ORA (Round 5) The Development of Inequalities in Child Educational Achievement: A Six Country Study
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Education
Abstract
Inequalities in child development by parental socioeconomic status (SES) are a direct impediment to social mobility and life chances and hence are a concern across OECD countries. This project aims to advance understanding of SES disparities in child development by leveraging detailed cohort and administrative data from six rich countries - France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, the UK, and the US -- that are similar enough to form valid comparisons, but also sufficiently different to allow us to learn about the role of context in the development of inequalities. Because different aspects of development matter, and may be differentially affected by SES and by country contexts, we conceptualize child development broadly, to include cognitive development (language/literacy and maths skills, school achievement) and also social/emotional development (attention skills, behaviour problems) and health (overall health, obesity). The novel features of the project are to move beyond cross-sectional and single country snapshots and to embed examination of multiple developmental stages, multiple outcomes, and multiple countries in a highly harmonized framework. We aim to provide new evidence on the dynamics of inequalities in childhood and adolescence, what factors influence them, and how national contexts strengthen or buffer these processes.
Planned Impact
The role of socio-economic conditions in childhood as they relate to the well-being of children and families are the subject of long term public, political and policy debates. For example, the European Commission Recommendation on child poverty and well-being, "Investing in children: breaking the cycle of disadvantage", adopted in 2013, focused on levers to reduce overall inequalities in childhood across the EU. Our research will provide new evidence about the extent, timing, and sources of inequalities in child development and how those vary across six rich countries, and therefore directly contribute to these discussions and ongoing scientific debates. The work will provide a sound evidence base to inform decisions about family policies and policies relating to early childhood health inequalities by shining a light on countries/age groups where inequalities are most/least pronounced and by providing evidence about factors that are associated with reduced/increased inequalities. As a result it will be of interest to national and local policymakers concerned with educational equity and children's health and well-being; to professionals working in these areas including preschool and school teachers and health professionals; and to parents, the public and young people.
We will take both a national and international approach to disseminating to policy makers and non-academic stakeholders. At a national level, we will build on project investigators' existing links to civil service, third sector, and policy making organisations. Communication offices, social network platforms, and other dissemination tools already in place at project partners' institutions will be used: for example, PolicyBristol's monthly newsletter and INED's bilingual "Population & Societies", a monthly four-page bulletin in French and English intended for dissemination to a wide audience. The project website will be hosted at INED and will be used to advertise project results. At a European level, we plan to collaborate with Population Europe, a longstanding INED partner that specialises in disseminating demographic research at an EU-level. It maintains communication channels for media and journalists, and has expertise in creating content for a policy audience, including through meetings and publications. Three policy briefs will be prepared in collaboration with Population Europe, and launched at the final project conference, to which research, policy and non-government users will be invited. To further target policy audiences, we will organize a "policy webinar" with Population Europe with a focused message of key project results. The project will also benefit from the established dissemination channels of Population Europe, including press releases and newsletters, social media activities, and its summary Population Digests. Throughout the project we will also consult with an advisory group with half of its eight-person membership composed of policy experts. The advisory group members will attend two of our annual meetings and participate actively in our final conference.
We will take both a national and international approach to disseminating to policy makers and non-academic stakeholders. At a national level, we will build on project investigators' existing links to civil service, third sector, and policy making organisations. Communication offices, social network platforms, and other dissemination tools already in place at project partners' institutions will be used: for example, PolicyBristol's monthly newsletter and INED's bilingual "Population & Societies", a monthly four-page bulletin in French and English intended for dissemination to a wide audience. The project website will be hosted at INED and will be used to advertise project results. At a European level, we plan to collaborate with Population Europe, a longstanding INED partner that specialises in disseminating demographic research at an EU-level. It maintains communication channels for media and journalists, and has expertise in creating content for a policy audience, including through meetings and publications. Three policy briefs will be prepared in collaboration with Population Europe, and launched at the final project conference, to which research, policy and non-government users will be invited. To further target policy audiences, we will organize a "policy webinar" with Population Europe with a focused message of key project results. The project will also benefit from the established dissemination channels of Population Europe, including press releases and newsletters, social media activities, and its summary Population Digests. Throughout the project we will also consult with an advisory group with half of its eight-person membership composed of policy experts. The advisory group members will attend two of our annual meetings and participate actively in our final conference.
