Kids given ‘digital pacifiers’ to calm tantrums fail to learn how to regulate emotions

 

Children learn much about self-regulation – that is affective, mental, and behavioral responses to certain situations – during their first few years of life. Some of these behaviors are about children’s ability to choose a deliberate response over an automatic one. This is known as effortful control, which is learned from the environment, first and foremost through children’s relationship with their parents.

In recent years, giving children digital devices to control their responses to emotions, especially if they’re negative, has become common. Now, a team of researchers in Hungary and Canada has investigated if this strategy, referred to as parental digital emotion regulation, leads to the inability of children to effectively regulate their emotions later in life. The results were published in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

“Here we show that if parents regularly offer a digital device to their child to calm them or to stop a tantrum, the child won’t learn to regulate their emotions,” said Dr Veronika Konok, the study’s first author and a researcher at Eötvös Loránd University. “This leads to more severe emotion-regulation problems, specifically, anger management problems, later in life.”

More devices, less control

“We frequently see that parents use tablets or smartphones to divert the child’s attention when the child is upset. Children are fascinated by digital content, so this an easy way to stop tantrums and it is very effective in the short term,” Prof Caroline Fitzpatrick, a researcher at the Université de Sherbrooke and senior author of the study, explained. However, the researchers expected that in the long run, the practice has little benefit. To confirm their thesis, they carried out an assessment in 2020 and a follow-up one year later. More than 300 parents of children aged between two- and five-years-old completed a questionnaire which assessed child and parent media use.

They found that when parents used digital emotion regulation more often, children showed poorer anger and frustration management skills a year later. Children who were given devices more often as they experienced negative emotions also showed less effortful control at the follow-up assessment.

“Tantrums cannot be cured by digital devices,” Konok pointed out. “Children have to learn how to manage their negative emotions for themselves. They need the help of their parents during this learning process, not the help of a digital device.”

Helping parents support children

The researchers also found that poorer baseline anger management skills meant that children were given digital devices more often as a management tool. “It’s not surprising that parents more frequently apply digital emotion regulation if their child has emotion regulation problems, but our results highlight that this strategy can lead to the escalation of a pre-existing issue,” Konok said.

It is important not to avoid situations that could be frustrating to the child, the researchers pointed out. Instead, it is recommended that parents coach their children through difficult situations, help them recognize their emotions, and teach them to handle them.

To equip parents of children with anger management problems for success, it is important that they receive support, the researchers said. For example, health professionals working with families could provide information on how parents can help their children manage their emotions without giving them tablets or smartphones. “Based on our results, new training and counselling methods could be developed for parents. If peoples’ awareness about digital devices being inappropriate tools for curing tantrums increases, children’s mental health and well-being will profit,” Fitzpatrick concluded.

---

JOURNAL

Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

DOI

10.3389/frcha.2024.1276154 

Children and adolescents may be motivated to rectify gender and ethnicity biases in the classroom

 

A new Child Development study by researchers at the University of Maryland, Furman University, Education Northwest and University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa in the United States, examined whether children think it’s unfair for a teacher to select students from only one gender or ethnic group for leadership duties. 

Researchers learned that children and adolescents are not only aware of these situations, but they are also motivated to rectify these types of inequalities in the classroom. Understanding how children and adolescents interpret and evaluate complex interactions in the classroom provides the basis for creating strategies to promote just and fair classroom environments, which enable all students to learn and thrive.

The Society for Research in Child Development had the opportunity to discuss these findings with Dr. Melanie Killen from the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland in the United States. 

SRCD: What led you to study gender and ethnicity biases in the classroom? 

Dr. Killen: For more than two decades, we have investigated whether children display gender and ethnicity biases. Only recently have child development experts examined whether and when children recognize group-based biases in their everyday lives.  We know that teachers often display implicit and explicit biases in school contexts. These biases can create social inequalities when some children are provided more opportunities than are other children based on their group identity.  In this study, we chose to focus on White and Latine students as these two groups represented the largest majority (White) and ethnic-racial minority (Latine) in the region where the data were collected. 

We wanted to know whether children and adolescents recognize when biases occur in the classroom and how they evaluate it.  One context where this happens is when teachers assign students to take on highly valued leadership duties (e.g., assigning only boys to become crossing guards). We decided to fill this gap in the literature by closely examining whether children from 8 – 14 years of age noticed teacher generated biases about who gets to have a leadership role and whether they would desire to rectify this inequality by picking someone else if they had a chance to do so.

SRCD: Can you please provide a brief overview of the study? 

