The role of families and pre-school in educational disadvantage

Abstract

In the first volume of the Oxford Review of Education Jerome Bruner (1975) showed how the upbringing of the very young is influenced by poverty, and how different kinds of upbringing shape human development. He called the paper ‘Poverty and childhood’ and baldly stated ‘With respect to virtually any criterion of equal opportunity and equal access to opportunity, the children of the poor ... are plainly not getting as much schooling, or getting as much from their schooling as their middle-class age mates’ (p. 43). Since Bruner’s seminal paper, the developmental sciences have exploded. New insights from neuroscience, genetics and cognitive psychology have provided accounts of the developing architecture of the brain, the course of linguistic and cognitive development, and more recently the development of resilience. Most of these insights focus on the development of the child, but usually from research in the laboratory or in the context of the family. However, there is also a new literature on ways that environments outside the home can support or hinder the child’s development. This paper will attempt to integrate findings from the developmental sciences with educational research on pre-school education. The first half of the paper extends Bruner’s arguments through a discussion of possible mechanisms that underlie the link between poverty and under-achievement, especially the capacity to plan ahead. The second half of the paper focuses on the role of the ‘enabling environment’ of the pre-school in supporting the kinds of early ‘executive functions’ that will later underpin educational achievement. The paper concludes with recent findings from the ‘Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education’ research (EPPSE; Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj, & Taggart, 2014) on the educational pathways of nearly 3000 English children. The findings show that high quality pre-school provided the foundation for academic learning, but the newest research shows that it also nurtured self-regulation and the executive skills needed in planning ahead.

Keywords:

• early education
• educational disadvantage
• pre-school quality

Introduction

In the first volume of the Oxford Review of Education Jerome Bruner (1975) showed how the upbringing of the very young is influenced by the culture of poverty, and how different kinds of upbringing shape human development, especially the expectation of success. He called the paper ‘Poverty and childhood’ and baldly stated ‘With respect to virtually any criterion of equal opportunity and equal access to opportunity, the children of the poor ... are plainly not getting as much schooling, or getting as much from their schooling as their middle-class age mates’ (p. 43). He went on to report statistics then current in the USA documenting under-achievement in the poor. The body of Bruner’s paper argues that the poor bring up their young in ways that differ importantly from the rich and that it is upbringing as well as financial hardship that lead to poorer educational outcomes. Although this view is commonplace in 2015, it was not so 40 years ago. At that time, there was a vehement denial of ‘deficit’ and an almost blind faith that any lower performance on the part of poor children was the result of active discrimination against poor (or non-white, or second-language learners, or whatever) children. Discussions are less heated now and ‘deficit’ has been replaced with ‘difference’ (see Siraj & Mayo, 2014). Still, the notion of difference needs to be unpacked through careful scholarship if educational policies are to be successful in lessening the gap between rich and poor. Many important educational reforms appear to aid the rich as much as the poor (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997) and so across-the-board improvements in education (Sammons et al., 2008) have done little to eradicate, or even lessen, gaps in achievement.

Bruner believed that the low attainment of poor children was a consequence of discrimination, yes, but also of deep cultural habits and traditions of upbringing. He focused on three key aspects of development that were the basis of underperformance: (1) lower levels of language skill (vocabulary, grammar, analytic argument), (2) lower levels of executive function, and (3) lower aspirations. These three will be considered in light of research conducted over the last four decades that has extended our understanding of the reasons behind under-achievement in disadvantaged groups. Before exploring some explanations for low attainment, it should be noted that a recent study by Strand (2014) confirms the continued existence of large socio-economic gaps in England. Strand reported the SES (socio-economic status) gap to be ‘six times larger than the gender gap and three times larger than the ethnic gap at age 16’ (p. 224). Bruner was right to focus on poverty but how does poverty translate into lower performance of disadvantaged children?

