Suchergebnisse

Why does the United States lag behind so many other countries on international education assessments? The traditional view targets school-based explanations—U.S. schools attract poorer teachers and lack the proper incentives. But the U.S. educational system may also serve children with comparatively greater academic challenges as a result of poorer social conditions. One way of gaining leverage on this issue is to understand when U.S. students fall behind their international counterparts. I first compare reading/vocabulary test scores for U.S. and Canadian children (ages 4-5) using National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979–Children and Youth (NLSY79) and Canada's National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY). I then compare the magnitude of these differences to similar cohorts of students at ages 15 to 16 using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Findings indicate that while the Canadian advantage in PISA is substantial (0.30 standard deviation units), this advantage already existed at ages 4 to 5, before formal schooling had a chance to matter. I discuss the implications of this pattern for interpreting international test score rankings.

How do individuals come to hold certain beliefs about meritocracy, individualism, and redistribution? Several sociodemographic factors are regularly used to understand variation in these beliefs, but other predictors remain untested. Meanwhile, scholars studying family dynamics are increasingly turning their attention toward the long‐term social effects of distinct family features. One facet of this work focuses on the social role of siblings. We investigate the relationship at the intersection of these literatures. How does growing up with (more) siblings influence one's inequality beliefs? Do siblings promote collectivism or might these same relationships foster competition and individualism? Could trust be the mechanism connecting sibship size with inequality beliefs? Or, do sibling effects reflect a broader promotion of conservative thinking in larger families? We investigate these questions using data from the General Social Survey from 1984 to 2018. Our results indicate that siblings are associated with more conservative meritocracy beliefs. On the other hand, we find limited evidence of siblings influencing attitudes toward redistribution.

Scholars agree that the early childhood years are highly consequential for later educational outcomes, but we know little about the impact of early childhood socioeconomic conditions at the societal level. This study contributes to the literature by bringing to comparative sociology the proposition that variations in the social structures into which children are born have lasting impacts on their educational outcomes as they progress through secondary education. Drawing on theories of welfare regimes and social stratification, we analyze nation-level data on socioeconomic conditions from the early 2000s via the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and educational performance data from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment ( N = 35). In line with our hypotheses, societal inequalities and disadvantages present when children are young are associated with negative achievement outcomes 15 years later and policies that guarantee people basic securities are more consistently associated with positive achievement outcomes than are broad measures of social spending. We conclude by highlighting the value of our approach and suggesting directions for future research on cross-national variations in achievement as a product of socioeconomic conditions during early childhood.

In many parts of the world, fertility has declined in important ways in the past century. What are the consequences of this demographic change? Our study expands the empirical basis for understanding the relationship between number of siblings in childhood and social outcomes among adults. An important recent study found that for each additional sibling an individual grows up with, the likelihood of divorce as an adult declines by 3%. We expand this work by (a) determining whether the original pattern replicates in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and (b) extending the analysis beyond divorce to consider whether growing up with siblings is related to prosocial adult behaviors (relationships with parents, friends, and views on conflict management with one's partner). Our results confirm a negative association between number of siblings and divorce in adulthood. We find mixed results related to other prosocial adult behaviors.

Academically-focused learning activities beyond formal schooling are expanding in myriad forms throughout the world. This diverse realm of learning activities includes private supplementary education purchased by families such as private tutoring, online courses, cram schools, and learning center franchises. Some public schools also provide academically oriented after-school programs beyond their formal curricula. This review identifies factors relating to students, families, schools, and educational systems that affect participation in supplementary education. Macro forces are also related to the proliferation of learning activities outside of formal schooling. We discuss implications of this trend for educational stratification as well as challenges it creates for families and formal educational systems. Finally, we suggest promising new avenues for data collection and empirical research.