Dr. Killen: In our study, we surveyed children and adolescents 8 – 14 years of age about whether they thought it was all right for teachers to pick specific groups of kids to do leadership duties.  We did this by showing participants in the study pictures of a teacher selecting only girls, only boys, only White students, or only Latine students to do different leadership duties such as being the crossing guard, passing out papers, picking up messages from the office or helping to take attendance. We also showed them pictures of a teacher picking equal numbers of girls and boys or White and Latine students as a comparison.  Would children evaluate unequal and equal allocations of leadership duties the same?  We found that adolescents, more than children, viewed unequal teacher allocations of leadership duties as less okay than equal allocations due to group-based inequalities. Specifically, they viewed unequal allocations favoring White students as more wrong than unequal allocations favoring Latine students. Interestingly, they viewed unequal allocations favoring boys the same as unequal allocations favoring girls.  The participants also expected peers who shared the identity of a group disadvantaged by the teacher’s allocation to view it more negatively than others. When given an opportunity to select a new student for the leadership duty, both children and adolescents chose a student who has been disadvantaged before, which we term a strategy to rectify inequalities. In summary, adolescents were more likely to view unequal allocations as more wrong than did children, but both age groups expected someone who shared the membership (by gender or ethnicity) to feel bad if someone from their group did not get a chance to be a leader.  The majority of children desired to rectify the inequality.  Thus, children as young as 8 years of age become aware of situations in which not everyone gets a chance to have a special role in the classroom.

SRCD: How can these findings be used to inform professional development for teachers? 

Dr. Killen: These findings are important for alerting educators to the fact that children as young as 8 years old in third grade are noticing inequalities in the classroom. We know that children who experience exclusion, and unfair treatment are at risk for low motivation, anxiety, and social withdrawal. While this is particularly true for girls and marginalized students, all children are vulnerable in classrooms where inequalities occur and interactions are not equitable, fair or just.Inequalities create anxiety and insecurity which hinder the opportunity for classrooms to be a safe space where children can grow and develop.  In our study, children wanted to rectify the inequality and expected their peer who was a member of a group not selected to be a leader to feel bad.  Understanding perceptions of teacher-based bias provides an opportunity for interventions designed to create fair and just classrooms that motivate all students to achieve.

SRCD: Was there anything that surprised you?

Dr. Killen: We were surprised that the 8 -10-year-old group desired to rectify the inequalities by choosing a student to be a leader when the student was a member of a disadvantaged group. Generally, children at this age are less critical of authority, including parents and teachers, than are adolescents.  While it is important to recognize an authority member’s experience and knowledge to make good decisions, it is also important to know when someone is doing something unfair to others, which might be an action that they are unaware that they are doing.  Thus, an important part of social and cognitive development is to know when someone is unfair to another person and to try and help rectify the inequity.

SRCD: What’s next in this field of research? 

Dr. Killen: We have several new lines of research in the works.  One line of research is examining how children’s and adolescents’ theories of prejudice bear on their recognition of when it is necessary to challenge unfair treatment displayed by others.  One view is that prejudice is fixed and cannot be changed. Another view is that prejudice is malleable and can be changed. Very little research has examined how this bears on children’s and adolescents’ willingness to accept the status quo or challenge inequalities. Another line of research is studying what we refer to as “children as agents of change.” This includes the conditions that enable children to detect other forms of bias in the classroom such as those from peers as well as how to confront microaggressions and unfair treatment of others. A third line of research we are pursuing is determining how to change attitudes in childhood based on our research findings about how children and adolescents make decisions.  Our school-based program is called Developing Inclusive Youth, and provides students the opportunity to respond to an interactive online peer exclusion scenario each week followed by a teacher-led group discussion to discuss actual incidents of social exclusion that students experience. The goal is to enable children to change group norms and reject unfair treatment based on group identity.  The program’s aim is to help create inclusive classrooms for all children to succeed. 

Funding for this research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Summarized from an article in Child Development, “Children and Adolescents Rectify Unequal Allocations of Leadership Duties in the Classroom” by Killen, M., (University of Maryland), Burkholder, A. R., (Furman University), Brey, E. (Education Northwest), Cooper, D. (University of Maryland), Pauker, K. (University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa). Copyright 2024 The Society for Research in Child Development. All rights reserved. 

 

---

JOURNAL

Child Development

DOI

10.1111/cdev.14123 

Which adolescents are at risk of depression following early social media use?

A new study that looked for relationships between early social media use and depression across adolescence and into young adulthood found that certain factors may make social media more risky or protective regarding depression. The findings, which are published in the Journal of Adolescence, suggest that social media use does not impact all adolescents in the same way, and an individualized approach is needed to determine the benefits and harms of social media on young people’s mental health.

For the study, 488 adolescents living in the United States were surveyed once a year for 8 years (beginning in 2010 when the average age for participants was 13 years old). The investigators found 5 classes that differed in how self-reported social media use duration related to depressive symptoms. Although high amounts of reported social media use was often related to larger increases in depressive symptoms, this was not universal.

Social media use was related to increased depression for adolescents with greater parental hostility, peer bullying, anxiety, reactivity to stressors, and lower parental media monitoring. With many other characteristics and factors, social media use was related to less depression or was unrelated to depression.

“When thinking about whether social media may impact a particular teen, it's important to take a broad perspective. If the teen is already in a vulnerable position (being bullied or having hostile parents or parents who don't monitor their teen's media) then social media is much more likely to be harmful. This is especially true if there is more than 3+ hours of use a day,” said corresponding author W. Justin Dyer, PhD, of Brigham Young University. “However, if their friends and parents are warm and supportive, and the parents monitor their teens' media use, moderate amounts of social media use (less than 3 hours a day) may be a good thing. Teens appear to be greatly benefited when parents provide guidance as they navigate social media. That guidance may make all the difference.”