Language development

In a ground-breaking study in the USA Hart and Risley (1995) demonstrated the vast difference in the exposure to complex adult language of poor children compared to their more affluent peers. The statistics were shocking; by the age of four years the most advantaged children were exposed to five times as many words compared to children of families on welfare assistance. Since depth and breadth of vocabulary are so central to academic attainment, many poor children will go on to face the demands of primary education ‘with their hands tied behind their backs’—an educational disadvantage resting on poor vocabulary skills. In a large English sample, Sylva, Chan et al., (2010) showed the extent to which oral vocabulary at age five predicted national assessments in English at age 11. In addition, Snow, Burns and Griffin (1998) have demonstrated that children from low SES families do not have sufficient abstract or ‘academic’ language to do well in school subjects, especially after the age of eight or nine. So both the amount of vocabulary and type of words in the lexicon contribute to lower attainment.

However, exposure to vocabulary is only part of the story. Hart and Risley (1995) found that the higher the social class of the parents, the more likely they were to speak to their children in ways that initiate and maintain conversation. Children in middle-class homes gain more practice in conversation and in exchange of ideas. Furthermore, findings from the US National Household Education Survey (Bradley, Corwyn, McAdoo, & Coll, 2001; Corwyn & Bradley, 2000) and the UK Millennium Cohort Study (Dearden, Sibieta, & Sylva, 2011) show that children from poorer homes also have less access to cognitively stimulating materials (e.g., books and newspapers). Sylva, Melhuish et al. (2010) found that children of parents with low levels of education were less likely to be taken to a library, which in turn was one of the significant predictors of lower academic attainment at ages five, seven, and 11 years. This not only limits their language, but also their cultural horizons. Differences in access to resources continue through adolescence, with Sylva et al. (2014) documenting social class differences in ‘academic enrichment’ activities; teenagers whose parents have low educational qualifications having less access to enrichment experiences outside the home (visits to the theatre or an historic castle).

Since Bruner’s paper 40 years ago, complex statistical models have been developed for studying the relationship between disadvantage and academic performance. Researchers now create models to test indirect effects as well as direct ones, showing for example how access to cultural resources can act as a mediator in the relationship between SES and children’s academic attainment (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, & Liaw 1995). Bradley and colleagues (Bradley, 1994; Bradley & Corwyn 2001; Bradley and Corwyn, 2002) summarise it neatly: ‘children from poor families have less access to a wide variety of different recreational and learning materials from infancy through adolescence. Access to such material and cultural resources mediates the relation between SES (or family income) and children’s intellectual and academic achievement from infancy through adolescence’ (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002, p. 381).

At the turn of the century Bradley et al. (2001) analysed the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in which the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) (Bradley, 1994) was used to describe the family environments in four different ethnic groups in the USA: European Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans and Hispanic Americans. The HOME measured the amount of ‘stimulation’ (i.e., cognitive enrichment activities and resources) that was available to children in a large sample of families. At four different age levels, differences in the stimulation of the home were found amongst the four cultural groups. More importantly, however, ‘the magnitude of the poverty effect was greater than for ethnicity, and usually absorbed most of the ethnic group effects on the HOME items’ (p. 1844). This important study has intrigued researchers because it suggests that the negative effects of the home learning environment in disadvantaged families owe more to poverty than to culture, or at least in the USA. Further, this observational study aligns with more recent survey research in England. Strand (2014) found that SES effects on national tests, on the whole, are stronger than those for ethnicity. Thus research from several disciplines describes the adverse effects of poverty on children’s lives. Next to be considered will be possible mechanisms by which poverty is translated into low achievement.

Executive function, especially planning

Since Bruner’s paper in 1975, research on the ‘soft skills’ in development has burgeoned. Heckman, Stixrud and Urzua (2006) suggest that children from lower SES groups lack not only ‘hard’ cognitive skills but also ‘soft’ (non-cognitive skills) that underpin attainment and health; skills that are laid down in the pre-school period. We turn next to resilience and planning in the early years. Resilient children have been shown to engage in planning for the future in ways that non-resilient children do not.

