Educational inequalities in childhood
Luke Sibieta, Institute for Fiscal Studies, luke_s@ifs.org.ukss.org.u
(joint work edited by Alissa Goodman and Paul Gregg, other contributors
from IFS and CMPO)
(also based on a review undertaken by Paul Howard-Jones and Liz
Washbrook as part for Centre for Understanding Behaviour Change for DfE )
k
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Background and Motivation
• Children growing up in poor families end up with lower
educational attainment than children growing up in rich families
• Strong contributor to patterns of social mobility
– Low income  poor attainment  low income
• Gaps start very early in life, but tend to widen throughout school
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Outline
• Perspectives on early intervention
• Chart socio-economic gradient in attainment across childhood
• Investigate contribution of parent and child behaviours, attitudes
to education and aspirations to the evolution of this gradient:
– Early years: home learning environments and parenting styles
– Primary school: maternal aspirations, child’s own ability beliefs
– Teenage years: YP’s own attitudes and behaviours; material resources
– Intergenerational factors: parents’ and grandparents’ attitudes;
transmission of ability
• Summarise and assess implications for policy
Perspectives on early intervention (1)
• Models developed by James Heckman suggest that intervention
in the early years has highest return for policymakers
• Wide body of empirical evidence points to importance of early
investment
– e.g. Perry Pre-School Programme and Nurse-Family
– Many later interventions have also been shown to be less effective.
• Neuroscience suggests first years of life are important period for
neural and cognitive organisation and could be “foundational”.
• Normal brain development is discontinuous in some important
respects, and this may inform the types of provision provided for
different age groups in the future.
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Perspectives on early intervention (2)
• But, no evidence from neuroscience for a “critical period” of
learning and development from 0-3
• Human capital models suggest early investment must be followed
up in order to be effective.
• Some later interventions may well prove effective, e.g. private job
training, mentoring and increasing school choice.
• Optimal investment should be tailored to specifics that create
adversity and to the likely productivity of investment
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Preview of findings from analysis
• The gaps between rich and poor children is already large at age 3
continues to widen until age 14
• The following factors seem to have an important role in explaining the
perpetuation of these gaps:
–
–
–
–
–
Early home learning environment
Expectations/ aspirations for education
Beliefs in own actions making a difference
Behaviour
Material factors
• Suggests a potentially important role for policy if it can be shown that:
– More positive attitudes and behaviours cause higher attainment
AND
– Attitudes and behaviours can be influenced
Results: by Socio-Economic Quintile
Widens through primary
Gap at age 3
Widens by age 5
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(Bristol sample not
nationally comparable)
Widens to 14
‘Narrows’ again
to 16
Explaining the socio-economic gradient in the
early years
• Define set of family background and possible transmission
mechanisms (“early childhood caring environment”)
• Family background
– Socioeconomic position (SEP)
– Parental education
– Demographic, and other family background
• Early childhood caring environment
– Family Interactions (mother-chid and between parents)
– Health and Well-being (birth-weight, gestation, post-natal depression)
– Childcare usage
– Home-learning environment (reading, ABCs, numbers, nursery rhymes)
– Parenting Style/Rules (bed-times, meal-times)
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32.2
35
30
2
Number of siblings
Mother's age at birth
Selected differences in characteristics at age 3 & 5
25.0
25
20
15
10
5
0
1.6
1.5
1.1
1
0.5
0
Mother's age at birth
Number of siblings at age 5
100%
92%
79%
Per cent
80%
98%
85%
68%
60%
42%
40%
22%
14%
20%
0%
Highest HLE Quintile at age 3
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Read to everyday at age 3
Regular bed times at age 3
Regular meal times at age 3
How much of the socio-economic gap in cognitive
outcomes at age 3 is explained by these factors?
0% 1%
Residual Gap
Parental Education
16%
Family Background/Demographics
1%
34%
3%
Family Interactions
4%
Health and Well-Being
Childcare
Home-Learning Environment
25%
16%
Parenting Style/Rules
Missing Data
Total gap to be explained:
23 percentile points
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How much of the socio-economic gap in cognitive
outcomes at age 5 is explained by these factors?
• Gap widens at age 5 (from 23 to 27 percentile points)
• Half of the gap is explained by prior cognitive ability
• Less than 1% from the early childhood caring environment
• What role for the Home-Learning Environment?
– HLE at age 3 explains age 5 cognitive outcomes through its impact on
age 3 cognitive outcomes
– No independent impact of age 5 HLE on age 5 cognitive outcomes
• Overall, results suggest policies to improve parenting skills and
home learning environments in isolation cannot possibly eliminate
the cognitive skills gap between rich and poor young children.
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Gaps in educational attainment in the primary
school years
• Average percentile score gap between richest and poorest
quintiles widens between KS1 and KS2
• Parenting activities and family interactions may continue to
matter, but new potential mechanisms come into play as children
age:
– Parents’ values, beliefs and aspirations for their children
81% of the highest SEP mothers hope their child will go to
university, compared with 37% of the lowest SEP mothers
– Children’s own values and beliefs
67% of the highest SEP children believe school results are
important in life, compared with 51% of the lowest SEP children
– Children’s activities and patterns of behaviour
– Experience of schooling
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How much of the socio-economic gap at age 11 is
explained by these factors?
