Unequal opportunities from the start: Socioeconomic disparities in classroom participation in preschool.

Why do socioeconomic disparities in achievement emerge so early in life? Previous answers to this question have generally focused on the perceived deficits of parents from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g., insufficient childrearing knowledge). Here, we instead focus on the structure of early childhood education and argue that early schooling contexts provide unequal opportunities for engagement to children of higher versus lower socioeconomic status (SES). As engagement is a longitudinal predictor of achievement, early SES disparities in engagement could serve to maintain or even exacerbate SES disparities in achievement. In Study 1 (1,236 observations; N = 98 children), we investigated preschool students' behavioral engagement during whole-class discussions-a core aspect of early childhood education. Low-SES children showed significantly lower engagement than their peers. Consistent with the claim of unequal opportunities for engagement, these differences were not accounted for by SES differences in language proficiency. As students' engagement in school is influenced by their peers' attitudes toward them, we also examined peer perceptions (Study 2, N = 94, and a meta-analysis, k = 2 studies). We found that preschoolers who show more engagement relative to others during whole-class discussions are perceived as possessing more positive qualities (e.g., intelligence). Given that higher-SES students are afforded more opportunities for engagement (see Study 1), they may be the ones benefiting from these positive peer perceptions as well, which might further boost their engagement. Our results suggest that aspects of early childhood education should be redesigned to foster engagement among all students, regardless of their SES. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A Two-Sided Lockdown? Social Class Variations in the Implementation of Homeschooling During the COVID-19 Lockdown.

The COVID-19 pandemic deeply affected how schools and families functioned through most of 2020. In particular, school closures meant parents took on a more central role in their children's learning. This study analyzed social class variations in the quantity and quality of homeschooling during the lockdown. Through an online questionnaire, 360 parents reported (1) their digital equipment and use, (2) the perceptions of their ability to homeschool their children, (3) how they handled homeschooling and (4) the extent to which they supported other activities considered more or less "profitable" from an educational point of view (e.g., reading, watching television). A social position index was used as a proxy of social class. The results indicated that all parents were highly involved in setting up homeschooling and that the lower the parents' social position, the more they spent time homeschooling their children. However, in line with the digital divide literature, the lower the parents' social position, the lower the digital equipment and the less the parents felt capable of homeschooling. Finally, the higher the social position of the families, the more children spent time doing activities considered to be "educationally profitable," and the less they spent time doing "unprofitable activities." Thus, even if all parents were highly involved in homeschooling, higher social position parents were better equipped both materially and psychologically to face the challenge of homeschooling. The long-term impact of these processes on the perpetuation of social class inequalities are discussed.

Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers and parents to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers developed online academic material while parents taught the exercises and lessons provided by teachers to their children at home. Considering that the use of digital tools in education has dramatically increased during this crisis, and it is set to continue, there is a pressing need to understand the impact of distance learning. Taking a multidisciplinary view, we argue that by making the learning process rely more than ever on families, rather than on teachers, and by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities. To address this burning issue, we propose an agenda for future research and outline recommendations to help parents, teachers and policymakers to limit the impact of the lockdown on social-class-based academic inequality.

Socio-Emotional Competencies and School Performance in Adolescence: What Role for School Adjustment?

There is growing evidence in the literature of positive relationships between socio-emotional competencies and school performance. Several hypotheses have been used to explain how these variables may be related to school performance. In this paper, we explored the role of various school adjustment variables in the relationship between interpersonal socio-emotional competencies and school grades, using a weighted network approach. This network approach allowed us to analyze the structure of interrelations between each variable, pointing to both central and mediatory school and socio-emotional variables within the network. Self-reported data from around 3,400 French vocational high school students were examined. This data included a set of interpersonal socio-emotional competencies (cognitive and affective empathy, socio-emotional behaviors and collective orientation), school adjustment measures (adaptation to the institution, school anxiety, self-regulation at school, and self-perceived competence at school) as well as grades in mathematics and French language. The results showed that self-regulation at school weighted the most strongly on the whole network, and was the most important mediatory pathway. More specifically, self-regulation mediated the relationships between interpersonal socio-emotional competencies and school grades.

A new method for studying the halo effect in teachers' judgement and its antecedents: Bringing out the role of certainty.

BACKGROUND: In academic contexts, teachers' judgements are central to instruction and have many consequences for students' self-perceptions. Understanding the cognitive biases that may exist in teachers' judgements is thus of central importance. AIMS: This paper presents two studies in which we aimed to investigate the presence of a halo effect in teachers' judgements (Study 1 and Study 2) and to clarify the conditions for the emergence of this halo effect by analysing the influence of judgement certainty (Study 2). A major contribution of these studies was to provide a new measure of the halo effect in order to achieve these goals. SAMPLE(S): In the first study, 25 teachers and their 199 students were asked to complete the measures, while the second study sample was composed of 20 teachers and their 180 students. METHOD: To analyse the presence of the halo effect in teachers' judgements in the two studies, scholastic achievement was measured using various standardized French language tests. Teachers were asked to indicate, for each of their students, whether they thought the student would answer correctly or incorrectly for each item on the standardized tests. In Study 2, to analyse the influence of judgement certainty, the teachers were asked to indicate after each item how certain they were about their response. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The results of both studies revealed the presence of a halo effect in teachers' judgements for each measure used (i.e., comparison of correlations, factorial analyses, and the new measure comparing variance scores), as the teachers' judgements were more homogeneous than the students' actual achievement levels. Furthermore, using the new measure, the second study revealed that high judgement certainty resulted in a stronger halo effect.

The watching-eyes phenomenon and blood donation: Does exposure to pictures of eyes increase blood donation by young adults?

This study examined the effectiveness of exposure to a "watching-eyes image" in increasing blood donation rates among young people, a segment of the population that is particularly underrepresented among blood donors. Participants were 454 first-year university students, each of who was given a blood-donation flyer at the beginning of a lecture. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions depending on whether the flyer they received bore a picture of eyes (experimental condition) or a neutral picture (control condition). We recorded the numbers of participants who promised to give blood and who actually gave blood during the blood drive. Results show that the number of people who gave blood was significantly higher in the experimental condition than in the control condition. These findings provide the first evidence of the effectiveness of the watching-eyes strategy in encouraging young people to give blood. We discuss the processes underlying the "watching-eyes effect" with respect to blood donation.