Transportation as a Barrier to Education Access

School choice can weaken the link between residential neighborhood and educational opportunity only if students can reach the schools available to them. This study involves school choice in Chicago, where high schoolers can choose among schools throughout the city but generally rely on public transit, making the structure of the transit network a key determinant of opportunity. 

Using student-level rankings and public transit travel times, the study documents two systematic patterns: Black students are less likely to rank top-rated schools first and face longer public transit times to such schools. 

The authors estimate a discrete choice model to separate the value placed on schools from the costs of reaching them. They find that high schools vary substantially in how they are valued and that there is a high degree of agreement across racial groups in their relative ranking. However, transit times vary significantly across neighborhoods, generating racial differences in demand for top-rated schools. 

Counterfactually, giving Black students the travel times of white students increases demand for top-rated schools by 23 percentage points. 

Finally, the authors identify underserved neighborhoods where public transit access constrains demand and quantify how targeted bus service would increase demand for high-quality schools. Their counterfactuals quantify how transportation expands school access. 

Effects of Coach-Delivered Text Messages in an Adult High School

 More than 23 million adults in the United States lack a high school diploma, and most who return to school drop out before graduating. This study evaluates a randomized intervention of adult high school students in which coaches delivered text messages that encouraged persistence. 

The authors find that assignment to treatment increased graduation by 4.9 percentage points, and the effect of message receipt among compliers is 9.3 percentage points, a 41 percent increase relative to the control mean. The intervention operated on the intensive margin by increasing the number of courses completed, but did not affect student enrollment. The effects of the intervention are concentrated among students assigned to experienced coaches, who customized their messages more extensively. 

The authors contextualize the economic impact of the low-cost intervention by comparing labor market earnings of graduates to non-graduates, which implies an earnings benefit of $149 per treated student over four years.

Children's caffeine habits linked to shorter sleep and brain differences

 

• Young people aged 9 to 11 who consumed more caffeine had slightly lower surface area across the brain's outer layer 

• Children who had more caffeine also slept less, and this shorter sleep was linked to brain differences, and ultimately mental health 

• Children with higher caffeine intake reported more mental health problems six months later 

• Associations between caffeine consumption and brain structure emerged as low as 1 cup per week 

Young people who consume more caffeine, mostly from soft drinks, sleep less and show small differences in how their brains are developing, according to a study led by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London. 

The researchers drew on data from 9,632 children aged nine to eleven taking part in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which follows the brain development and health of young people across the US. Each child said how many caffeinated drinks they usually had in a week, whether coffee, tea or soft drinks, with parents reporting how long the children usually sleep on average. MRI scans then measured thickness and surface area of the cortex, the brain's folded outer layer, which plays a part in cognitive processing, decision making, attention and emotions, among other important functions. 

The children were then asked to report back on their mental health 6 and 18 months later with the results showing that greater caffeine consumption is associated with lower surface area across the cortex, even after we adjust for household socioeconomic circumstances like parental educational attainment and income. The pattern showed up in 22 separate regions, spanning all four lobes of the brain. These effects were largely driven by the consumption of soft drinks, which were the biggest source of caffeine in the study. Differences in overall surface area showed up from as little as one caffeinated drink a week, compared with none.  

Dr Divyangana Rakesh, senior author of the study from the IoPPN at King’s College London, said:  

“Caffeine is such a normal part of daily life that it's easy to forget young people are consuming it too. Studies have found that two-thirds of adolescents consume caffeine at least once a week. Despite it being a psychoactive substance, it is completely unregulated. 

“We found that even fairly low levels of intake were linked to small differences in brain structure and later mental health, and lower sleep duration seems to be an important underlying link. Although we cannot comment on causality, our results do suggest that both caffeine intake, including from soft drinks, and sleep are worth paying attention to when we think about young people's mental health."  

The researchers then looked at what might connect caffeine to differences in brain structure. Young people who consumed more caffeine slept less, which was in turn linked to lower surface area. Together, shorter sleep and lower surface area partly explained the link between higher caffeine intake and more mental health problems six months later, including problems with attention, mood and behaviour. At 18 months, only the link through overall surface area was still there. 

Jiayi Zheng, first author of the study from the IoPPN at King’s College London, said:  
 
"Soft drinks contain a lot of sugar and often go hand in hand with less healthy lifestyle habits and more risk-taking behaviours, so we can't yet separate the role of caffeine from everything else that comes with them. That's the next question we want to answer, ideally with more precise measures of what young people drink, when they drink it and how well they sleep."  

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Journal

Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

DOI

10.1016/j.bpsc.2026.09.011 

Frequent abdominal pain in children associated w/school-related stress/ peer harassment

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“If a school-age child has abdominal pain, it can be worth looking a little deeper and asking whether they also experience pain elsewhere. If they do, this may suggest that the pain may not simply be a symptom of an organic condition, but part of a more complex pain disorder. This can be the case even if the child was previously diagnosed with an organic condition such as celiac disease or Crohn’s disease, because that condition may no longer be what is causing the symptoms,” says Dr. János Major, first author of the study, assistant professor at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at Semmelweis University and head of the Paediatric Pain Centre at Bethesda Children’s Hospital. 