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jad.12362

 

Early childhood problems linked to persistent school absenteeism

 

Children who are not considered “school ready” by their teachers are more than twice as likely to become persistently absent at some point in their education, according to a new study led by the University of Leeds.

Researchers analysed data for 62,598 children aged 5-13 from across the Bradford district and compared it with school absence records between the academic years 2012/2013 and 2019/2020 to identify associations between early childhood problems and absenteeism.

The team from the School of Psychology and the Born in Bradford Centre for Applied Education Research found that 67% of all persistent absentees with attendance below 90% were considered “not school ready” when they entered reception. This contrasted with only 37% of children “not school ready” who were not persistently absent.

The researchers believe their findings, which are published today in the Royal Society Open Science Journal, show that the seeds of absenteeism are sown early in childhood and that school readiness measures already used by teachers could identify children at risk of long-term disengagement from the education system.

Lead author Dr Megan Wood, a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Psychology, said: “School is where children develop and flourish, academically, emotionally, socially, and physically.

“However, as a society, we are edging towards a school absence epidemic, with many pupils missing out on opportunities to thrive by not attending every day. This has worsened dramatically since the pandemic.”

In the UK, absenteeism is a major concern for school leaders and policymakers, with data from the 2022/23 autumn term showing that nearly a quarter of all pupils missed at least 39 half-day sessions. According to the UK’s Department for Education, this means they are considered a “persistent absentee” with attendance below 90%.

The number of children classified as being “persistently absent” has risen over time, particularly between 2017-18 and 2020-21, with the more recent figures attributed to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. These figures have led to a formal inquiry by the UK Government’s Education Committee.

The researchers say there is an urgent need to understand the factors that lead to absenteeism and determine how children at risk of this behaviour can be identified before they disengage from the school system.

School readiness assessments in England involve teachers using a three-point scale (emerging, expected, exceeding) to rate a child’s performance on various areas of development, including physical; personal, social and emotional; communication; maths and literacy. Children rated as ‘emerging’ in any of the early learning goals are defined as not being school ready.

The researchers say potential explanations for the relationship between school readiness and absenteeism could be due in part to the engagement levels of parents, with those who are more engaged better preparing their children for the learning environment, resulting in children who are more excited to learn. Such parental engagement may continue throughout the child’s school journey, in the form of helping with homework and ensuring children arrive at school ready to learn.

Alternatively, not being school ready may be indicative of underlying needs, such as neurodivergence or mental health issues that are not currently being met, making school difficult for these children.

Co-author, Mark Mon-Williams, Professor of Psychology at the University of Leeds, said: “There is a school absence crisis and the long-term consequences for the UK are frightening. The UK's future depends on a well-educated and healthy workforce and the evidence shows clearly that school absence is a major risk factor for poor health in later life.

“This research shows that we need to act early and how we can identify children at risk before they disengage with school. It also highlights that there are many reasons why children are absent, and suggests we need evidence-based responses tailored to individual circumstances to address the crisis.”

The researchers found that socioeconomic circumstances, measured by eligibility for free school meals, were a major risk factor for persistent absence.

Ethnicity was also found to be associated with persistent absenteeism, with children of Pakistani heritage having significantly lower odds of becoming a persistent absentee compared to children of White British heritage.

Dr Wood added: “It is often too late to intervene once the problems have already begun. Instead, preventative measures should be adopted to avoid children disengaging from school in the first place.

“These findings demonstrate how we can use existing data – readily available to schools and teachers - to highlight the pupils who may need additional support to keep them engaged with school, even prior to problems arising.

“We urge policymakers to encourage the use of such data within schools. By identifying need early, we can ensure all pupils are provided the opportunity to grow and develop the skills needed to function within society.”

The researchers believe their findings raise further questions about which early interventions or support may be the most appropriate to stop persistent absenteeism. They intend to investigate those questions in subsequent studies.

---

JOURNAL

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.240272 

Teacher perceptions of chronically absent young students may add to the challenges of missing school

 A new study finds that early elementary school teachers report feeling less close to chronically absent students and view them less positively, even when those students do not cause trouble in the classroom. This “cooling down” in the relationship between teachers and their chronically absent students may exacerbate the academic challenges these children face.  

The study—by Michael A. Gottfried and Phil H. Kim at the University of Pennsylvania, and Tina Fletcher at the Walton Family Foundation—was published today in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.   

Chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed since the pandemic, with 30 percent of U.S. students chronically absent in the 2021–22 school year, nearly double the rate in 2018–19, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

In addition to feeling less close with chronically absent students, teachers in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade reported viewing them as more withdrawn and as having worse interpersonal skills. When it came to academics, teachers perceived chronically absent students as having fewer positive learning behaviors as well as being worse at literacy and math, even if this was not true.