Stress and the development of resilience (in the context of disadvantage)

Stress is a central concept in the study of psychosocial and educational outcomes. A growing research literature has firmly linked poverty and low SES to children’s health and development, an SES effect more important than culture (Blair, 2010; McLeod, 1998; McLeod & Shanahan, 1993). The neuroscience literature is far too complex to be dealt with here but a recent review by Blair (2010) highlights the importance of ‘soft skills’ that may constitute a causal link between poverty and cognitive performance. Blair and Raver (2012) report on the effects of early experience, especially the stresses of poverty, on glucocorticoid and catecholamine levels that influence neural activity in areas of the brain linked with executive functions. The neurosciences are fast describing the chemistry of stress and its effects on neural activity, a research literature undreamt of when Bruner wrote his initial paper.

Although the vast majority of research has been conducted on non-human animals, the emergence of fMRI research is fast building similar stress models for humans, including children. In his masterful review Blair (2010) neatly summarises this research: ‘The body’s stress and immune systems become important pathways linking poverty with later outcomes. And the outcomes themselves do not fit neatly into attainment and behavioural categories but instead relate to an individual’s ability to sustain a healthy and productive life’ (p. 9). Blair refers to resilience and the neural activity that can sustain it. In 2004, Evans reviewed the literature on the environment of childhood poverty, 30 years after Bruner’s paper in the ORE. He concluded that children from disadvantaged backgrounds need to be more resilient than their advantaged counterparts if they are to succeed in life because their daily stresses are greater, and their families have less access to social and financial capital to help them deal with them.

The importance of planning in the early years

McCormack and Atance (2011) have made an important contribution to the study of disadvantage by integrating a large body of empirical evidence on the development of planning in young children, including the kinds of adult interactions that support it. They brought together studies on infants (Claxton, Keen, & McCarty, 2003), pre-schoolers (Bull, Espy, & Senn, 2004; Wiebe, Esy, & Charak, 2008) and adults (Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, & Howerter, 2000) to describe three types of cognitive flexibility needed in planning. These are: event-independent temporal representation (the capacity to represent future events); executive function; and self-projection. Although very young infants have shown that they can anticipate the future (McCarty, Clifton, & Collard, 1999) they do not appear to represent and choose amongst possible futures. McCormack and Atance reviewed many ingenious tasks in which children aged three to five years old show flexible thinking about how to get things done in the future. Some are lab-based cognitive tasks such as the Tower of Hanoi (Kaller, Rahm, Spreer, Mader, & Unterrainer, 2008) and others are real world tasks such as route planning (e.g., the best way to collect and deliver small kittens to adoptive homes). These studies show clearly that pre-schoolers can distance themselves from the present, imagine a goal in the future, and then consider alternative strategies for achieving it while monitoring success or failure. McCormack and Atance (2011) make a strong case for planning as a discrete process within the kind of executive function needed when solving problems or even meeting risks.

Buckner and Carroll (2007) have added considerably to this by studying self-projection in planning. In their terms, self-projection is ‘the ability to shift perspective from the immediate present to alternative perspectives’ (p. 49, cited in McCormack & Atance, 2011). One of the distinctive features of this is ‘the ability to anticipate future states of the self (italics added) that differ from current ones’, in other words, to imagine oneself at some future juncture. This links planning to the development of ‘theory of mind’ (children knowing that someone else can think differently from them) (Hughes & Leekam, 2004) and is called ‘mental time travel to the future’ by Suddendorf and Corballis (2007). Atance and Meltzoff (2005) showed pre-school children photos and asked them to imagine being in a place very different from their current stage (e.g., being in a cold snowy place when actually the room temperature is very warm). Children had to select an object they would need to take with them to the imaginary place, such as a warm coat. They found that the majority of three year olds could plan to take an object that would meet their needs in the future, no matter how unlikely they were in the present. Taken together, this and other studies suggest that children begin to develop planning skills between the ages of three and five; they can plan a series of steps to meet some future situation or goal, and disregard the present while doing so.