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Credit: Photo: Boglárka Zellei - Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Many parents feel reassured when their child’s recurrent abdominal pain is investigated and no underlying organic condition is found. However, a study by researchers at Semmelweis University, published in the International Journal of Pediatrics, suggests that this may be when it is worth asking a few further questions: Does the child experience pain elsewhere in the body? Has the pain persisted for at least a year? If the answer to either question is yes, it may be a warning sign.  

Researchers at Semmelweis University analyzed data from 522 Hungarian schoolchildren aged 11 to 18 in a nationally representative study. Their findings show that in adolescents with functional abdominal pain disorders (FAPDs) — conditions characterized by recurrent or persistent abdominal pain that is not explained by an organic disease — abdominal pain often occurs alongside pain in other parts of the body. Overall, 80.6% experienced multisite pain, meaning pain at two or more body sites, while 54.8% reported their primary pain site outside the abdomen. Headache was the most common, while joint and back pain were also reported. In more than half of those affected, symptoms had persisted for at least a year. 

According to the researchers, the process may initially be triggered, for example, by an infection or inflammation. However, if the pain persists and is accompanied by stress, anxiety, or other psychological strain, the pain-processing system may gradually become hypersensitive and remain in this state even after the original trigger has resolved. Even relatively mild stimuli may then be enough to trigger pain, and over time even normal bodily processes — such as digestion beginning after a meal — may become painful despite normally causing no discomfort. This may help explain why the pain can persist and occur in several parts of the body. 

“If a school-age child has abdominal pain, it can be worth looking a little deeper and asking whether they also experience pain elsewhere. If they do, this may suggest that the pain may not simply be a symptom of an organic condition, but part of a more complex pain disorder. This can be the case even if the child was previously diagnosed with an organic condition such as celiac disease or Crohn’s disease, because that condition may no longer be what is causing the symptoms,” says Dr. János Major, first author of the study, assistant professor at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at Semmelweis University and head of the Paediatric Pain Centre at Bethesda Children’s Hospital. 

Adolescents with FAPDs were more likely to feel that they faced too many assessments at school, that there was not enough peace and quiet in the classroom, or that teachers treated them unfairly. Peer exclusion and other forms of harassment were also more common among them. 

The researchers also examined the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of the children affected. They assessed not only physical functioning but also emotional functioning, social functioning, and everyday school functioning. Questions on emotional functioning covered issues including fear, sadness, anger, sleep problems, and worries. Social functioning looked at how children got along with their peers, including whether they were excluded or teased and how well they were able to fit in. School functioning included factors such as their ability to concentrate and keep up with schoolwork, as well as how many school days they missed because of feeling unwell or attending medical appointments. 

According to the study, adolescents with FAPDs scored significantly worse across all areas assessed, and 14.5% had overall HRQOL scores in the extremely low range. Verbal harassment — such as teasing, mocking, or name-calling — was also associated with extremely low HRQOL. Those affected also missed more days of school, and regular analgesic use was more common among them. 

The researchers say these symptoms should therefore be taken seriously. Without treatment, the underlying factors do not necessarily resolve on their own, and the pain may persist into adulthood, significantly affecting quality of life and everyday functioning. In the longer term, persistent severe pain may place a substantial burden on health care systems, lead to difficulties maintaining employment, and, in severe cases, even result in early disability.

“Parents often tend to play the problem down and say that it will pass or that the child will grow out of it. The problem is that the factors triggering or maintaining the pain do not necessarily disappear on their own,” says Dr. Szilvia Ádám, last author of the study and associate professor at the Health Services Management Training Center at Semmelweis University. 

With appropriate support, the condition can be treated successfully. In some cases, even changing schools or a short course of psychotherapy can make a considerable difference, while pain treatment initiated in childhood may reduce the likelihood that the pain will persist or recur in adulthood. 

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Journal

International Journal of Pediatrics

DOI

10.1155/ijpe/9964179

Main factors in pornography use among adolescents

A study by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) has analysed which factors are most associated with pornography use during adolescence. The results show that the most predictive variable is gender, followed by problematic internet use, cannabis and alcohol consumption, family conflict and engaging in certain risky sexual behaviours. The research, published in the journal Computation, was based on the 2023 ESTUDES survey and worked with a sample of 33,543 adolescents. The aim was to determine which personal, family, digital and behavioural variables are most useful for predicting whether an adolescent reports having viewed or used pornography in the previous 30 days.

“Our aim was not to single out individual adolescents, but to better understand which factors tend to be associated with this behaviour,” explains Jorge de Andrés-Sánchez, a researcher at the URV’s the Social and Business Research Laboratory and co-author of the article.

Detecting patterns with artificial intelligence

The study combines the conventional statistical technique of logistic regression, three machine learning models (XGBoost, LightGBM and CatBoost) and explainable artificial intelligence techniques. These tools are able to detect complex relationships between variables and reveal the weight that each variable carries in the predictions.

