Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EQOP (Socioeconomic gaps in language development and school achievement: Mechanisms of inequality and opportunity)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-11-30
In this ERC project, we (1) investigate causes of social inequality in children’s language development and school achievement; (2) examine whether early childhood education and care (ECEC) improves opportunities for disadvantaged children; and (3) studies whether the benefits of ECEC for one- and two-year-olds are greater than the costs.
Background
As inequality increases in most developed countries, children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families are at exceptional risk for academic underachievement with lasting consequences for individuals, their communities, and society at large. We do not yet have, however, a coherent understanding of the causal mechanisms at the neighborhood level and the family level, and how they interact. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is considered a key to remedying this risk among policymakers. Yet the science on ECEC effectiveness at a national scale lags behind the excitement.
Objectives
• To identify how and why socioeconomic disadvantage, in neighborhoods and in the family, undermines children’s language skills and school achievement.
• To investigate whether ECEC can improve opportunities for disadvantaged children to excel.
• To clarify the policy relevance of these inquiries, we will estimate costs of socioeconomic achievement gaps and the economic benefits of ECEC at scale.
Methodology
We take an investigative approach incorporating population-level trends down to nuanced assessments of individual children’s growth. We do this by combining the Norwegian Mother Father and Child Cohort Study, MoBa, with national registries in Norway.
These data allow us powerful analytic opportunities, combining state-of-the-art statistical, econometric, psychometric, and genetic epidemiological methods. Specifically, we will use multiple quasi-experimental methods, exploiting both macro-level trends in Norway, and data on families and genetic relatedness in MoBa.
Background
As inequality increases in most developed countries, children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families are at exceptional risk for academic underachievement with lasting consequences for individuals, their communities, and society at large. We do not yet have, however, a coherent understanding of the causal mechanisms at the neighborhood level and the family level, and how they interact. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is considered a key to remedying this risk among policymakers. Yet the science on ECEC effectiveness at a national scale lags behind the excitement.
Objectives
• To identify how and why socioeconomic disadvantage, in neighborhoods and in the family, undermines children’s language skills and school achievement.
• To investigate whether ECEC can improve opportunities for disadvantaged children to excel.
• To clarify the policy relevance of these inquiries, we will estimate costs of socioeconomic achievement gaps and the economic benefits of ECEC at scale.
Methodology
We take an investigative approach incorporating population-level trends down to nuanced assessments of individual children’s growth. We do this by combining the Norwegian Mother Father and Child Cohort Study, MoBa, with national registries in Norway.
These data allow us powerful analytic opportunities, combining state-of-the-art statistical, econometric, psychometric, and genetic epidemiological methods. Specifically, we will use multiple quasi-experimental methods, exploiting both macro-level trends in Norway, and data on families and genetic relatedness in MoBa.
The EQOP project uses an exceptionally complex data set, where administrative records on e.g. income and education for the entire population of Norway are combined with a large health survey covering multiple cohorts of children and their families, as well as genetic information on survey participants. We have set up a unique data base and code library to take full advantage of these data sources.
Our main research results can be divided into three areas:
First, we have focused on educational inequalities. Most importantly, we have shown that economic inequalities in achievement have increased in Norway over the last decade, and that it increases with age throughout compulsory schooling. Through this work, we have established a framework for using population-based big data in the field of educational research, where it has very rarely been used.
Second, we have found that in Norway, the scale-up of ECEC starting in toddlerhood reduced the socioeconomic gaps in 5th-grade test scores by up to 50%. Moreover, using data from the US, which includes ECEC quality measures, we have found that sustained high-quality ECEC contributes to reducing socioeconomic differences in income in early adulthood.
Third, to take full advantage of the data sources available, we have done some methodological work. This has included approaches to causal inference in non-experimental data, and developments in a type of statistical analysis (quantile regression) which allows us to investigate heterogeneity in distributions of outcomes in complex statistical models.
Our work on social inequalities in education, and on ECEC, has been extensively disseminated to the wider public through news media (including national TV), and to practitioners through features and interviews in specialized journals for practitioner. Most of this has taken place in Norway, while we have also contributed to a blog post for the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. Finally, we have made substantial contributions to policy in Norway, including a meeting with the Minister of Education, and several meetings with policy makers, where we have presented our work.
