Education and poverty

Introduction

This programme of work explores how poverty affects children's education, and the role of education as a route out of poverty.

The first phase of the programme took a broad look at how poverty and children's education interact. It aimed to challenge some of the assumptions of the UK educational system and uncover why it continues to fail low-income families and other disadvantaged groups.

The second phase of the programme focuses specifically on the formation and impact of children's attitudes and aspirations towards education.

Key issues

Children growing up in poverty and disadvantage are less likely to do well at school. This feeds into disadvantage in later life and in turn affects their children.

Our research so far indicates that:

• Socio-economic differences are associated with a range of influences on children's learning.
• Some influences are felt inside school, interacting with children's attitude towards school.
• Others occur outside school, but are nevertheless important for learning and development.
• Children from different backgrounds have diverse experiences and develop different attitudes, despite also having many things in common.

Only by understanding the varied factors influencing social differences in education will it be possible to design effective responses in policy and practice.

A key message of the evidence is that equality of educational opportunity cannot rely solely on better delivery of the school curriculum for disadvantaged groups, but must address multiple aspects of disadvantaged children's lives.

Overview

Two major projects are currently examining the formation and role of attitudes and aspirations towards education:

The Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Bristol are carrying out a project to help us understand more about how the educational outcomes of children in poverty are determined, by studying the formation of a broad set of cognitive and social skills, attitudes and beliefs.

Using quantitative analysis of large individual-level panel datasets, they are looking at how such skills are developed at home and at school, how they are transmitted across generations, and how different inputs in early childhood and later in life influence such skill development. They will also consider the links between the development of such skills and educational outcomes. This study will be published in late 2009.

Secondly, Glasgow University is carrying out longitudinal surveys to understand how attributes of the individual, family, place and school in deprived urban areas come together to shape aspirations in the critical early years of adolescence. In particular, it will explore how parental circumstances and attitudes, the school as an institution and the opportunities available within neighbourhoods influence children's identities and aspirations towards education and employment. The research will be published in 2010.