Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap (PDF; 126 KB)
Sourcce: American Sociological Review (American Sociological Association)
From press release:

The April 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review (ASR) offers new insights as to why low-income children lag behind their more privileged classmates in high school graduation rates and college attendance. In “Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap,” Johns Hopkins University sociologists Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, and Linda Steffel Olson find the difference in children’s future academic success can be explained, in part, by their experiences during their summer vacations.

The study contends that there is a summer learning gap between lower- and higher-income children and it begins during elementary school. Higher-income children’s home environments are resource rich. They are more likely to have access to magazines, books, and have their parents read to them. Consequently, this gap accumulates over the years and results in unequal placements in college preparatory tracks once the children get to high school. The gap also increases the chances that children from low socio-economic families will drop out of high school and decreases their chances of attending a four-year college.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 at 9:25 am and is filed under Children and families, Education, K-12, Poverty, Social and cultural issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.