The different models produced similar results. The machine learning systems slightly improved some indicators, but the differences compared with logistic regression were small. The authors therefore note that more complex models should not automatically replace traditional statistical techniques. “Artificial intelligence helps us see that this behaviour does not appear in isolation, but within a broader profile of digital, family and behavioural factors,” the authors affirmed.

Sex and problematic internet use: the most influential factors

The sex of the individual is, by far, the variable that carries the most weight in the predictions, with boys being more likely to use pornography. Age is also associated with it, but has a lower predictive importance.

After gender, the next most significant factor is problematic Internet use, which includes behaviours such as having difficulty staying offline, sleeping less to be online, neglecting obligations or using the Internet to escape from worries or negative emotions. The researchers point out that problematic internet use does not equate to a clinical diagnosis of Internet addiction.

The next most predictive variables are cannabis and alcohol use and family conflict. Some risky sexual behaviours, such as having sex without a condom or having a sexual encounter that the teenager regrets the next day, are also slightly predictive. In contrast, parental control has a much more limited effect when all the variables are analysed together.

The study also identifies differences between boys and girls. Among boys, alcohol consumption is the most important predictor once the individual’s sex is excluded from the analysis, whereas among girls it is problematic internet use. The weight of family conflict also varies. Age-related differences, however, are smaller.

More comprehensive prevention

The research team insists that although the results show associations and predictive patterns, cause-and-effect relationships cannot be established. For this reason, the models should not be used to diagnose, label or sanction specific adolescents, but rather to better understand the phenomenon and to guide educational and preventative policies.

The conclusions point towards programmes that combine sex and relationship education, digital literacy, critical reflection on pornographic content, substance misuse prevention, the promotion of safe sexual practices and the strengthening of family communication.

“Pornography should not be addressed as a phenomenon disconnected from the other dimensions of adolescent life. It is part of a broader ecosystem of digital practices, family relationships, substance use and sex education,” the authors summarise.

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Journal

Computation

DOI

10.3390/computation14080177

Boys' academic underachievement and attitudes about effort

Caption

National gender gaps in attitudes toward academic effort based on data from the PISA 2012 and PISA 2018 surveys, shown as a function of each country's level of socioeconomic development, measured using the PISA Economic Social and Cultural Status index. Attitudes toward academic effort are captured by students' agreement with the PISA statement, “Trying hard at school is important” (THI). 

Credit

Clotilde Napp 

A survey of 15-year-olds around the world suggests that the underperformance of boys in education may be linked to gendered cultural attitudes about whether it is important to try hard at school. Girls do better academically than boys in most countries, earning higher grades and completing tertiary education at higher rates than their male counterparts. Research in some individual countries has shown that boys have more negative attitudes about academic effort, which may explain some of this gap. 

Clotilde Napp analyzed data from the 2012 and 2018 waves of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a triennial assessment of 15-year-olds in mathematics, reading, and science conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA includes data on 750,000 15-year-olds across 61 countries, including survey data about the teens' attitudes and opinions. 

Napp found that boys in nearly every country are less likely to agree that "trying hard at school is important"—and that their responses to this question are correlated with individual academic performance, especially in reading. This gender gap is larger in more developed countries. Across countries, larger gaps in these attitudes also coincide with boys' weaker relative academic performance and their lower participation in higher education—except in STEM fields. 

Boys were also less likely than girls to report that their parents strongly supported their academic efforts. According to the author, the attitude gap may reflect a cultural stereotype associating talent and brilliance more with boys—implying they need not put in much effort—and effort and diligence more with girls.

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Journal

PNAS Nexus

 

Devaluation, not work-life balance, underlies the academic gender gap

Women leave academia at higher rates than men, contributing to consistent gender imbalances at senior levels. Interventions often target work-life balance and motherhood. Katie Spoon and colleagues surveyed thousands of current and former tenure-line faculty in 29 academic fields across nearly all U.S. PhD-granting institutions. 

The authors asked respondents what needed to be different to reduce stress in their position or, for those who had left, what would have kept them in their position. Across respondents, 38% of women compared with 16% of men reported experiencing devaluation. Devaluation was also the topic most strongly associated with women both considering leaving and actually leaving. 

This pattern held across STEM and non-STEM fields, across nearly 300 institutions, and at every level of institutional prestige. It was strongest for women of color, and it was the only topic that grew more gendered with career age: a 19-point gender gap for early-career faculty widened to 31 points among late-career faculty.

 Despite reaching the top of their careers, women still reported having to justify their professional standing. For example, one senior Black woman in the social sciences wrote that she had to "justify each year why a course release is required [for me] to properly run the program," whereas a male colleague directing another program "was freely offered what I had to fight to keep," and a senior white woman in social work wrote, "I've had to fight for every raise I've received... [this] has made me realize over time that the university does not have my back... If I could see leaders in the higher ed space trying to solve these problems in earnest and large-scale ways, I may be tempted to stay." 

According to the authors, the results provide a basis for action by policymakers and institutions hoping to improve equity in academic retention. 

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Journal

PNAS Nexus