The study found that while teachers reported feeling less close to these students, they did not feel as if they had more conflict with these students. Rather, teachers viewed chronically absent students as displaying more internalizing behaviors, such as being withdrawn, but not externalizing behaviors, such as acting out.

“One stereotype about absent students is that they are ‘troublemakers’ when they are back in the classroom, but we don’t find that to be the case at all,” said Gottfried, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Prior research has shown that negative teacher perceptions of students can harm children’s growth and development in school.

“Our findings suggest that absenteeism puts students at a double disadvantage,” Gottfried said. “First, they miss out on essential learning opportunities by not being in school. And then it erodes their teachers’ relationships with them, which can further harm their academic growth.”

Gottfried noted that schools can help by providing teachers with professional development to mitigate potential bias against students who miss a lot of school. This is especially important given that there are demographic disparities in who is absent, such as by race and ethnicity. Teachers might be adjusting perceptions in a systematic way by race and ethnicity as it is tied in with absenteeism.

While previous studies have examined the impact of student absenteeism, this is one of the only studies to consider how student absenteeism might influence teachers. The study used nationally representative data from the National Center for Education Statistics on 14,370 students in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. The data were drawn from direct assessments of children, parent interviews, and education and administrator questionnaires. Chronically absent students were defined as missing at least 11 days of school during the academic year.

Gottfried stressed that this study highlights that absenteeism is both an individual and classroom issue.

“We need to pay attention to both if we are aiming to solve the absenteeism crisis,” Gottfried said.

Study citation: Gottfried, M. A., & Kim, P. H. (2024). Do teachers perceive absent students differently? AERA Open, 10(1), 1–16.

Students’ awareness of their cognitive processes facilitates the learning of math

 

The purpose of education is to ensure that students acquire the skills necessary for succeeding in a world that is constantly changing. Self-assessment, or teaching students how to examine and evaluate their own learning and cognitive processes, has proven to be an effective method, and this competence is partly based on metacognitive knowledge. A new study conducted at the University of Eastern Finland shows that metacognitive knowledge, i.e., awareness of one’s cognitive processes, is also a key factor in the learning of mathematics.

The study explored thinking skills and possible grade-level differences therein in children attending comprehensive school in Finland. The researchers investigated 6th, 7th and 9th graders’ metacognitive knowledge in the context of mathematics.

“The study showed that 9th graders excelled at explaining their use of learning strategies, while 7th graders demonstrated proficiency in understanding when and why certain strategies should be used. No other differences between grade levels were observed, which highlights the need for continuous support throughout the learning path,” says Susanna Toikka of the University of Eastern Finland, the first author of the article.

The findings emphasise the need to incorporate elements that support metacognitive knowledge into mathematics learning materials, as well as into teachers’ pedagogical practices.

Self-assessment and understanding of one’s own learning help to face new challenges

Metacognitive knowledge helps students not only to learn mathematics, but also more broadly in self-assessment and lifelong learning. Students who can assess their own learning and understanding are better equipped to face new challenges and adapt to changing environments. Such skills are crucial for lifelong learning, as they enable continuous development and learning throughout life.

“Metacognitive knowledge is a key factor in learning mathematics and problem-solving, but its significance also extends to self-assessment and lifelong learning.”

In schools, metacognitive knowledge can be effectively developed as part of education. Based on earlier studies, Toikka and colleagues have developed a combination of frameworks for metacognitive knowledge, which helps to identify students’ needs for development regarding metacognitive knowledge by offering an alternative perspective to that of traditional developmental psychology.

“This also supports teachers in promoting students’ metacognitive knowledge. Teachers can use the combination of frameworks to design and implement targeted interventions that support students’ skills in lifelong learning.”

According to Toikka, the combination of frameworks enhances understanding of metacognitive knowledge and helps to identify areas where individual support is needed.

“This type of understanding is crucial for the development of metacognitive knowledge among diverse learners.”

---

JOURNAL

Cogent Education

DOI

10.1080/2331186X.2024.2357901 

Teachers report worse pay and well-being compared to similar working population

 

Reports and Proceedings

RAND CORPORATION

With more working hours and lower average base pay, the well-being of U.S. teachers continues to be worse than that of similar working adults – a consistent pattern since 2021, according to a new RAND survey.

Managing student behavior, low salary and administrative work outside of teaching were the top-ranked sources of stress for teachers in 2024. Teachers reported working an average of 53 hours per week; 15 of these hours – or roughly one quarter of their working hours – were outside of their contracts. This compares to 44 hours per week for similar working adults. Only 36% of teachers said their base pay was adequate compared with 51% of similar working adults.

The RAND State of the Teacher survey is a nationally representative, annual survey of K-12 public school teachers across the U.S. The 2024 survey focuses on teacher well-being and high-interest factors related to job retention: sources of job-related stress, pay, hours worked and intentions to leave. Teacher data is presented in comparison to a separate 2024 American Life Panel companion survey, a nationally representative survey of working adults.

“This is RAND’s fourth consecutive year collecting data that raise concerns about high stress and low pay in the teacher workforce,” said Sy Doan, lead author of the report and a policy researcher at nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND. “Although teacher well-being seems to have stabilized at pre-pandemic levels, our data raise questions about the sustainability of the profession for Black teachers and female teachers in particular.”

