may help buffer the internalisation of disadvantage by sustaining adolescents’ future expectations.