Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Effort and Social Inequality: Advancing Measurement and Understanding Parental Origin Effects

Objective

This project aims to understand the role of effort in the reproduction of social inequality. While large-scale test programs like PISA have produced impressive amounts of data on the determinants of cognitive abilities, there is scant evidence on socio-economic differences in cognitive effort. Better understanding the social origins of effort pushes the frontier of knowledge on intergenerational mobility and allows improving equality of opportunity. Specifically, the aim of the project is to answer three research questions:

1. To what extent do children’s effort levels differ by parental socioeconomic background? (descriptive component)
2. Can existing disparities in effort by social background be explained by (a) the intergenerational transmission of effort from parents to children, and (b) varying motivations and differential susceptibility to incentives? (analytical component)
3. What are the best techniques to measure cognitive effort and what are the strengths and weaknesses of measures routinely used in different scientific disciplines? (methodological component)

The project will develop and exploit cutting-edge methods of effort measurement such as real-effort tasks and psychophysiological techniques like pupillometry. Their immense potential has remained untapped in inequality research thus far. Experimental data will be collected for a large sample of school-age children and their parents in Spain and Germany. Subjective effort dispositions will be further analyzed using (inter)national surveys. The triangulation of carefully chosen methodologies will provide the first reliable evidence on socioeconomic differences in effort and stimulate new research (e.g. on gender or ethnic differentials in effort). Cross-validation analysis will detect possible biases of commonly used effort measures. The research findings will provide valuable insights for educational practitioners and decisive evidence for normative debates about social inequality and policy design.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-STG - Starting Grant

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2017-STG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 227 359,50
Address
CALLE MADRID 126
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain

See on map

Region
Comunidad de Madrid Comunidad de Madrid Madrid
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 227 359,50

Beneficiaries (3)

My booklet 0 0