̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Rob Gruijters

Disadvantaged children’s school struggles not about character, attitude or lack of ‘growth mindset’, study suggests

tdk25 — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 07:52:59 +0000

̽��ֱ��relative underperformance of disadvantaged students at school has little do with them lacking the ‘character’, attitude, or mindset of their wealthier peers, despite widespread claims to the contrary, new research indicates.

̽��ֱ��study, which analysed data from more than 240,000 15-year-olds across 74 countries, challenges the view often invoked by politicians and educators that cultivating self-belief or ‘growth mindsets’ can reduce class-based learning gaps. Researchers found that no more than 9% of the substantial achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students can be attributed to differences in these social and emotional characteristics.

In almost every country in the world, wealth and socioeconomic status significantly predicts children’s academic success. ̽��ֱ��new study, by academics from the Universities of Cambridge, Zürich and Tübingen, does not dispute that social and emotional learning positively shapes academic outcomes, but it does question whether it can substantially reduce the academic achievement gap between children from rich and poor families.

This contradicts a widespread conviction among education policymakers. One influential policy paper in the US, for example, has identified “promoting social-emotional and character development” as a key strategy for narrowing the achievement gap. Similarly, a UK Cabinet Office survey in 2015 concluded that disadvantaged and vulnerable children would benefit most from social and emotional learning, and that neglecting this would “perpetuate the cycle of advantage or disadvantage across generations”.

In some countries, social and emotional learning is also big business. ̽��ֱ��industry was valued at $1.5 billion in the US in 2020, and projected to reach $3.9 billion by 2025. Many of these providers also suggest that their services can help to narrow the achievement gap.

̽��ֱ��lead author of the new study, Dr Rob Gruijters, from the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Educational inequality cannot be solved through social and emotional learning. ̽��ֱ��idea that children can overcome structural disadvantage by cultivating a growth mindset and a positive work ethic overlooks the real constraints many disadvantaged students face, and risks blaming them for their own misfortune.”

Nicolas Hübner, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Education at the ̽��ֱ�� of Tübingen and a co-author, said: “Developing social and emotional skills is hugely valuable for children, but the evidence suggests it has little to do with why low income students are more likely to struggle academically. According to our results, it is not a magic bullet for tackling the socioeconomic achievement gap.”

̽��ֱ��study used data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), covering 248,375 high school students in 74 countries. Researchers analysed both the science test scores, and school-relevant socio-emotional skills, of the most and least advantaged quartile (25%) of students in each country.

Across all 74 countries, the socioeconomic attainment gap was very large. ̽��ֱ��average difference in PISA science test results between the top and bottom 25% of students sorted by socioeconomic status was 70.5 points; equivalent to almost three years of schooling.

̽��ֱ��academic benefits that disadvantaged children derive from socio-emotional skills, however, were found to be relatively similar to those gained by advantaged children. This runs counter to the widely held assumption that focusing on these skills is particularly important and beneficial for children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, which underpins many social and emotional learning programmes.

While children from wealthier backgrounds were found to have somewhat higher levels of socio-emotional skills on average, the impact of these discrepancies on the overall achievement gap was modest. ̽��ֱ��researchers calculated that if, hypothetically, disadvantaged children had the same social and emotional skills as wealthier children and their academic effects were consistent, the learning gap between them would only reduce by no more than 9%.

Strikingly, these findings proved fairly consistent across countries and for different academic subjects (reading, maths and science).

One of the reasons why socio-emotional skills are not a major driver of achievement inequality is that, despite the differences between them, both advantaged and disadvantaged children were found to have reasonably high levels of these skills overall. For example, during the PISA psychometric assessment, 84% of disadvantaged children, and 90% from the advantaged quartile, agreed with the statement “I feel proud that I have accomplished things”.

̽��ֱ��researchers add that the 9% of the achievement gap that can be attributed to the social and emotional skills measured by PISA is likely to be an overestimation, because of potential reverse causality in the relationship with academic achievement. Co-author Isabel Raabe, a researcher in the Department of Sociology, ̽��ֱ�� of Zürich, said: “Students who lack the right mindset may perform less well at school, but that may be because their academic performance has eroded their self-belief; not the other way round.”

̽��ֱ��authors argue that policies to reduce educational disadvantages should focus on the structural reasons that cause some students from lower socio-economic backgrounds to underperform. These include differences in the quality, resourcing and funding of the schools they attend; the absence in many countries of high-quality preschool options; and a lack of extracurricular resources and out-of-school opportunities compared with their wealthier peers.

̽��ֱ��findings are published in Sociology of Education.

A global study of 240,000 students challenges the widespread policy conviction that bridging the academic gap between rich and poor students hinges on improving the latter’s work ethic, mindset and socio-emotional skills.