In a later study Crook and Evans (2014) used the NICHD-ECORN sample to investigate the relationship between poverty at one and 24 months of age and mathematics and reading scores at age 10 years. Not surprisingly they found that poorer children in the large longitudinal sample had lower academic attainment. By using structural equation modelling they found that planning ability (measured on the Tower of Hanoi Task) at age seven mediated the relation between early poverty and later poor attainment in school. In other words, poverty led to poorer planning, and this in turn led to poorer attainment. Studies such as that by Crook and Evans (2014) provide strong evidence that earlier planning skills are central to later school performance and not merely a by-product of them.

McCormack and Atance (2011) suggest that planning abilities are facilitated through shared planning activities with adults (see Gauvin & Rogoff, 1989). We know that ‘theory of mind’ is influenced by children’s social experiences (Hughes & Leekam, 2004; Hudson, Shapiro, & Sosa, 1995; Laranjo, Bernier, Meins, & Carlson, 2010) and those aspects of planning which require ‘thinking outside yourself’ will be influenced in this way also. This will be a fruitful area of research in the future because pre-schools may have a role to play in fostering planning skills in disadvantaged children who may lack explicit support for planning in the home.

Lower aspirations?

Bruner wrote much about the aspirations of the poor, which he summarised as the culture of low expectations. Writing as Bruner did in the 1970s, the class divide in education appeared to be driven by aspirations and so aspirations became a common target for change. However, we now know four decades later that many disadvantaged young people have high aspirations. A large scale longitudinal study in England (Baker et al., 2014) showed the majority of young people in five regions across England aimed at professional jobs, albeit in lower tier professions that include teachers, social workers and engineers rather than doctors or judges. The vast majority of young people in their broadly representational sample of 16 year olds were in full time education; they were studying with high aspirations for entrance to university or for vocational qualifications that they believed would lead to interesting jobs that would allow them to use their capabilities to the full. Through surveys and interviews, young people in the sample explained how important it was for them to get good results when they finished their end-of-compulsory-education exams. On the strength of quantitative and qualitative data, Sylva et al. (2014) reported that parents were the main source of advice to young people about education and employment. Some received advice about the courses and entry-level jobs that will enable them to succeed in employment; others, equally aspirational, did not. The strong support professional families provide their young is not surprising, although the EPPSE findings on the high career aspirations of the vast majority of young people are. What differentiates the rich from the poor is detailed knowledge about the academic and professional steps that lead to high SES jobs, and the capacity to formulate both short term and long term plans for occupational success. The thesis of this paper is that disadvantaged children do not lack aspirations; they lack the planning skills and knowledge to achieve them.

Can early education narrow the gap?

Evans (2004) and Evans and Kim (2013) have demonstrated that poor children in the USA receive lower quality education, findings that have been replicated in the UK context (Sammons, 2008). Because it has been shown that children acquire important ‘executive’ skills before the start of formal school, it is worrying that Mathers and Smees (2014) found the quality of pre-school provision to be lower in centres located in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of England. Inspections carried out by the UK Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted, 2013) also found the quality of early education lower in poor neighbourhoods.

There is a large body of literature showing that early education can boost the attainment of all children, but especially children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Belfield, Nores, Barnett, & Schweinhart, 2006). Although the majority of studies focus on specific demonstration programmes and on children from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds, more recent research focuses on national studies of public services for young children across the board (Sylva et al., 2010). Using the same EPPSE sample in England, Hall et al. (2013) found that universal pre-school services can act as a protective factor against adversity if they enhance language and the ‘soft skills’ that Bruner grouped together under the umbrella term ‘executive function’.

Evidence from the EPPSE study—Sylva et al. (2014)

A large longitudinal ‘educational effectiveness’ study will be described in some detail because it shows that high quality early education across many regions and social classes in England can boost academic performance while also boosting the executive skill of self-regulation. Based on longitudinal findings on nearly 3000 children in England, the Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education study (EPPSE) shows that early education can act as a protective factor against low academic attainment (Hall et al., 2013; Melhuish et al., 2008; Sammons et al., 2014; Sylva et al., 2010; Taggart et al., 2014). Further, the study shows that pre-school quality, combined with longer duration (in months of attendance), is particularly important for children whose parents have low levels of education.

