Development of socio-economic gaps in children’s language skills in Germany

Abstract

Gaps in language skills by socio-economic status (SES) are already evident before school entry, and these gaps may change over time. After discussing mechanisms of cumulative advantages (‘Matthew effects’) and compensatory effects as well as the relevance of cultural capital and child-related activities in families, this paper tests mechanisms behind changing SES gaps in language skills from age five to nine in Germany. Analysing data from the German National Educational Panel Study with growth curve models, we find widening SES gaps in children’s vocabulary. Children of mothers with low educational attainment show a far below-average increase in skills. The findings are in line with cumulative advantage by status, although initial skills predict their growth over time as well. There are no signs of any type of compensatory effects. Reading aloud to children appears to substantially impact and mediate SES differences in vocabulary progress.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Based on longitudinal data, vocabulary development from age five to nine in Germany is researched.</li><br /><li>At age five, vocabulary skills of children with low- and high-educated mothers differ by one year.</li><br /><li>This gap doubles in the following four years, hinting at cumulative advantages.</li></ul>

Social stratification in downgrading during secondary school after ambitious track choices

“…Among children with low academic preparedness, high-SES children may be more likely than low-SES children to catch up academically during secondary school (Schneider & Linberg, 2021). However, we find no evidence for the idea that the CA in downgrading results from such a catch-up mechanism.…”

“…Our results thus yield no clear support for the notions of resource mobilization (F. Bernardi, 2014;F. Bernardi & Grätz, 2015;Schneider & Linberg, 2021) and differing responsiveness to ability information (F. Bernardi & Cebolla-Boado, 2014b;F. Bernardi & Triventi, 2020;Holm et al, 2019) in the context of downgrading.…”

“…In the following, we will describe the two mechanisms in more detail, referring to common arguments from the literature on CA: resource mobilization (F. Bernardi, 2014;F. Bernardi & Grätz, 2015;Schneider & Linberg, 2021) and responsiveness to ability information (F. Bernardi & Cebolla-Boado, 2014b;F. Bernardi & Triventi, 2020;Holm et al, 2019).…”

“…This mobilization of resources may help high-SES children with low academic preparedness to catch up over time (blue arrow in Figure 2), decreasing the performance gap between them and their classmates (F. Bernardi, 2014;F. Bernardi & Grätz, 2015;Schneider & Linberg, 2021). We assume that these investments should be most beneficial for children with lower academic preparedness (Grätz & Bernardi, 2017;Grätz & Wiborg, 2020).…”

What can parents do? The causal mediating role of parenting in explaining SES differences in children's language development

“…Research shows these educational differences, however, largely occur before children enter school (Skopek and Passaretta 2020), in particular during early childhood (Lehrl et al 2012), a time when substantial differences in the language skills of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds have been observed (T. . Therefore, to narrow social inequality in school performance and academic achievement (T. Schneider and Linberg 2021), researchers and policy makers want to understand which mechanisms could generate such early differences in language skills by SES.…”