Socioeconomic Disadvantage, School Attendance, and Early Cognitive Development

2010/10/01 by Douglas D. Ready · 356 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Absenteeism #Academic achievement #Attendance #Child development #Cognition #Cognitive development #Demography #Developmental psychology #Disadvantage #Disadvantaged #Early childhood #Economic growth #Latent growth modeling #Literacy #Longitudinal study #Medicine #Multilevel model #Parental Involvement in Education #Pedagogy #Population #Psychology #School Choice and Performance #Social change #Social class #Social psychology #Socioeconomic status #Sociology #Youth Substance Use and School Attendance

paper · doi:10.1177/0038040710383520

published in Sociology of Education 83(4), 271-286 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2010/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Over the past several decades, research has documented strong relationships between social class and children’s cognitive abilities. These initial cognitive differences, which are substantial at school entry, increase as children progress through school. Despite the robust findings associated with this research, authors have generally neglected the extent to which school absenteeism exacerbates social class differences in academic development among young children. Using growth-curve analyses within a three-level hierarchical linear modeling framework, this study employs data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) to examine the links between children’s social class, school absences, and academic growth during kindergarten and first grade. Results suggest that the effects of schooling on cognitive development are stronger for lower socioeconomic status (SES) children and that the findings associated with theories of summer learning loss are applicable to literacy development during early elementary school. Indeed, although they continue to achieve at lower absolute levels, socioeconomically disadvantaged children who have good attendance rates gain more literacy skills than their higher SES peers during kindergarten and first grade.

Citations

• Are Schools the Great Equalizer? Cognitive Inequality during the Summer Months and the School Year
• Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences
• Resources, Instruction, and Research

Cited by

• Linking Teacher Quality, Student Attendance, and Student Achievement
• Another One Rides the Bus: The Impact of School Transportation on Student Outcomes in Michigan
• Sociodemographic trends in special educational needs identification in Wales
• Attendance and Specific Learning Disability Identification: A Survey of Practicing School Psychologists
• School absenteeism in the first decade of education and outcomes in adolescence
• Are Student Absences Worth the Worry in U.S. Primary Schools?
• Inequality in the shadow: The role of private tutoring in SES achievement gaps
• Impact of Particulate Matter Exposure and Surrounding "Greenness" on Chronic Absenteeism in Massachusetts Public Schools. [europepmc]
• Absenteeism in Head Start and Children's Academic Learning. [europepmc]
• Economic costs of bias-based bullying. [europepmc]
• Chronic absence, eighth-grade achievement, and high school attainment in the Chicago Longitudinal Study. [europepmc]
• Aboriginal Status and Neighborhood Income Inequality Moderate the Relationship between School Absenteeism and Early Childhood Development. [europepmc]
• The Grade-Level and Cumulative Outcomes of Absenteeism. [europepmc]
• Disparities in Air Pollutants Across Racial, Ethnic, and Poverty Groups at US Public Schools. [europepmc]
• Kindergarteneres' Peer Relationships and Early School Absenteeism. [europepmc]
• Benefits of Playing at School: Filler Board Games Improve Visuospatial Memory and Mathematical Skills. [europepmc]
• Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on White Matter Plasticity in the Reading Network. [europepmc]
• A study of vulnerable student populations, exclusion and marginalization in Sierra Leonean secondary schools: a social justice theory analysis. [europepmc]
• Exploring the design and impact of integrated health and social care services for children and young people living in underserved populations: a systematic review. [europepmc]
• Relationship of parental caregiving and child labour with developmental problems and mental health in children in low-to-middle-income countries using the socioecological resilience model. [europepmc]
• Chronic absenteeism in Canadian kindergarten classes, pre- and post-COVID-19, and its association with concurrent developmental vulnerability. [europepmc]

Related

• Are Schools the Great Equalizer? Cognitive Inequality during the Summer Months and the School Year
• School Starting Age and Cognitive Development
• Age and schooling effects on emergent literacy and early reading skills.
• The role of families and pre-school in educational disadvantage
• Social disparities in children's vocabulary in early childhood. Does pre‐school education help to close the gap?1