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School composition, family poverty and child behaviour.
Eirini Flouri1, Emily Midouhas2
1Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA, UK. e.flouri@ioe.ac.uk.
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
|April 10, 2016
Summary
Children in disadvantaged schools show more internalizing and externalizing behaviors. School composition did not change poverty
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Educational Sociology
- Developmental Epidemiology
Background:
- Limited research exists on how school composition influences young children's behavior.
- School composition may disproportionately affect children from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those in poverty.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of school academic and socio-economic composition on children's internalizing, externalizing problems, and prosocial behavior at age 7.
- To determine if school composition moderates the effects of family poverty on these behavioral outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 7,225 7-year-olds in the Millennium Cohort Study (England).
- Employed multiple membership models accounting for school clustering and student mobility.
- School composition measured by school-level achievement and percentage of students eligible for free school meals; poverty defined by family income.
Main Results:
- Family poverty had significant and robust effects on children's behavior, independent of other factors.
- School socio-economic composition was linked to increased internalizing and externalizing problems in children.
- No interaction was found between school composition and family poverty in predicting behavioral outcomes.
Conclusions:
- School academic and socio-economic composition did not moderate the influence of family poverty on primary school children's behavior.
- Children attending schools with more disadvantaged socio-economic profiles exhibited higher rates of internalizing and externalizing problems.
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