Black teachers reported working significantly more hours per week, on average, and were less likely to report satisfaction with their weekly working hours than their peers. They were also less likely to say their base pay was adequate than their peers, to report significantly lower base pay, and to say they intended to leave their job.

Female teachers reported significantly higher rates of frequent job-related stress and burnout than male teachers, a consistent pattern since 2021. Female teachers also reported significantly lower base pay than their male peers but no differences in the number of hours they work per week. 

Teachers who considered their current base salaries inadequate desired a roughly $16,000 increase in base pay, on average, to consider their salary to be completely adequate.

This survey also indicates teachers are about as likely to report intending to leave their as working adults; 22% compared with 24% working adults.

The State of the American Teacher survey was supported by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.

Rethinking English essay scores: The argument for argument over grammar

 

To get high scores at essay writing tests, learners of English as a foreign language need to focus on good arguments more than on complex grammar. The Kobe University finding challenges conventional approaches to test preparation and scoring rubrics.

Writing essays is a well-established tool for monitoring progress in learning English as a foreign language, as it provides a snapshot of a student’s mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Especially in Japan, where English language tests are often required for university admission and students closely follow advice on how to achieve high scores on these tests, a “good essay” is often seen as one that demonstrates a high level of grammatical complexity. But is this actually reflected in test scores?

Kobe University linguist YASUDA Sachiko expresses her doubts: “Based on my experience of teaching academic writing to students at various levels in Japan, I believe that linguistically complex texts do not always result in better writing.” She therefore decided to conduct an experiment with over 100 Japanese high school students. Yasuda had them write a short essay on a given topic and looked at the relationship between the linguistic complexity of the texts and the writers’ ability to present complex arguments, and how these two related to how the texts were graded according to official rubrics. She adds, “This study is the first to focus on the relationship between features of linguistic complexity and features of meaning complexity; no one else in the relevant fields has looked at the relationship between these two.”

The results, published in the journal Assessing Writing, confirmed her suspicions. She found that high-scoring essays shared features related more to the ability to express complex meaning, such as lexical diversity, noun modification, and soundness and number of arguments, than to structural complexity. “Interestingly, low scoring essays showed the highest level of complexity in finite adverbial dependent clauses,” the linguist writes in her paper. Emphasizing this point, the ability to express complex meaning was strongly correlated only with using diverse expressions and the ability to modify their meaning, but not with grammatical features. Yasuda concludes, “Simply having complex sentence structures does not necessarily lead to a better essay.”

The findings have implications for how essay writing tests are scored. The Kobe University researcher explains: “Current rubrics for writing questions on language tests instruct test-takers to ‘use complex grammar appropriately’ or ‘a variety of complex structures.’ However, since sentence complexity does not significantly affect overall essay quality, it may be more appropriate to use terms such as ‘contextually appropriate grammar’ or ‘genre-appropriate grammar.’” Thus arguing that the ability to express one’s opinion in varied and complex ways is a marker of students’ writing ability, she advocates that this characteristic should be more represented both in the way tests are scored and how feedback is provided to students.

This so-called washback effect of test scoring rubrics on the way language is taught is at the heart of what drives Yasuda. She says: “I am committed to using the results of this study for practical applications, such as refining assessment criteria for evaluating students’ writing, developing tasks and materials to improve their writing skills, and identifying the key knowledge that teachers need to help students become better writers. The ability to write in English has become increasingly important in the 21st century, as it is a crucial medium that allows us to connect with others around the world.”

---

DOI

10.1016/j.asw.2024.100867 

Private school and/or ‘higher status’ university education linked to better mid-life health

A private (fee-paying) school and/or a ‘higher status’ (Russell Group*) university education may be linked to better mid-life health—at least in the UK—suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Alongside the level of education achieved, the type of educational institution a person attends may also influence subsequent health outcomes, suggest the researchers.

Published research to date indicates that educational attainment is associated with better subsequent health. But other aspects of education, such as the type of institution attended, have largely been ignored, despite its likely impact on future employment prospects and earnings, explain the researchers. 

In a bid to plug this knowledge gap, the researchers drew on data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), a representative UK group of people born in a single week of 1970. This involved 17,196 babies at baseline, who were subsequently followed up several times between the ages of 5 and 51.

In 2016–18, 12,368 participants aged between 46 and 48 took part in the 10th ‘sweep’ of the study, 8581 (69.5%) of whom were interviewed.

The type of secondary school each person had attended was categorised into private (fee paying), grammar (selective without fees), comprehensive (state funded) and other. Special educational needs schools were excluded.

Everyone who had a degree was asked at the age of 42 about the first university they had attended. Those who had gone to one of the Russell Group universities were classified as having attended a ‘higher status’ university.

The Russell Group universities include 24 self-selected institutions in the UK, renowned for their academic excellence, seminal research, and industry links. 

Those people who didn’t go to university were classified into two groups according to the highest qualification they obtained: none or GCSEs only; A-levels/diplomas.