Based on children entering school at the beginning of this century, the EPPSE study used multilevel statistical analyses to show the contribution of individual, family and neighbourhood factors in shaping students’ development, culminating in their national examination performance at age 16. Once background characteristics had been taken into account, factors relating to pre-school (and later schooling) were used as predictors to test the effects of educational experiences on national examinations at age 16. The same modelling (controlling for earlier experiences and social background) was applied to ‘soft’ outcomes such as self regulation and self concept as well.

Family influences on educational attainment and ‘soft’ skills

Family influences in the EPPSE study were the strongest predictors of exam success at age 16. In particular, parents’ own educational success remained the strongest predictor of students’ academic performance at the end of compulsory schooling. Students whose parents had university degrees earned 141 total GCSE points more than students whose parents had no qualifications at all. (The ‘General Certificate in Secondary Education’ is a national test on which entrance to further study or employment is based.) Although parental education was the strongest predictor of total GCSE scores, it was followed by ‘academic enrichment activities’ during the teenage years, including visits to the theatre or science museum. Interestingly SES and family income, although important, showed weaker effects than parental education or enrichment activities.

On questionnaires six months after the age 16 examinations, the young people reported their main source of information and advice about future education and employment was their own family, which may explain the strong influence of parental education on life pathways. Family factors influenced soft outcomes as well as attainment and career aspiration. SES was one of the strongest predictors of self-regulation, an important component of executive functioning and key to successful planning for the future. The children of parents in professional jobs showed higher levels of self-regulation and also academic self concept. Thus the large scale EPPSE study confirmed research from the USA cited earlier on the significant influence of the family on academic attainment as well as the ‘soft’ skills needed for success in school and also in employment.

Promoting resilience: pre-school as a protective factor

The EPPSE study found that not all disadvantaged children performed poorly in school exams and possessed fewer ‘soft skills’ when compared to more advantaged peers. Some poor families promoted their children’s success, and some schools (especially pre-schools) did this as well. Siraj and Mayo (2014) carried out intensive case studies on EPPSE children in secondary school and showed how family and teacher support could act together to help poor children succeed ‘against the odds’.

Also using the EPPSE database, Hall et al. (2009, 2013) investigated the role of pre-school education as a protective factor in the development of young children who are ‘at risk’ of later poor performance. Hall and colleagues examined the effects of high quality early education on the development of children at risk of school failure. These researchers showed that high quality pre-school provision partially moderated the impact of risks at school entry. They argued that educational quality might be considered an ‘educational protector’, in other words, a promoter of resilience in the face of adversity. Cognitive development was measured in 2857 children in the EPPSE study at 36 and 58 months. At the same time, many individual risks (e.g. low birth weight) and familial risks (e.g. low parental education or occupations) to children’s development were also measured. The 141 pre-schools that the children attended were assessed for the quality of their provision on three measures: The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford 1998), the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale E: Curricular Extension (Sylva, Siraj-Blatchford, & Taggart, 2003) and the Caregiver Interaction Scale (Arnett, 1989).

Using Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling, Hall and colleagues showed that pre-school quality made a difference to the developmental profile of children when they entered school. More specifically Hall and colleagues found that: (1) The global quality of pre-school (measured on the ECERS-R) moderated the effects of familial risk such as poverty; (2) the interactions and relationships quality (measured on the CIS) moderated the effects of child level risk such as low birth weight; and (3) the quality of curricular provision (ECERS-E) moderated the effects of both individual and family risks.

Using statistical techniques unknown when Bruner wrote in 1975, Hall and colleagues have quantified the extent to which educational quality can ameliorate different kinds of risks to cognitive development (measured by the BAS General Cognitive Ability). Figure 1 shows the extent to which curricular quality measured on the ECERS-E reduced individual child risks on General Cognitive Ability (GCA) and how relationship quality (CIS positive, and CIS detached staff–child relationships) also reduced the individual risks. Figure 2 shows the effect of both curricular and interactional quality on family risks. (The full analytic model from Hall et al., 2013, appears as an Appendix.) This is one of the few studies to show the effects of different aspects of quality on children at risk.

