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CUMULATIVE DEFICIT IN CULTURALLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN
Author(s) -
COX T.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1983.tb02564.x
Subject(s) - disadvantaged , psychology , developmental psychology , test (biology) , statistical significance , demography , medicine , paleontology , sociology , political science , law , biology
S ummary . Much of the previous research on the question of whether the course of scholastic learning in culturally disadvantaged children shows a cumulative deficit over time has been inconclusive, but recent analyses of the British National Child Development Study data have provided firmer evidence that it does. In the present study seven scholastic attainment measures were obtained on the same sample of children at ages 11 and 15 years respectively. This sample comprised a group of 46 children from culturally and materially disadvantaged homes in three cities in England and Wales and a matched control group of 46 children from more advantaged, but still predominantly working‐class homes. Relative changes in the scholastic attainment of the two groups between the two ages were examined by means of the regression (analysis of covariance) technique. It was found that, in relation to their 11‐year scores, the Disadvantaged Group children had lower predicted mean scores at age fifteen than their controls on all of the test measures, but not all of the differences reached statistical significance. Also, in relation to their 7‐ and 11‐year test scores the mean predicted scores of the Disadvantaged Group children on three of the 15 year tests were, non‐significantly, lower than those of their controls. Taken in conjunction with the results of a previous analysis of the children's 11‐ and 7‐year test scores, these findings offer some support for the cumulative deficit hypothesis.