Achievement emotions play a crucial role in students' lives (Marques et al., 2013). These emotions include feelings such as pride, enjoyment, hope, and anxiety that arise from students' academic achievements and failures (Pekrun et al., 2017). Understanding the significance of achievement emotions is essential for educators, parents, and policymakers, as it can lead to the development of effective strategies to enhance students' learning experiences. Not surprisingly, many studies have investigated the association between achievement emotions and students' academic performance, motivation, engagement, and overall well-being (e.g., Luo & Luo, 2022; Mega et al., 2014; Obermeier et al., 2022; Pekrun et al., 2017). However, there has been relatively less attention given to understanding the determinants or antecedents of these emotions.

Aligning with the goal of promoting social justice and equity in education, prior research has extensively investigated the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in various student outcomes, including achievement emotions. Due to the limited attention received by achievement emotions in writing compared to reading and mathematics, this study focused specifically on achievement emotions in the context of writing learning and the classroom, recognizing the domain specificity of these emotions (Goetz et al., 2007). To gain a better understanding of the association between SES and achievement emotions, it is crucial to explore the potential mediation mechanisms underlying this relationship. Previous research has indicated positive links between SES and students' self-concept (e.g., Wiederkehr et al., 2015), as well as between self-concept and achievement emotions (e.g., Duggleby et al., 2009). Consequently, it is expected that writing self-concept may serve as a mediator between SES and achievement emotions. However, little is known about whether writing self-concept truly mediates the association between SES and achievement emotions. As certain achievement emotions, such as enjoyment and anxiety, have been extensively studied, this particular investigation focused on the under-researched emotion of hope. Thus, one of the primary objectives of this study is to examine the mediating role of writing self-concept in the relationship between SES and hope in writing.

While it is evident that family environment, including SES, influences students' achievement emotions, the strength of this association may vary depending on the school climate and support, such as teacher support. However, little is currently known about the effect of the interaction between SES and teacher support on achievement emotions in writing. Drawing from well-established research demonstrating the relationships between SES and hope (e.g., Raats et al., 2019), as well as between teacher support and hope (e.g., David et al., 2023), it can be hypothesized that teacher support moderates the association between SES and hope in writing. In other words, teacher support may weaken the strength of the association between SES and hope in writing.

Given the hypothesis that teacher support moderates the direct association between SES and hope in writing, the question arises as to whether the indirect association, in which the relationship between SES and hope in writing is mediated by writing self-concept, may also vary depending on teacher support. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies exploring the moderating role of teacher support in the indirect pathways from SES to hope in writing through writing self-concept. Based on emerging evidence regarding the relationships between SES and self-concept (e.g., Wiederkehr et al., 2015), as well as between teacher support and self-concept (e.g., Mercer et al., 2011), it is possible to hypothesize the existence of a moderation mechanism involved in the indirect association between SES and hope. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether teacher support moderates both the direct and indirect associations between SES and hope in writing, mediated by writing self-concept.

The study analyzed a total of 1408 students from 52 writing classrooms. Nearly half of the sample consisted of female students (49.6%). The average age of the students was 17.47 years. The variables examined in the study included SES, writing self-concept, teacher support, and hope in writing. All main analyses were conducted using Mplus 8 (Muthen & Muthen, 1998–2018). To address missing data, full-information maximum likelihood estimation (FIML) was utilized, following recommendations by Allison (2012) and Enders (2010). The first part of the analysis focused on investigating the mediating role of writing self-concept in the associations between SES and hope in writing. Initially, the direct effects of SES on students' hope in writing were estimated. Subsequently, writing self-concept was introduced as a mediator to examine the direct effects of SES on hope in writing. The second part of the analysis aimed to explore the moderation effect of teacher support on the relationships between SES, writing self-concept, and hope in writing. A moderated mediation model was estimated, incorporating an interaction term between SES and teacher support. This interaction term was used to examine the effects of SES on hope in writing at different levels of teacher support. If the interaction between SES and teacher support was found to be significant, a simple slope analysis was conducted to assess the conditional direct and indirect effects of SES on students' hope in writing at low (-1 SD) and high (+1 SD) levels of teacher support (Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). The study calculated 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the conditional direct and indirect effects.

The present study employed a moderated mediation model to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationship between SES and students' hope in writing. The results provided evidence supporting the mediating role of writing self-concept in the association between SES and hope in writing. First, in line with previous research showing a positive link between SES and achievement emotions (e.g., Raats et al., 2019), the present study found that SES significantly contributed to students' hope in writing. Second, the study demonstrated that writing sself-concept partially mediated the association between SES and hope in writing. Third, the current study examined the importance of teacher support in relation to students' writing self-concept and achievement emotions. However, the results revealed that teacher support did not moderate the direct effect of SES on students' hope in writing. Teacher support did not moderate the indirect association between SES and hope in writing through writing self-concept. Based on these findings, education stakeholders should consider implementing interventions that promote writing self-concept among students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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