Children at School

Abstract

In schools, children develop the human capital that they will need for socioeconomic attainment, participate in ongoing interactions with adults and other children that will shape their future social and emotional development, and are socialized into the prevailing norms and values of their communities, cultures, and the larger society. As such, schools are an important piece of the developmental ecology, one that is also a major focus of policy, practice, and intervention. This chapter, therefore, explores the significance of schools in child development. It begins with a discussion of key themes in developmental research on schooling, including the place of schools in major theories, the developmental effects of schooling, and the links between schooling and inequality. Next, it explains how schools are societal institutions, structurally organized to facilitate tangible cognitive, academic, and vocational skills among children and to grant key academic credentials. This discussion is followed by a description of schools as developmental contexts, interpersonally organized to shape human interaction and socialization and to influence social and emotional development. These two sides of schooling are brought together in the final section of the chapter, which discusses how schools can be viewed more holistically using several specific examples of controversy in educational policy, such as desegregation and high‐stakes testing. Throughout the chapter, we discuss future directions of research and the translation between research and practice.

Understanding Students’ Transition to High School: Demographic Variation and the Role of Supportive Relationships

“…Although much of the extant research has focused on the transition from elementary to middle school, there is evidence that as students move from middle to high school, their grades often decline (Benner & Graham, 2009), engagement and motivation tend to be lower (Barber & Olsen, 2004), and feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and stress tend to rise (Benner & Graham, 2009; Newman, Newman, Griffen, O’Connor, & Spas, 2007). Understanding the unique challenges that students experience as they move from middle to high school is important, as it is in high school that academic performance becomes both more visible and more high stakes; thus academic and socioemotional challenges during the transition to high school can have reverberating consequences across the life course (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015). …”

“…For adolescents, relationships with same-age peers take on added significance in their lives, although parents continue to play a major role in their growth and development (Brown & Larson, 2009; Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Adolescents also spend a substantial part of their waking hours in schools, and thus the relationships formed within school walls with both educators and other students matter for development (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015). …”

Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development1

“…Schools are dynamic, multilevel, multilayered contexts for human development where teachers, peers, classrooms, public spaces and structures, culture, composition, policies, and student attributes influence each other (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015;Pianta, 2016). These co-influential interactions produce differential effects that can be studied and understood at both an individual and subgroup level over time (e.g., Beltz, Wright, Sprague, & Molenaar, 2016;Kremer, Flower, Huang, & Vaughn, 2016).…”

“…Schools can be designed and organized in ways that support students by providing a web of support and fostering developmental relationships for students with their teachers and peers (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015;Osher & Kendziora, 2010). These relationships are key drivers of learning and development (e.g., identity) and are co-influential.…”

“…Intentional influences on context represent opportunities to alter developmental sequencing, pathways, and range. Longitudinal studies of the long-term benefits of particular interventions on some children (Catalano, Hill, Haggerty, Fleming, & Hawkins, 2010;Chetty et al, 2011;Kellam et al, 2008;Schweinhart et al, 2005), and research on school and neighborhood effects, suggest how these impacts can be amplified or attenuated (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015;Leventhal, Dupéré, & Shuey, 2015;Osher & Kendziora, 2010). Longitudinal studies of the costs and benefits of interventions are powerful because effects (and related costs and/or benefits) are compounded and intergenerational.…”