This study set out to examine the notions of children, their parents and teachers concerning the malleability of the child’s academic competencies. These notions were examined with intrapersonal and interpersonal (i.e. normative) criteria. The former refers to the notions of the child’s potential for improving his or her competence over the existing one and the latter to the notions of the child’s potential for improvement compared to her or his peers’ performance. These notions relate to the school system’s contradictory functions that include both the assessment of children’s academic performance and the development of the individual child’s learning. In the course of their school years, as the children become aware of the school system’s view of ability as a relatively stable quality, they also begin to see their own potential for improving competencies in a more pessimistic light (cf. Kärkkäinen, Räty & Kasanen, 2008). In the present study, we examined how the children’s decreasing malleability notions related to their parents’ and teachers’ expectations as the children progressed at school. The notions of the malleability of the child’s competencies were examined in two school subjects; mathematics and Finnish language. Since these school subjects are generally perceived as gender-specific, we examined whether the children’s and their parents’ and teachers’ notions of malleability were gender-bound. Social background influences children’s school success, as well as their own and their parents’ notions of the child’s school performance (e.g. Alexander, Entwisle & Bedinger, 1994). In the present study, we examined whether the parents’ education was related to the children’s, parents’ and teachers’ malleability notions. We further examined whether there were any differences in mothers’ and fathers’ notions since their experiences concerning parenting and their child’s schooling may differ.

A total of 103 children (52 girls and 51 boys) participated in the study. The sample comprised 44 third-graders and 59 sixth-graders. In the structured interviews, the children were asked to rate how much they could improve their competencies in mathematics and Finnish in comparison with their existing competencies and their peers’ performance. The children’s parents (N= 97) and teachers (N= 8) were asked by questionnaire to rate the child’s intrapersonal and normative potential for improvement in mathematics and Finnish.

We hypothesized that the children’s, their parents’ and teachers’ notions of malleability would be positively related. It is possible that the teachers’ notions would become more important in regard to the child’s own notions as the child progresses at school; the parents’ notions, however, are also likely to remain important (cf. Spinath & Spinath, 2005). Furthermore, the teachers’ and parents’ normative notions, in particular, may increasingly influence the child’s own views in the course of the school years. We also expected that the girls’ potential for improvement would be perceived more optimistically in Finnish and the boys’ potential in mathematics.