Three areas of health, including cardiovascular risks, physical capabilities, and cognitive abilities, were assessed when the participants were 46 to 48 years old. These were captured by weight (BMI), pulse, and blood pressure; grip strength and standing balance; and memory, verbal fluency and executive function.

Potentially influential childhood factors were also captured, including health and cognitive ability (tests taken at the age of 10); parental education and occupation and household income.

Further analyses were carried out to factor in the home learning environment and parental educational aspirations, to include variables such as how often the parent read to the child (measured at the age of 5), how often the child went to museums/libraries (age of 10), whether the parent had met the child’s teacher in the past year (age of 10) and whether the parent was interested in the child’s education (age of 10, as rated by the child’s teacher).

Analysis of the interview responses showed that most participants had gone to a comprehensive or ‘other’ school (7229; just over 89%). Just under 4% (308) had gone to a grammar school, while 7% (570) had gone to a private fee paying school.

Overall, after adjusting for sex and potentially influential factors, a private school secondary education was associated with better cardiometabolic health outcomes than a comprehensive school education.

Similarly, attending a higher status university was associated with better cognitive function, while no degree was linked to poorer health compared with attendance at a normal status university.

Grammar school attendance was also associated with better cardiovascular and cognitive health than comprehensive school attendance, but this difference weakened after accounting for potentially influential factors.

 

This is an observational study, and the researchers acknowledge various limitations to their findings. Potentially influential factors, such as family socioeconomic background and cognitive ability are hard to capture comprehensively, they point out.

The study also focused on one generation in the UK who went to school in the 1980s and 1990s amid significant reforms in the UK education system. “The generalisability of the results to the present day remains unclear, especially given the changes in the education system in recent years,” they add. 

But they conclude: “Our findings suggest that the type of education could potentially contribute to understanding the links between education and health…Moreover, if this association is causal, future policies aimed at reducing health inequalities could take education quality into account as well as attainment. 

“This is particularly important given the increases in university attendance, in which other aspects of the education experience may better distinguish health inequality.”

---

 

US sexual health curriculum deficient for LGBTQ+ students

 

US sexual health curriculum could force LGBTQ+ students to seek potentially inaccurate education outside of school

Children across the United States who identify as LGBTQ+ say the sexual health education curricula they receive is leaving them without essential information to make informed decisions about their sexual health – which could force them to seek potentially dangerous advice elsewhere. 

The results of a new, national, peer-reviewed survey, show that these young people — aged 13 to 17 — believe crucial topics surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity are being omitted from sexual health education programs.

Experts who led the study – published today in The Journal of Sex Research, as people around the world celebrate Pride month – say the addition of key items in the curricula could be “life-saving”.     

“The exclusion of LGBTQ+ students from the curricula may contribute to poor health outcomes in LGBTQ+ youth, with some research beginning to document these experiences and provide recommendations for curricula changes,” explains lead author Steven Hobaica, a clinical psychologist and Research Scientist at The Trevor Project, whose mission is to end suicide among LGBTQ+ young people. 

“Addressing this negligence is urgent and could be life-saving.

“Given the current political climate, with legislation attempting to exclude LGBTQ+ information in schools, we encourage policymakers to continue fighting for LGBTQ+ inclusion in curricula as a means to prevent health problems for a vulnerable group.”

Of more than 800 respondents to the survey, most participants reported a lack of LGBTQ+ content in their sexual health education experiences. In order to be educated on sexual health, most were using extracurricular sources including online spaces, friends, and personal experiences with sexual exploration. The authors found that these extracurricular sources are frequently preferred by LGBTQ+ youth; but may lack accuracy and reliability.

Overall, participants described feeling marginalized by curricula that were based on abstinence-only approaches, religious principles, or contained oppressive and suppressive elements – such as negative remarks about LGBTQ+ individuals or skipping required LGBTQ+ content altogether. 

“LGBTQ+ youth expressed a strong desire to learn more about topics related to their sexual orientation and gender identity, highlighting a critical gap in existing curricula,” says co-author Dr. Erica Szkody, who is a Postdoctoral Research Associate, at the Lab for Scalable Mental Health, at Northwestern University.

“Despite the well-known benefits of comprehensive sexual health education, the majority of school sexual health education curricula in the U.S. is non-comprehensive and excludes LGBTQ+ students.

“Our analyses underscore the extent of this exclusion.”

The survey also provided LGBTQ+ young people the opportunity to openly share on their experiences, as well as recommendations for change, in regard to sexual health education:

These suggestions included:

• More LGBTQ+ content in sexual health education curricula, as well as more detail on healthy and diverse relationships (e.g., non-monogamy, polyamory), consent, safety in relationships, and communication skills.
• Creating safe and supportive spaces, while considering legitimate fears due to a possible increase in bullying, as they had heard students make fun of the material or use discriminatory language during past implementation.
• Updating sexual health education materials to reflect LGBTQ+ lived experiences, history, and risk factors.
• Creating sexual health interventions focused on LGBTQ+ experiences and concerns.
• Improving access to reliable sexual health information.
• Creating more accessible sexual health information via other avenues, such as online and through mobile applications.

