Collaborative Research: Resource and Stress Processes Underlying Economic Disparities in Early School Success

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project seeks to pinpoint key processes through which income inequality influences children's academic success. Children from wealthier families have much better academic skills than do children from economically disadvantaged families, and such disparities interfere with disadvantaged children's educational success, thereby inhibiting broad preparation for 21st century jobs and American economic success. To benefit society, this study will facilitate children's preparation for the future by revealing the most impactful processes driving inequality in children's academic skills. It will do so by building and testing a conceptual framework for understanding the processes that contribute to gaps in the academic skills of economically advantaged versus disadvantaged children. The study has important implications for improving the lives of American children and families by identifying targets for interventions and policies that could improve the life chances of economically disadvantaged children and stem growing inequalities in school success. This study will expand extant knowledge of how economic factors influence children's early learning and academic skills. Specific objectives are (1) to create, test, and refine a comprehensive model of the important contextual forces that transmit income inequality to young children's academic skills; (2) to combine data from multiple national data sources using pioneering geographic mapping technologies; and (3) to use cutting-edge analytic techniques to determine how key family, school, and neighborhood processes are involved in the relationship between economic inequality and children's differing academic skills. The project will combine a broad array of national administrative data sources with longitudinal survey and assessment data on approximately 11,000 children followed from infancy through kindergarten and 18,000 children followed from kindergarten through 5th grade. Econometric statistical analyses will simultaneously test home, school, and neighborhood processes to delineate significant factors that influence the development of children's skills.