Our main research results can be divided into three areas:
First, we have focused on educational inequalities. Most importantly, we have shown that economic inequalities in achievement have increased in Norway over the last decade, and that it increases with age throughout compulsory schooling. Through this work, we have established a framework for using population-based big data in the field of educational research, where it has very rarely been used.
Second, we have found that in Norway, the scale-up of ECEC starting in toddlerhood reduced the socioeconomic gaps in 5th-grade test scores by up to 50%. Moreover, using data from the US, which includes ECEC quality measures, we have found that sustained high-quality ECEC contributes to reducing socioeconomic differences in income in early adulthood.
Third, to take full advantage of the data sources available, we have done some methodological work. This has included approaches to causal inference in non-experimental data, and developments in a type of statistical analysis (quantile regression) which allows us to investigate heterogeneity in distributions of outcomes in complex statistical models.
Our work on social inequalities in education, and on ECEC, has been extensively disseminated to the wider public through news media (including national TV), and to practitioners through features and interviews in specialized journals for practitioner. Most of this has taken place in Norway, while we have also contributed to a blog post for the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. Finally, we have made substantial contributions to policy in Norway, including a meeting with the Minister of Education, and several meetings with policy makers, where we have presented our work.
Our work beyond the state of the art can be summarized in two main areas.
The EQOP research team has been consolidated as a truly interdisciplinary team researching educational inequalities. The team includes psychologists, sociologists, economists, educational researchers, and a quantitative geneticist. Such a level of interdisciplinarity is uncommon in our area of research. The diversity of skills in the group has been pivotal both for establishing our data base and code library (requiring in-depth familiarity with very different data sources and types) and for our progress with substantive and methodological research.
Several of our substantive results go beyond the current state of the art. This includes a) the demonstration of the potential for administrative records in studies of socioeconomic achievement gaps (previously restricted to selected samples, e.g. in large scale assessments) where we find increasing gaps between children from poor and rich families in Norway, and that these gaps increase throughout schooling; b) the possibilities and limitations in using genetic data to account for selection bias in observational studies; c) Long-term effects of universal ECEC starting in toddlerhood on achievement outcomes in middle school, using causal models; d) Long-term effects of ECEC quality on early adulthood outcomes for children from low-income families.
For the second part of the project (until June 2024), our focus will be on the parts of the project where we are currently in the process of making achievements. Substantive areas include a) causal factors in the family contributing to social inequalities in child development (the focus of an EQOP PhD project); b) Neighborhood effects and interactions of neighborhood and family factors in causing educational inequalities; c) Benefit-cost analyses related to our findings that ECEC starting in toddlerhood reduces social inequalities in achievement. Specifically related to the latter, we have discovered previously unused data on ECEC expenses by municipalities (ECEC funders) in Norway, dating back to the 70’s, providing accurate measures of ECEC costs. This work is currently in progress.
The EQOP research team has been consolidated as a truly interdisciplinary team researching educational inequalities. The team includes psychologists, sociologists, economists, educational researchers, and a quantitative geneticist. Such a level of interdisciplinarity is uncommon in our area of research. The diversity of skills in the group has been pivotal both for establishing our data base and code library (requiring in-depth familiarity with very different data sources and types) and for our progress with substantive and methodological research.
Several of our substantive results go beyond the current state of the art. This includes a) the demonstration of the potential for administrative records in studies of socioeconomic achievement gaps (previously restricted to selected samples, e.g. in large scale assessments) where we find increasing gaps between children from poor and rich families in Norway, and that these gaps increase throughout schooling; b) the possibilities and limitations in using genetic data to account for selection bias in observational studies; c) Long-term effects of universal ECEC starting in toddlerhood on achievement outcomes in middle school, using causal models; d) Long-term effects of ECEC quality on early adulthood outcomes for children from low-income families.
For the second part of the project (until June 2024), our focus will be on the parts of the project where we are currently in the process of making achievements. Substantive areas include a) causal factors in the family contributing to social inequalities in child development (the focus of an EQOP PhD project); b) Neighborhood effects and interactions of neighborhood and family factors in causing educational inequalities; c) Benefit-cost analyses related to our findings that ECEC starting in toddlerhood reduces social inequalities in achievement. Specifically related to the latter, we have discovered previously unused data on ECEC expenses by municipalities (ECEC funders) in Norway, dating back to the 70’s, providing accurate measures of ECEC costs. This work is currently in progress.