Summarizing their experiences of sexual health curricula in the U.S., LGBTQ+ study participants left heartfelt responses:

“I wish I was taught about gay sex, sexual orientation, and all the other controversial topics that [are deemed] ‘grooming.’ When kids aren’t taught good sex ed, they learn how to do it in an unhealthy way from other sources like the internet or word of mouth. If we teach children about these topics, they’ll be safer when they become teenagers,” one said.

Another added: “I wish others understood that while the anatomy-related knowledge is important, we need sexual [health] education that is relevant to today’s world. This involves sexual [health] education [about] dangers and safety on the Internet, [same-sex/gender] relations, and education geared towards attraction and feelings rather than a lesson only [regarding] heterosexual procreation. I wish they took our real-life experiences and insecurities into account.”

One more exclaimed: “It is NOT HARMFUL to talk about gender identity and sexuality with high schoolers. It SAVES LIVES.”

The authors hope that their findings contribute to a “critical” policy shift toward including LGBTQ+ young people in sexual health education, a community that is “often underserved”.    

“By including the voices of LGBTQ+ young people in curricula design, we can not only provide the necessary knowledge for youth to engage in healthy relationships and health behaviors, but also can contribute to a more accepting and equitable society for years to come,” states Hobaica.

Although this study incorporated quantitative and qualitative analyses with a large national sample of LGBTQ+ youth, it had limitations. “Given sample size constraints, we could not draw conclusions regarding recommendations from students with specific identities,” explain the authors who state future work could collect similar data from even larger samples for further generalizability and comparisons.

---

JOURNAL

The Journal of Sex Research

DOI

10.1080/00224499.2024.2355564 

Impact of Tutoring on the Reading Achievement of Struggling Readers in Grades 2 and 3

 This study evaluates the efficacy of the "Tutoring with the Lightning Squad" (TwLS) model, developed by the Success for All Foundation, which uses trained college graduates to provide structured, cooperative learning-based tutoring to small groups of elementary students. The randomized controlled trial, conducted during the 2021-2022 school year across 23 elementary schools in a diverse Southern California district, aimed to determine the impact of TwLS on reading achievement for students at risk of reading failure, comparing small-group and one-to-one tutoring formats. Students were randomly assigned to receive TwLS tutoring in small groups or one-to-one. Reading achievement was measured using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement and NWEA MAP scores. The study assessed the fidelity of implementation, overall impact, and effects on subgroups, including gender, ethnicity, English Learner status, grade level, and baseline reading achievement. 

Results showed a significant positive impact on the Word Attack subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson for students receiving small-group tutoring, with an effect size of +0.18. No significant differences were found for other reading measures. Comparisons between small-group and one-to-one tutoring revealed no significant differences in outcomes. 

The study highlights the potential of TwLS as a cost-effective approach to improving reading skills in early grades, particularly in economically challenged and diverse school districts. Despite disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected consistent implementation, the findings suggest that TwLS can enhance reading achievement for struggling readers. 

Impact of Tutoring on Student Learning:

 Existing evidence of tutoring program impacts indicates that high-dosage tutoring can significantly improve student learning, outperforming other educational interventions. Yet, tutoring is not a onesize-fits-all intervention. The design and implementation of tutoring varies widely across tutoring programs and service providers. It is therefore imperative to understand and contextualize the impact that different tutoring programs have on student learning. 

This research report 

• (i) summarizes existing evidence on tutoring program impact from Nickow et al. (2023), a recent metaanalysis of tutoring program impacts; 
• (ii) constructs a new measure of the efficiency of tutoring program impact, which we define as the hours of tutoring necessary to improve student learning by one month, and compare the efficiency of tutoring program impact across select tutoring providers based on evidence from well-designed randomized control trials (RCTs); 
• (iii) proposes an approach to measure the cost effectiveness of tutoring program impact, which we define as the additional months of student learning produced at a cost of $1,000 per pupil; and 
• (iv) lay out a research agenda calling for significantly more evidence on the specific tutoring programs that improve student learning, for which students, in what educational contexts, at what fiscal cost, and the programmatic features most associated with student achievement gains.

The report shows that tutoring is an intervention with a long history of evidence in support of its effectiveness at improving student learning. However, the evidentiary base is less robust than initially expected. Only 15 of the 89 RCTs included in Nickow et al. (2023) would meet the highest standards of evidence on program impact. This analysis finds that, among a select sample of tutoring providers, math tutoring more efficiently improves student learning (and with less variability) than literacy tutoring. 

