DICE The Development of Inequalities in Child Educational Achievement: A Six Country Study
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The DICE project focused on social inequalities in child development from early years up to the end of lower secondary education in six wealthy countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan. It was financed within in the ORA program, with PIs and team members in each country. The project aimed to harmonize information from countryspecific panel surveys as much as possible, in order to allow for cross-country comparisons of results. Results of the project provide evidence about how young children’s resources vary depending on their parents’ education and the extent to which that social grading is buffered by a variety of explanatory factors as well as by social policies. While social grading in resources and cognitive, socio-emotional, and health outcomes in early childhood is a fact of life in the US, the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Japan, the extent of that grading and how it manifests varies considerably as a function of country context as well as specific outcomes (e.g., language or social skills or health-related outcomes). With regard to factors which contribute to the reduction or increase of socioeconomic inequalities, these are not uniformly related to different facets of child development, suggesting that more specific models need to be developed to account for the differences on a macro level. The project further shows that a country’s ranking observed in international large-scale assessment studies at the end of lower secondary schools is already evident at school entry in five of the six studied countries. Several longitudinal analyses of cognitive skill development reiterate the ongoing importance of social origin in primary and secondary school. Studies based on a subset of countries show that teacher bias in assessment in lower grades of primary school is particularly strong in Germany, and teacher judgment is positively associated with skill progress in the future. In addition, changes in mathematical skills during lower secondary education are strongly related to social origin in Germany, and we provide evidence that this is due to the specific school type attended. The longitudinal analyses also revealed that the impact of social origin is not limited to cognitive development. For example, the increase in body mass index is weakest for children with parents holding a tertiary degree. Overall, the project findings support the assumption that the institutional and societal setting matter and need more attention in future studies. Furthermore, results of the project provide evidence on the generalizability of conclusions across countries and thus offer many prospects for future research also within national contexts. Data availability allowed to consider only a limited set of explanatory factors and sometimes less than six countries. From a methodological point of view, longitudinal studies with a comparable sampling design, cross-nationally validated and longitudinally linked test instruments and pre-harmonized survey questionnaires are needed to further investigate socio-economic inequalities in child development.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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National context and socioeconomic inequalities in educational achievement. Documents de travail, n°267, Aubervilliers: Ined.
Olczyk, M., Schneider, T., Washbrook, E., Akabayashi, H., Boinet, C., de la Rie, S., Kameyama, Y., Keizer, R., Nozaki, K., Panico, L., Perinetti Casoni, V., Shikishima, C., Solaz, A., Volodina, A., Yamashita, J., Waldfogel, J. & Weinert, S.
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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. Current Psychology, 42(30), 26398-26417.
Volodina, Anna; Weinert, Sabine; Washbrook, Elizabeth; Waldfogel, Jane; Kwon, Sarah Jiyoon; Wang, Yi & Perinetti, Casoni Valentina
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Teacher judgements, student social background, and student progress in primary school: a cross-country perspective. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 26(2), 443-468.
Olczyk, Melanie; Kwon, Sarah Jiyoon; Lorenz, Georg; Perinetti, Casoni Valentina; Schneider, Thorsten; Volodina, Anna; Waldfogel, Jane & Washbrook, Elizabeth
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International differences in gradients in early childhood overweight and obesity: the role of maternal employment and formal childcare attendance. European Journal of Public Health, 33(3), 468-475.
Panico, Lidia; Boinet, Cesarine; Akabayashi, Hideo; de la Rie, Sanneke; Kwon, Sarah Jiyoon; Kameyama, Yuriko; Keizer, Renske; Nozaki, Kayo; Perinetti, Casoni Valentina; Volodina, Anna; Waldfogel, Jane; Weinert, Sabine & Washbrook, Elizabeth
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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. Social Science & Medicine, 317, 115575.
de la Rie, Sanneke; Washbrook, Elizabeth; Perinetti, Casoni Valentina; Waldfogel, Jane; Kwon, Sarah Jiyoon; Dräger, Jascha; Schneider, Thorsten; Olczyk, Melanie; Boinet, Césarine & Keizer, Renske