Educational inequality cannot be solved through social and emotional learning

Rob Gruijters

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Boom and bust? Millennials aren’t all worse off than Baby Boomers, but the rich-poor gap is widening

tdk25 — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 09:18:59 +0000

Millennials, a generation often characterised as less wealthy than their parents, are not uniformly worse off than their Baby Boomer counterparts, according to new research.

They are, however, contending with a “vast and increasing” wealth gap, due to the increasingly uneven financial rewards reaped from different life and career paths, compared with their Boomer predecessors. This creates the impression that as a generation, they are losing out.

̽��ֱ��study, by researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge (UK), Humboldt ̽��ֱ�� Berlin (Germany), and the French research university Sciences Po, examined the work and family life trajectories of more than 6,000 Baby Boomers and 6,000 Millennials in the United States. It evaluated and compared the impact of these work and life choices on their wealth by the age of 35.

Whether western Millennials are doing better or worse than previous generations is widely debated. Millennials are often positioned as the victims of social changes that have made employment and family life less stable. According to some observers, they are “the first generation that is worse off than their parents”. A recent article challenged the “myth of the broke Millennial”, however, claiming that they are actually thriving.

̽��ֱ��new study suggests that the answer depends on which Millennials are being discussed. It found that Millennials were statistically more likely to work in low-paid service jobs or live with their parents as they entered middle age. Most of these individuals were economically worse off at 35 than Baby Boomers with comparable careers and lives. Millennials with typical middle-class life trajectories accumulated substantially more wealth than their Baby Boomers counterparts, however.

̽��ֱ��research, published in the American Journal of Sociology, describes this widening wealth gap as “a fundamental moral and political challenge”.

Lead author, Dr Rob Gruijters, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��debate about whether Millennials are worse off is a distraction. ̽��ֱ��crucial intergenerational shift has been in how different family and career patterns are rewarded. ̽��ֱ��wealthiest Millennials now have more than ever, while the poor are left further behind.”

"This divergence in financial rewards is exacerbating extreme levels of wealth inequality in the United States. Individuals with typical working class careers, like truck drivers or hairdressers, used to be able to buy a home and build a modest level of assets, but this is more difficult for the younger generation. ̽��ֱ��solution lies with measures such as progressive wealth taxation, and policies like universal health insurance, that give more people basic security.”

̽��ֱ��study compared late Baby Boomers (born 1957-64) with early Millennials (born 1980-84), using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Rather than using broad averages to compare the generations, it mapped each individual’s life trajectory from 18 to 35 as a sequence of changes in their work, family and living arrangements. Individuals with similar trajectories were then clustered together, enabling the researchers to compare the net worth of Millennials and Boomers with similar life experiences.

̽��ֱ��data revealed striking intergenerational shifts in career patterns and family dynamics. By age 35, 17% of Baby Boomers had followed a path in which they progressed from college into prestigious professional careers like law and medicine, whereas only 7.3% of Millennials did the same. Millennials were, on the other hand, more likely to be engaged in other professional roles, like social work and teaching, or in service sector jobs like retail, waiting and caregiving.

Additionally, Millennials tended to postpone marriage and prolong their stay in the parental home. Early marriage and parenthood characterised the lives of 27% of Boomers, but just 13% of Millennials.

In terms of financial security, the study found that wealth inequality is much more pronounced among Millennials than it was for Boomers. While 62% of Boomers owned homes at 35, for example, only 49% of Millennials did. Around 14% of Millennials had negative net worth, meaning their debts outweighed their assets, compared with 8.7% of Boomers.

There was limited evidence that this gap is intrinsically driven by changing work and family patterns. Rather, the economic rewards for secure, middle and upper-class lifestyles have increased, while those for less stable, working-class trajectories have either stagnated or declined.

For instance, among Baby Boomers, 63% of low-skilled service workers owned their own home at 35, compared with 42% of Millennials in the same occupations. ̽��ֱ��poorest Millennials in service sector roles now often have negative net worth, which was less common among Boomers.

̽��ֱ��authors argue that these challenges not only foster intergenerational tensions but have also contributed to other social problems, such as the rise of populist authoritarianism. Addressing the problem, they add, will require big solutions: principally wealth taxes and policies that offer financial security to the less advantaged. Such measures might, for example, include access to stable housing, universal health insurance, and a higher minimum wage.

Co-author Professor Anette Fasang stressed the importance of urgent public intervention. “We need to make it easier for those who are currently being left behind to accumulate wealth in the first place,” she said. “A slow and tentative approach won’t suffice. Significant action is needed to build a more equal society, where more people can experience some form of prosperity.”

A study of over 12,000 people in the US, comparing Baby Boomers and Millennials, raises concerns about Millennials’ diverging financial gains.