Student Enrollment Choices and Reported School Choice Reasons in 20

 

In 2019, some 79 percent of all students enrolled in grades K-12 attended public assigned schools. Twelve percent of enrolled students attended public chosen schools, 7 percent attended private religious schools, and 2 percent attended private nonreligious schools. In that same year, 35 percent of enrolled students had parents who reported considering schools other than the one their child attends before deciding which one their child would attend. Among these parents who reported considering schools other than the one their child attends, the percentage of enrolled students’ parents who rated the quality of teachers, principal, or other school staff as “very important” (79 percent) was higher than the percentage of students’ parents who rated any other factor as “very important.” A new NCES report, 2019 School Choice Participation, explores families’ enrollment behaviors and their assessment of the importance of certain school characteristics in their school choice decisions. It uses data from the 2019 administration of the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI) questionnaire. This data point highlights the following: Seventy-two percent of students who attended private nonreligious schools had parents who reported considering schools other than the one their child attends —the highest percentage compared to students in other school types. Over half of the students’ parents reported that school safety (71 percent), curriculum focus or academic programs (60 percent), and academic performance of students at the school (53 percent) were “very important.” Similar to the pattern observed for all students, students at all four types of school had parents who commonly rated staff quality, safety, curriculum focus, and academic performance as "very important."

Preschool Lottery Admissions and Its Effects

This study uses an admissions lottery to estimate the effect of a non-means tested preschool program on students’ long-run earnings, employment, family income, household formation, and geographic mobility.The researchers observe long-run outcomes by linking both admitted and non-admitted individuals to confidential administrative data including tax records. Funding for this preschool program comes from an Indigenous organization, which grants Indigenous students admissions preference and free tuition. 

Theh rsearchers find treated children have between 5 to 6 percent higher earnings as young adults. The results are quite large for young women, especially those from the lower half of the initial parental household income distribution. There is also some evidence that children, regardless of gender, from households with below median parental incomes realize the largest average increases in earnings in adulthood. 

Finally, increased earnings start at ages 21 and older for the treated students. Likely mechanisms include high-quality teachers and curriculum.

School Closures and Parental Mental Health

 Schools enhance the lives of families in various ways, and one potential consequence of their closures is worsened parental well-being. We study the effects of COVID-19 pandemic school closures on parental mental health by measuring consumption of products that are often used to cope with increased stress and depression. 

Using a cohort based difference in difference (DID) design and commercial claims data, this study finds an increase in maternal anti-depressant use by 1.5%, in zip codes with above median school closures; there are no statistically significant effects for paternal antidepressant use, and we are able to rule out fairly small values. Some parents may "self-medicate" as a coping mechanism rather than seek formal medical care. Using a county based DID design and retail scanner data, the researchers find alcohol sales increased by 2% in counties with above median school closures. Both anti-depressant prescriptions and alcohol sales returned to base line levels as in-person schooling resumed. 

TThe researchers explore whether the burdens of school closures were disparately concentrated in minoritized communities, and find that anti-depressant and alcohol use increases were concentrated in zip codes with above median Black and Asian populations, but not in zip codes with a predominantly White or Hispanic population. 

Overall, these results suggest that the school system plays an important role in maintaining population mental well-being outcomes and in helping families cope with stress.

Peers crucial in shaping boys’ confidence in math skills

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Boys are good at math, girls not so much? A study from the University of Zurich has analyzed the social mechanisms that contribute to the gender gap in math confidence. While peer comparisons seem to play a crucial role for boys, girls’ subjective evaluations are more likely to be based on objective performance.

Research has shown that in Western societies, the average secondary school girl has less confidence in her mathematical abilities than the average boy of the same age. At the same time, no significant difference has been found between girls’ and boys’ performance in mathematics. This phenomenon is often framed as girls not being confident enough in their abilities, or that boys might in fact be overconfident.

This math confidence gap has far-reaching consequences: self-perceived competence influences educational and occupational choices and young people choose university subjects and careers that they believe they are talented in. As a result, women are underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects at university level and in high-paying STEM careers.

Peer processes provide nuanced insights into varying self-perceptions

A study from the University of Zurich (UZH) focuses on a previously neglected aspect of the math confidence gap: the role of peer relationships. “Especially in adolescence, peers are the primary social reference for individual development. Peer processes that operate through friendship networks determine a wide range of individual outcomes,” said the study’s lead author Isabel Raabe from the Department of Sociology at UZH. The study analyzed data from 8,812 individuals in 358 classrooms in a longitudinal social network analysis.

As expected, the main predictor of math confidence is individual math grades. While girls translated their grades – more or less directly – into self-assessment, boys with below-average grades nevertheless believed they were good at math.

Boys tend to be overconfident and sensitive to social processes

“In general, boys seem to be more sensitive to social processes in their self-perception – they compare themselves more with others for validation and then adjust their confidence accordingly,” Raabe explains. “When they were confronted with girls’ self-assessments in cross-gender friendships, their math confidence tended to be lower.” Peers’ self-assessment was less relevant to girls’ math confidence. Their subjective evaluation seemed to be driven more by objective performance.

Gender stereotypes did not appear to have negative social consequences for either boys or girls. “We found that confidence in mathematics is often associated with better social integration, both in same-sex and cross-sex friendships,” said Raabe. Thus, there was no evidence of harmful peer norms pressuring girls to underestimate their math skills.

The results of the study suggest that math skills are more important to boys, who adjust their self-assessment in peer processes, while math confidence does not seem to be socially relevant for girls.

---

JOURNAL

European Societies

DOI

10.1080/14616696.2024.2349217