Figure 1. Differentiated (moderated) impact of child level risk on General Cognitive Ability at entry to school: Protection conferred by process qualities of pre-school (from Hall et al., 2009)

Figure 2. Differentiated (moderated) impact of familial level risk on General Cognitive Ability at entry to reception: Protection conferred by process qualities of pre-school (from Hall et al., 2009)

Pre-school influences at age 16

The results from the EPPSE sample at age 16 show that the positive effects of attendance at pre-school last up to the age of 16+ years. Attendance at pre-school, compared to none, was a significant predictor of higher total GCSE scores and better grades in English and maths. It also predicted achieving five or more GCSE qualifications at grade A*–C, the grades required to progress to secure a place at age 18 at a well-regarded university. The EPPSE study also showed that longer duration of pre-school (in months) benefited students in terms of total GCSE scores and marks in English and mathematics. In other words, both attendance and ‘dose’ of early education had lasting effects to the end of statutory schooling—which at the time of the study was age 16.

Pre-school quality, in addition to mere attendance, influenced attainment at age 16. Attending a higher quality pre-school significantly predicted total GCSE score as well as English and maths scores. Attendance at a setting of high quality, in contrast to low quality or medium quality, showed the strongest effects.

Considered in the light of disadvantage, pre-school quality had stronger effects on students whose parents had lower qualifications than on those with better educated parents. These differential effects were found in English scores as well as mathematics, suggesting that quality matters most for those whose parents have low educational levels. This is important for narrowing the gap and particularly relevant to Bruner’s paper in the first issue of the Oxford Review.

Analysis of post-16 destinations (Taggart et al., 2014) also revealed lasting effects of pre-school in terms of predicting the likelihood of different educational pathways. Attending any pre-school, longer duration in pre-school (months) and higher quality of pre-school all predicted a greater likelihood of being on the ‘academic pathway’ (studying four or more advanced level subjects) and a reduced likelihood of the vocational route. This was found even after controlling for individual, family and neighbourhood effects as well as total GCSE scores. These analyses show that the benefits of pre-school in shaping longer term outcomes remain across all phases of schooling and into young adulthood. More importantly, they show that education can ameliorate the risks of growing up in a disadvantaged neighbourhood.

Pre-school is a sound investment—‘investing early’

Heckman, Stixrud, and Urzua (2006) have argued convincingly that early investment, for example in pre-school education, gives greater returns to society than later investment in education because earlier enhancements can form the basis for later intellectual gains. He argues that early educational experiences ‘change the child’ so that s/he can benefit more from future educational experiences. Using the EPPE database, Sylva et al. (2013) have provided strong support for Heckman’s argument: children who had experienced higher quality education during the pre-school period made greater progress in English and maths (i.e., greater gains) between the ages of seven and 11 when compared to those from no or lower quality pre-schools. This is powerful support for Heckman; high quality pre-school experience led to greater learning gains in primary schools, suggesting that the experience of pre-school had taught the children ‘how to learn’ (Sylva et al., 2013).

Further evidence on the importance of pre-school comes from economic analyses on the sample carried out by Cattan, Crawford, and Dearden (2014). These economists calculated the likely financial benefit of attending any pre-school versus not attending. They estimated the likely benefit (in estimated lifetime income) to individuals as £26,788 and to households a benefit of £35,993. Cattan and colleagues went on to estimate the likely savings to the Treasury of children attending pre-school, or of attending a higher quality pre-school. Attendance in a pre-school setting benefited the Exchequer £15,914 (over the lifetime) for a household. Although it is still very early to make firm financial predications about the financial futures of the EPPSE sample, the findings of Cattan et al. break new ground as a first attempt to see whether pre-school education in the UK appears to be a strategic investment in the long term. The American studies (Belfield et al., 2006) showing much higher financial returns from pre-school were conducted on very disadvantaged children who attended ‘demonstration’ pre-school programmes with highly paid and trained staff. The EPPSE research, in contrast, studied several thousand children broadly representative of the population who had attended typical early childhood centres across England.

