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In the face of rising economic and social inequality, American parents increasingly seek to promote their children's academic achievement through provision of enriching learning opportunities. In this study, we hypothesized that parental investments in both home and out-of-home learning resources may partially explain socioeconomic disparities in children's academic skills, and may function differently during school versus summer months. Using data drawn from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of 2010 -2011 (N Ϸ 4,000), we assessed children's reading, math, and science skills from kindergarten entry through second grade, attending to how achievement gaps shifted during school versus summer months. Multilevel piecewise latent growth models identified significant, small socioeconomic status (SES) gaps in children's academic skills at kindergarten entry. These initial SES gaps remained stable for reading skills, grew during school months for science skills, and grew during summer months for math skills. Significant, small family SES disparities in home reading-based learning activities, out-of-home enrichment activities, TV/video time, and time in summer camps/child care programs also emerged, helping to explain growth in SES achievement gaps. Specifically, growing SES gaps in science skills appeared driven in part through school-year home learning activities and summer out-of-home enrichment activities. Growing SES gaps in math skills also functioned in part through summer out-of-home enrichment activities. Results suggest the importance of enhancing year-round investments across home, school, and community contexts to support the school success of economically disadvantaged children. Educational Impact and Implications StatementEarly academic skills are essential for setting children on a trajectory of academic, and eventually, career and life success. As such, socioeconomic gaps in early academic skills are of significant concern. This study used data from a nationally representative sample of approximately 4,000 children to show that children from economically disadvantaged families start school with small but significant detriments in reading, math, and science skills compared to their more advantaged peers and fall further behind in math and science skills during their early years of schooling. The results further found that disparities in children's exposure to home learning activities such as reading, as well as out-of-home enrichment activities such as going to libraries, museums, and zoos, were partially responsible for growing gaps in science and math skills between children from lower and higher SES families. These results highlight the importance of increasing children's exposure to learning opportunities and resources, particularly among children from economically disadvantaged families.

BackgroundIn the USA, many states do not pre-empt municipalities from enacting stricter tobacco-control policies than state or federal laws. Several municipalities in Massachusetts have passed progressive local laws aimed at reducing adolescent tobacco use. We exploited this variability to examine the associations between county-level flavoured tobacco product restrictions, tobacco 21 policies and smoke-free laws prohibiting e-cigarettes with adolescent cigarette and e-cigarette use in Massachusetts, and to assess whether policy effects varied by age.MethodsWe conducted difference-in-differences models to link changes in county-level tobacco-control policies to changes in adolescents’ use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes using 2011–2017 biennial Massachusetts Youth Health Surveys.ResultsCounties with greater implementation of flavoured tobacco product restrictions were associated with a decrease in the level of cigarette use among users (incidence rate ratio −1.56; 95% CI −2.54 to −0.58). A significant interaction (p=0.03) revealed the largest reductions among 14 and 18 year olds. Increasing flavoured tobacco product restrictions were also associated with reductions in the likelihood of e-cigarette use (OR −0.87; 95% CI −1.68 to −0.06). Increasing tobacco 21 restrictions were associated with decreases in cigarette use only among 18 year olds, while there was no evidence of associations between smoke-free laws with use of either tobacco product.ConclusionsAdolescents in Massachusetts decreased their use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes in response to local restrictions that limited the sale of flavoured tobacco products to adult-only retail tobacco stores. Local legislation can reduce adolescent tobacco use and municipalities should enact stricter tobacco-control policies when not pre-empted by state law.

Income disparities in children’s academic and behavioral skills have grown larger over the past 50 years. At the same time, economic segregation across communities has increased, raising questions regarding the role of community factors in explaining income gaps in children’s functioning. Combining geospatial data with longitudinal survey data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2010–2011, an ethnically diverse, nationally representative sample of kindergarteners (N ≈ 17,600), this project explored how differences in community- and family-level resources and stressors help to explain family income gaps in achievement, executive functioning, and externalizing behaviors in third grade (age 9). Family income had small to medium associations with more community resources and fewer community stressors, which in turn exhibited small associations with parenting practices. These relations helped explain income gaps in children’s functioning. Results have implications for researchers and practitioners focused on narrowing economic skills gaps as well as housing and community planning efforts designed to foster children’s positive development.

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