̽��ֱ��wealthiest Millennials now have more than ever, while the poor are left further behind

Rob Gruijters

Kampus Production, via Pexels

Millennials pose for a photo

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School segregation by wealth is creating unequal learning outcomes for children in the Global South

Anonymous — Wed, 27 May 2020 09:16:51 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge-led study shows that children from the very poorest families, in what are already some of the lowest-income countries in the world, consistently perform worse in basic literacy and numeracy tests than those from more affluent backgrounds.

̽��ֱ��overwhelming reason, the study found, is that poorer children are disproportionately clustered in the lowest-quality schools, which often lack even basic resources – such as textbooks, electricity, or toilets.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that there is an urgent need to ‘raise the floor’ in global education, by focusing both national-level efforts and international aid on students from the most disadvantaged communities.

Institutions like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Bank have long referred to a ‘learning crisis’ in the Global South. While growing numbers of children in low-income countries now attend school compared with previous generations, many still lack basic literacy or numeracy skills.

Until now, most analyses have looked at the factors that explain low learning outcomes in general, rather than differentiating between groups of children. But the new study suggests that there is a huge gulf between the quality of education that children from the poorest families receive compared with wealthier children, and that this is directly linked to their ability to read, write, add, or subtract, by Grade 6.

Dr Rob Gruijters, from the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who led the research, said: “There is a high level of social segregation in many of these countries’ education systems. ̽��ֱ��pattern is similar to the UK, where rich children tend to go to better-resourced schools. But the differences in school quality are much more pronounced, and they are strongly linked to family background”

“Global reporting on the learning crisis often pays little attention to these inequalities, focusing instead on average differences between countries. But if we really want to fix things, there needs to be a commitment not only to investing in education, but to raising the floor: to ensuring that every school has a minimum level of support, in staffing, training, and resources.”

̽��ֱ��study analysed data from the Programme for the Analysis of Education Systems (PASEC), a survey managed by the association of education ministries in francophone Africa. ̽��ֱ��survey assessed more than 30,000 Grade 6 students in more than 1,800 schools in 10 countries: Benin, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal and Togo. All 10 have ‘received scant attention’ in previous analyses of the learning crisis, the study says.

̽��ֱ��data provides the pupils’ scores in basic maths and reading tests. ̽��ֱ��researchers cross-referred this with additional information about their socio-economic backgrounds, their health, and the quality of their schools; dividing each country’s sample group into fifths based on their families’ relative wealth.

Overall, pupils from the poorest 20% of families consistently performed worst in the tests, while those children who – although often poor by international standards – fell into the wealthiest 20%, consistently had the highest test scores.

Poorer students also tended to fail to reach PASEC’s Grade 6 ‘proficiency threshold’, meaning that by the time they leave primary school, many still struggle with basic sums and reading.

̽��ֱ��researchers then explored possible reasons why this link between household wealth and performance exists. They found that differences in the quality of schooling explained almost the entire learning gap between poor and wealthier children.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds were consistently found to be clustered in educational settings that scored low for school quality in the dataset – meaning that teachers’ own education levels were often poor, classrooms overcrowded, and critical resources and facilities, from textbooks to running water, often unavailable. Wealthier children, on the other hand, were much more likely to attend better-resourced private schools.

Importantly, in cases where children from the wealthiest 20% and poorest 20% of families attended the same school, there was almost no difference in their test results.

“ ̽��ֱ��problem is that most of them are not attending the same schools, and that’s why we are seeing these learning gaps" said Dr Julia Behrman of Northwestern ̽��ֱ��, who co-authored the study. “Wealthier children learn more largely because they are going to better schools, with better resources.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that their assessment of the impact of socioeconomic status on learning outcomes is almost certainly conservative, as the PASEC data only covers children who reach Grade 6. In countries like Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, where fewer than half of all children finish primary school and many never attend, the poorest children face a ‘double hurdle’: first, getting to school; and second, finding a school that is sufficiently equipped to give them a basic education.

̽��ֱ��study therefore argues that policy initiatives and aid efforts aimed at solving the global learning crisis should focus on equalising access to learning opportunities for all children.

“One silver lining is that our research emphasises there is nothing inherent in being poor that stops children from learning,” Gruijters added. “Give them a better place to learn, with better resources, and they can do just as well as children from the wealthiest end of the scale.”

Millions of the world’s poorest children are leaving school without mastering even basic levels of reading or maths because of an overlooked pattern of widespread, wealth-based inequalities in their countries’ education systems, new research suggests.

One silver lining is that our research emphasises there is nothing inherent in being poor that stops children from learning

Rob Gruijters

Global Partnership for Education

Students in class in Burkina Faso

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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