Organisations
Publications
De La Rie S
(2023)
The role of energy balance related behaviors in socioeconomic inequalities in childhood body mass index: A comparative analysis of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
in Social science & medicine (1982)
Olczyk M
(2023)
Teacher judgements and gender achievement gaps in primary education in England, Germany, and the US
in Social Science Research
Olczyk M
(2022)
Teacher judgements, student social background, and student progress in primary school: a cross-country perspective
in Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft
Panico L
(2023)
International differences in gradients in early childhood overweight and obesity: the role of maternal employment and formal childcare attendance.
in European journal of public health
Solaz A
(2024)
Does Family Structure Account for Child Achievement Gaps by Parental Education? Findings for England, France, Germany and the United States
in Population and Development Review
Volodina A
(2022)
Explaining gaps by parental education in children's early language and social outcomes at age 3-4 years: evidence from harmonised data from three countries
in Current Psychology
| Description | One major finding of the research is that socioeconomic inequalities typically widen over the course of childhood, regardless of country context. Our analysis shows that significant disparities by parental education exist in language and behavioural outcomes prior to school entry in the US, the UK and Germany. Longitudinal analysis show that children in less-educated families fall further behind in these countries in terms of achievement in both primary school and then again in secondary school (findings also shown for France) and in terms of health (risk of obesity) in primary school (a regularity also found in the Netherlands). Importantly, however, the ranking of countries in terms of inequalities remains remarkably stable over the course of the school years. Socioeconomic gradients in achievement at age 6-7 differ markedly across countries with an ordering from larger to smaller as follows: Germany, the US, the Netherlands, the UK and Japan. This ordering is exactly replicated in gradients at age 15 calculated from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The notable anomaly is France, which goes from having one of the weakest social gradients in early primary school to one of the strongest by the end of lower secondary school. We interpret this as evidence that inequalities in educational achievement have their roots in the early childhood period: countries in which children start school on a relatively equal footing are generally (although not uniformly) able to maintain their advantageous position, whereas countries with strong social gradients in early childhood struggle to overcome these initial disparities. The previous lack of harmonised data on achievement in early primary school means that our research is the first to document the cross-national stability of achievement inequalities over the course of childhood for a diverse set of countries. Another major conclusion is that there are some factors that contribute (or do not contribute) to childhood socioeconomic gradients regardless of country context. The lower quality home learning environments of children in less educated families contribute significantly to disparities at age 3-4 in a similar way across countries. Parental education is consistently a stronger predictor of achievement early in primary school than family income. Differences in family structure by maternal education (e.g. in rates of single parenthood and re-partnering) account for very little of the widening social gradients over the school years in any country. The greater screen time of children in low- relative to high-educated households is associated with widening weight inequalities over the course of primary school in all countries studied, while their lower levels of physical activity are not. Within-school differences in achievement progress during secondary school by parental education are very similar across countries, as is the role of social segregation in school composition. The salience of some factors, however, depends on the country context. For example, lower family income and differences in childcare participation both help to explain gaps in the early years in the UK but only the former matters in the US and the latter in Germany. The role of differences in the secondary schools attended by children from more and less educated families is much stronger in Germany than in other countries. In summary, we find evidence of both commonality and specificity in the factors that underpin childhood socioeconomic achievement gaps, findings that are only made possible by the cross-country coordinated analytic approach made possible by the award. Finally, the evidence produced is suggestive that policy matters for the magnitude of socioeconomic achievement gaps, but that so too do cultural and demographic factors. With regard to policy, the relatively limited role of the welfare state in the US goes alongside internationally large socioeconomic disparities in family income, centre-based childcare participation and language outcomes in the preschool period. Free universal high-quality preschool childcare in France is linked to low inequalities in primary school in that country. Early tracking into different school types in Germany is associated with greater achievement gaps and a larger role for between-school differences. However, some differences seem to transcend policy. Japan is an example of a country that, like the US, has relatively high levels of economic inequality and low social expenditures, but in which childhood conditions and achievement outcomes vary relatively little with parental education. Teachers appear to hold less stereotypical views about children from different socioeconomic backgrounds in the US than in the UK or Germany. And demographic factors like teen parenthood and large family size play an important role in the poorer outcomes of preschool-aged children in less-educated families in the US and the UK. Hence our comparative findings contribute important understanding on the potential, and also the limits, of different policy choices for reducing childhood inequalities. |
