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Children perpetuate competence-based inequality when they help peers
1Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. j.sierksma@uu.nl.
NPJ Science of Learning
|September 20, 2023
Summary
Young children offer less skill-building help to peers they perceive as less competent. This behavior may perpetuate educational inequalities by limiting practice opportunities for struggling students.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Social Psychology
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Peer-to-peer help is common in childhood but varies in effectiveness.
- Some forms of help hinder skill development by not allowing practice.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if young children maintain competence-based inequality.
- To examine if children provide less practice-opportunity help to less competent peers.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: Assessed children's (6-9 years) understanding of help effectiveness (N=253).
- Studies 2 & 3: Lab experiments where children (7-9 years) helped peers perceived as competent or incompetent (N=80, N=41).
- Help types: empowerment (hints) vs. non-empowerment (answers).
Main Results:
- Children recognize that empowerment help facilitates learning more than non-empowerment help.
- Children disproportionately offered empowerment help to competent peers.
- Children provided non-empowerment help more often to incompetent peers.
Conclusions:
- Young children's helping behaviors can reinforce existing competence gaps.
- Perceived competence, potentially influenced by stereotypes, affects help quality.
- Children may inadvertently limit skill development opportunities for vulnerable peers.
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