-1%
Residual gap
14%
14%
3%
29%
20%
19%
Total gap to be explained:
31 percentile points
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Parental education and
family background
Child attitudes and
behaviours
Parental attitudes and
behaviours
Pre-school
environments
Schools
Missings
How much of the socio-economic gap at age 11 is
explained by these factors net of prior ability?
Residual Gap
7%
13%
4%
6%
63%
6% 0%
-1%
Parental Education and
Family Background
Child's attitudes and
behaviours
Parent's attitudes and
behaviours
Pre-school environments
Schools
Missing Data
Prior Ability
Total gap to be explained:
31 percentile points
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Summary of primary years study
• Poor children are much more likely to begin primary school behind
their better-off peers, but also fall further behind by age 11
• Important factors in explaining the gap include:
– Mother’s hopes that the child will go to university
– The belief that one’s own actions can make a difference (among both
parents and children)
– Socio-emotional difficulties such as inattention and conduct problems
• Explain some of the widening of the gap, to a lesser degree
Outcomes in the secondary school years:
evidence from the LSYPE
• Now focus on educational attainment at 16
• See if gap can be explained by the following characteristics:
– Prior attainment (at 11 and 14)
– Parental education and family background
– School characteristics
– Children’s attitudes and behaviours
• Beliefs and values about being at school
• Aspirations/expectations towards future education
• Behavioural problems
– Parental attitudes and behaviours
• Provision of educational material resources
• Aspirations/expectations about child’s future education
• Home relations and educational interactions with the child
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How much of the socio-economic gap in cognitive
outcomes at age 16 is explained by these factors?
Residual Gap
7%
6%
15%
59%
8%
1%
4%
Total gap to be explained:
33 percentile points
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Parental Education and
Family Background
Child's attitudes and
behaviours
Parent's attitudes and
behaviours
Schools
Missing Data
Prior Ability
Summary of secondary years analysis
• Attainment gap at 16 a continuation of earlier gaps
• But might be reduced if poorest children:
– Have access to computer/internet
– Avoid problematic/risky behaviour (in and outside school)
– Expect to go to HE, or have parents who expect them to go
– Believe that they do well in school
• What role for policies to raise education aspirations?
– Aspirations are strongly associated with educational attainment
– Poorest children have lower expectation of going to HE than rich
children, even after taking into account prior attainment
– Suggests an ‘aspirations deficit’ that ought to be alleviated
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Summary of secondary years analysis
• However:
– HE expectations are already very high across all SEP groups
– Poor children most likely to over-estimate chances of going to HE
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
78%
51%
50%
52%
37%
29%
13%
Poorest
20%
2
Expectations at age 14
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64%
58%
3
4
Reality at age 18/19
Richest
An intergenerational picture
• British Cohort Study (BCS): everyone born in Great Britain in one
week in April 1970 interviewed every few years.
•
In age-34 wave, half those who had children were randomly
selected for parent-and-child questionnaires and children took
cognitive tests (BAS).
•
So we have:
• Info about the environment children are growing up in.
• Their cognitive test scores.
• Info about the cognitive ability, social skills and attitudes of their
parents when they were children.
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The SEP gap in cognitive test scores: adding new
information about parents
Other As and
Bs
8%
Young
Person's
Behaviours
10%
Residual gap
16%
CM's gender
0%
Parental
Education
9%
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Parental
Cognitive
Ability
16%
Social Skills
11%
Other As and
Bs
4%
Educational
Attitudes and
Aspirations
23%
Homelearning
Environment
4%
Residual gap
6%
CM's gender
Parental
4%
Attitudes and
Parental
Social Skills
Education
8%
5%
Social Skills
14%
Family
Background
16%
Family
Background
12%
Young
Person's
Behaviours
10%
Educational
Attitudes and
Aspirations
20%
Home-learning
Environment
4%
Summary of intergenerational conclusions
• Adding usually unobserved information about parents is
important.
– Predicts about ¼ of SEP gap in cognitive skills.
• Mainly due to parental cognitive ability.
• But reassuringly it does little to change our impression of
relative (predictive) importance of other factors.
• Attitudes and aspirations towards education, family
background, socio-emotional development still important.
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Overall conclusions
•
Socio-economic gap in attainment could be reduced by improving
attitudes and behaviours amongst poor children
– Optimistic take would suggest 25% reduction in GCSE attainment gap
•
•
But not a causal analysis. More robust evidence needed to establish that:
–
Attitudes and behaviours can be changed
–
Such changes cause improvements in attainment
Our work suggests that trials may be best focused on:
– Raising educational aspirations and expectations (for both parents and
children) – and at an earlier stage than e.g. Aim Higher.
–
Supporting the home-learning environment (e.g. pre-school reading).
–
Helping parents and children to believe that their own actions and efforts can
help to improve attainment (locus of control).
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