The number of educational opportunities that children accrue at home, in early education and care, at school, in afterschool programs, and in their communities as they grow up are strongly linked to their educational attainment and earnings in early adulthood, according to new research published recently by AERA’s Educational Researcher.
The results indicate that the opportunity gaps between low- and high-income households from birth through the end of high school largely explain differences in educational and income achievement between students from different backgrounds.
These findings come from a 26-year longitudinal study led by Center for Thriving Children Executive Director Eric Dearing (Boston College). His co-authors were Andres S. Bustamante (University of California–Irvine), Henrik D. Zachrisson (University of Oslo), and Deborah Lowe Vandell (University of California–Irvine).
Their study is the first to directly document opportunities and opportunity gaps as they accrue across early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence in multiple key areas of child development.
A research brief on the study can be found here. A link to the full study is here. Its importance has led to interviews and articles that are shared below.
Previous interviews on the opportunity gap
Here, Dearing discusses the study’s findings and its policy implications.
He also sat down with our blog in early 2023 for an interview about what he’d found and why he wanted to undertake the study in the first place.
“We wanted to know what these opportunities explain. Do they explain the strong connection between your family’s income at birth, how much you earn, and whether you graduate from college in early adulthood?” Dearing said in the interview.
In the news
‘Opportunities,’ not poverty alone, predict later-life success for children – Hechinger Report, 9.26.24
The Hechinger Report, a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education, wrote an article interviewing Dearing about his results. “I wasn’t super surprised that the wealthiest kids were having seven, eight, nine, 10 opportunities, but that the poor children were getting one or no chances,” said Dearing as he discussed the study’s findings.
Why Kindergarten Matters for Children Growing Up in Poor Families – University of Oslo, 9.17.24.
Dearing and co-author Henrik Daae Zachrisson discuss the study’s findings and how important early education can be for children without means.
Kindergarten matters more for children from disadvantaged families, researchers argue – The Sector, 10.1.24
This article in the Australian education publication, The Sector, highlights Dearing’s podcast appearance with Zachrisson where they discuss how important early childhood care can be.