| Exploitation Route | Firstly, our findings showcase the potential for "post-hoc" harmonisation of national datasets to further understanding of the moderating role of country context on developmental processes in childhood. "Ex- ante" cross-national harmonisation of data collection is difficult and costly, which has led to important evidence gaps in how outcomes for children, and the factors that underpin them, differ across countries. Our research demonstrates a model for how existing data can be leveraged to provide insights on whether previous findings can be generalised across countries, a model that can be taken up and used by researchers in many fields of human development. In terms of the existing cross-national literature on childhood socioeconomic inequalities, our research makes the important contribution in including Japan and France in a comparative framework. The results show an unusually steep widening of social gradients in France over the course of schooling relative to other countries: why this happens merits further research. The finding that childhood inequalities by parental education in Japan are unusually low by international standards, despite a policy environment that appears less equalizing than in European countries, is a regularity that also merits further investigation. Our evidence on the factors that do, and do not, contribute to education-related disparities in different countries, outcomes and developmental periods will be of use to national stakeholders concerned with promoting equality of opportunity in many different areas, including health, teacher training, family services, welfare policy and education. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education |
| URL | https://dice.site.ined.fr/ |
| Description | Impact from the award continues to emerge as our research publications come into the public domain. Washbrook's invitation by the Department for Education (the DfE) to join the Technical Advisory Group for one of the new national cohort studies (the EOPS-C) has enabled her to share insights gained from the cross-national harmonisation activities supported by this award and so enhance the design of a major new piece of UK data infrastructure. The DfE intends the EOPS studies to be crucial evidence-gathering tools for the Department that will form a central part of their Research and Evidence Strategy. Beyond the UK, our engagement events, co-organised with Population Europe, publicised our findings and lessons learned from our methodological approach to key stakeholders from around the world, including representatives from the OECD, UNICEF and the Evidence-Based Policy and Evaluation unit at the European Commission's DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture. Findings from the project have already been referenced in two OECD Child Wellbeing Policy Papers. Feedback suggests that these events, supported by our accessible Policy Brief and a Youtube webinar video, will continue to foster long-term impact on the way educational inequalities are monitored, and on the priority placed on inequalities in the early childhood period, by policymakers and policy influencers within and outside Europe. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Description | DfE/UoB seminar on protecting and supporting educational attainment and progress |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | OECD paper on childhood socioeconomic disadvantage in Austria |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Description | OECD paper on the economic costs of childhood socioeconomic disadvantage |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Description | Technical Advisory Group membership for a new national longitudinal cohort study |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) workshop participation |
| Amount | € 300 (EUR) |
| Organisation | German Institute for Economic Research |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 11/2019 |
| End | 11/2019 |
| Description | INED staff salary co-funding |
| Amount | € 15,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | French Institute for Demographic Studies |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | France |
| Start | 06/2021 |
| End | 06/2022 |
| Description | Understanding and comparing inequalities in skills development online event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This webinar, jointly organised with Population Europe, brought together two of the lead investigators on the DICE project with experts on education-related data collection from research institutes and statistical agencies in France, Germany and the UK. The event was promoted to Population Europe's network of subscribers and attracted 77 live participants from 17 different countries. A video recording of the webinar has been available on Population Europe's Youtube channel and, in the four months since it was posted, has received over 100 views. Population Europe's main objective is to disseminate cutting-edge research findings on population developments to a broad range of international stakeholders including policy audiences and the public. Participants at the webinar shared expertise on the strengths and weaknesses of different data sources for studying educational inequalities. The conversation helped to promote the cross-national approach to harmonisation taken in the DICE project and clarify situations in which it is more appropriate and valuable. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://population-europe.eu/events/event-reviews-recordings/understanding-and-comparing-inequalitie... |
| Description | What will narrow inequalities in child development before school entry? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | In November 2022, in collaboration with Population Europe, we organised a High-Level Experts Meeting to discuss the question of how we can better support families with young children today to decrease inequalities among future generations. Fourteen eminent stakeholders and scholars from countries across Europe participated in the meeting, sharing knowledge and best practice from the perspectives of government, civil society organisations and academia. The meeting produced a policy brief (part of Population Europe's Population & Policy Compact series) that disseminated key policy recommendations to a wide audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://population-europe.eu/research/policy-briefs/what-will-narrow-inequalities-child-development-... |