Analysis of educational achievement gap in children using data from the National Pupil Database and Millennium Cohort Study, suggesting roles of school quality and parental investment.
Key Points
At age 7, children from poorer families score 0.58 SD less in maths than their richer peers, highlighting early educational disparities.
Controlling for school quality and parental investments reduced the achievement gap from 0.58 to 0.35 SD, indicating these factors account for a significant portion of the disparity.
By age 16, the gap in average attainment for poorer children is 1.33 grades, which reduces to 0.82 grades with parental and school factors considered.
School quality, parental engagement, and children's activities are all significantly correlated with academic achievements, emphasizing their importance in educational outcomes.