Extending Bruner’s paper through a focus on early education

In the 1975 paper in the Oxford Review, Bruner focused on children under five. His reason was simple: ‘a very major proportion of the variance in adult intellectual achievement … is already accounted for by the time the child reaches the usual school-starting age of five’ (p. 31). Bruner then went on to explore what he called the consequence of poverty over generations, a culture of ‘survival’ in which goals are short range and restricted (p. 47) (see also Rutter & Madge, 1976). Bruner concluded that social change would require the poor ‘to gain a sense of their own power— through jobs, through community activation, through creating a sense of project in the future’ (p. 47). It is argued here that children from disadvantaged backgrounds need more than a sense of power; they need the kind of executive skills that develop the capacity to plan though imagining future states of the self, future goals and ways to achieve them. (They also need the hope to keep going, but that is grist for another paper.) During the pre-school years, these planning skills are nurtured through intimate exchanges with adults who may be parents or pre-school teachers. During the later school years they are nurtured through the enrichment activities reported in EPPSE and through everyday conversations with adults about the worlds of education and employment. Aspiring to high achievement in the future is not enough—the child and young person need to know the steps to get there, to plan for them and to engage in a sustained way with those who have already made the journey.

Although Bruner made much of low aspirations as an explanation for the underperformance of the poor, it has been argued here that low aspirations are not the root of low performance. Exposure to more restricted language at home no doubt has a continuing role to play in disadvantage but new in this paper is the capacity to plan ahead, in the short term and also the long. If England, along with other nations, is serious about narrowing or eradicating the gap between rich and poor, it must take steps early on to support the development of planning. Pre-school curricula such as ‘High/Scope’ (Hohman & Weikart, 2002) and ‘Tools of the Mind’ (Bodrova & Leong, 2007) both focus on daily activities that explicitly support the development of planning.

As this paper suggests, Bruner was right to focus on poverty over ethnicity, race or gender. And he was right to stress the benefits of the complex linguistic environments provided for young children by well-educated parents. Bruner was wrong, however, in ascribing under-achievement in disadvantaged children to lack of ambition or aspiration. With the expansion of higher education in Britain, both rich and poor aim at university degrees. The poor, however, aspire to universities of lower status. Bruner wrote tentatively about the contribution of executive function skills to the achievement gap. More recent research has suggested a key aspect of executive function is the capacity to plan and to project oneself into the future. Planning emerges during the pre-school years and high quality early education can develop and sustain it; this is particularly important for children whose homes do not support this skill. This may be one powerful reason that the EPPSE study has shown the predictive effects of high quality curricular provision on academic achievement at age 16. (Recall that high quality staff–child relationships did not protect against social/economic risks to the family. Being ‘warm’ towards children does not support them in cognitive planning.) The good news for society is that pre-school attendance and pre-school quality should lead to savings for the Treasury, making early education a sound investment. Bruner would have been pleased at the economic analyses reported here on the benefits to society of pre-school education; he was a scholar committed to putting research to use in policy decisions.

Notes on contributor

Kathy Sylva is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oxford and a fellow at Jesus College. Her research focuses on ways that experiences in the family and at school shape the developing child, including ‘hard’ skills such as reading and ‘soft’ skills such as self regulation. She carries out longitudinal studies on children’s development as well as experimental interventions aimed at improving behaviour and literacy near the start of school. Throughout her work is a particular interest in the education and care of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges co-investigators on the EPPE/EPPSE longitudinal research team: Professors Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj and Ms Brenda Taggart. The economic analysis on the EPPSE database was carried out by Sarah Cattan, Claire Crawford and Lorraine Dearden at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The EPPE/EPPSE study was funded by the UK Department for Education.

Appendix

Stylised path diagram illustrating the Structural Equation Models used to establish whether pre-school could protect developmental abilities at entry to school (from Hall et al., 2013)

(^awith Welcomme, W. (2014) Observed Risks = 21 in total: 14 ‘Family’, 7 ‘Child’)