Drawing on first-third wave data from Seoul Education Longitudinal Study(SELS), we
examined the determinants of academic achievement among middle and high school students in
Seoul, and mapped in broad terms the terrain of the education gap in the secondary education
in Seoul. Our hierarchical linear modeling(HLM) results showed that for middle school students,
gender, parental education, family structure, parent-adolescent relationship, peer relationship,
student-teacher relationship, learning attitude, participation in private tutoring, TV viewing time,
game time, exercise time, self-directed study time, parental education expectation, school mean
SES were all closely associated with the students’ academic achievement. For general high
school students, gender, parental education, family structure, peer relationship, student-teacher
relationship, learning attitude, participation in private tutoring, reading time, exercise time,
self-directed study time, parental education expectation, school mean SES, and school mean
teachers’ academic expectations of students all exerted in one way or another significant impacts
on the students’ academic achievement. Taking all the high school students into account,
including those who were attending special purpose or self-governing private high schools,
attending special purpose high schools turned out to be related with gains in academic
achievement. In addition, we discovered that 42.6% of the variance in student achievement was
attributable to the school level, meaning that student achievement could be greatly affected by
the type of high school they attend. Based on these results, we discussed policy measures for
bridging the education gap.