Growing Up in Poverty: Findings from Young Lives

294 Pages·2014·1.12 MB·English

by  Michael Bourdillon, Jo Boyden (eds.)

Growing Up in Poverty: Findings from Young Lives
Palgrave Studies on Children and Development
Series editors:
Michael Bourdillon, Emeritus Professor, Department of Sociology, University
of Zimbabwe
Jo Boyden, Director of Young Lives, Department of International Development,
University of Oxford, UK
Roy Huijsmans, Senior Lecturer, International Institute of Social Studies,
Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
There has been increased attention to children and development, and children’s
development, in international policy debates in recent years, reflected in the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the child-centred
focus of United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. This is based first on
the interests of children according to their human rights, and second, a recogni-
tion of the importance of children for societal development. However, despite
this increasing focus on policies and programmes (and budgets) to support chil-
dren, relatively little has been written to draw together the lessons of develop-
ment policy and practice as well as research into children’s development over the
life-course.
This series will start off with a mini series of three books from Young Lives, a
unique 15-year longitudinal study of childhood poverty in developing countries.
It will also incorporate other edited or single author volumes, from a range of
disciplines, which relate to and reflect the work being done by Young Lives on
children and development, but broaden debates into the wider childhood studies
field. A particular strength will be the ability to bring together material that links
issues from developed and developing countries, as they affect children. As such
the series will present original and valuable new data for an important and grow-
ing field of scholarship.
Titles include:
Childhood Poverty: Multidisciplinary Approaches
Growing Up in Poverty: Findings from Young Lives
Palgrave Studies on Children and Development
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–31924–0 hardback
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–00619–6 paperback
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–00620–2 ebook
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a stand-
ing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the
address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBNs
quoted above.
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Growing Up in Poverty
Findings from Young Lives
Edited by
Michael Bourdillon
Emeritus Professor, University of Zimbabwe
and
Jo Boyden
Director, Young Lives, Department of International Development,
University of Oxford, UK
Editorial matter, selection, introduction and conclusion © Michael Bourdillon
and Jo Boyden 2014
Individual chapters © respective authors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-40402-2
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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The authors have asserted their rights to be identified
as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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ISBN 978-1-349-48716-5 ISBN 978-1-137-40403-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137404039
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Contents
List of Tables vii
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Notes on Contributors xv
Introduction: Child Poverty and the Centrality
of Schooling 1
Michael Bourdillon and Jo Boyden
Part I Poverty and the Lives of Growing Children 21
1 How Does Where Children Live Affect How They Develop?
Evidence from Communities in Ethiopia and Vietnam 23
Paul Dornan and María José Ogando Portela
2 Family Socio-economic Status, Mother’s Psychosocial
Skills, and Children’s Human Capital: Evidence from Four
Low- and Middle-Income Countries 51
Andreas Georgiadis and Priscila Hermida
3 Risk and Protective Factors for Children Experiencing
Adverse Events 71
María José Ogando Portela and Kirrily Pells
4 Gender, Agency, and Poverty: Children’s Everyday
Experiences in Andhra Pradesh and Vietnam 95
Gina Crivello, Vu Thi Thanh Huong, and Uma Vennam
Part II How Does Schooling Help Poor People? 115
5 Schooling and Cognitive Outcomes from Childhood
to Youth: A Longitudinal Analysis 117
Caine Rolleston and Zoe James
6 Changes in Rural Children’s Use of Time: Evidence
from Ethiopia and Andhra Pradesh 139
Virginia Morrow, Yisak Tafere, and Uma Vennam
v
vi Contents
7 The Role of Formal Education in the Subjective Well-being
of Young Teenagers in Rural and Urban Peru 161
Alexandra Cussianovich and Vanessa Rojas
8 Fulfilling the Promise of School Education? Factors
Shaping Education Inequalities in Ethiopia, India,
Peru, and Vietnam 181
Helen Murray
9 How Much Difference Does School Make and For Whom?
A Two-Country Study of the Impact of School Quality
on Educational Attainment 201
Sofya Krutikova, Caine Rolleston, and Elisabetta Aurino
10 Ethnic Minority Children’s and Adults’ Perceptions
and Experiences of Schooling in Vietnam: A Case Study
of the Cham H’Roi 225
Vu Thi Thanh Huong
11 Educational Opportunities and Learning Outcomes
of Children in Peru: A Longitudinal Model 245
Santiago Cueto, Juan León, and Ismael G. Muñoz
12 Reflections: Inequality, School, and Social Change 269
Jo Boyden and Michael Bourdillon
Index 281
List of Tables
0.1 Schooling levels, duration, and children’s ages 11
1.1 Child outcomes in Young Lives communities
(8-year-olds, Ethiopia) 35
1.2 Child outcomes in Young Lives communities
(8-year-olds, Vietnam) 36
1.3 Correlations between indicators at site level
(8-year-olds, Ethiopia and Vietnam) 37
1.4 Ethiopia: Household and community mathematics
score d eterminants at the age of 8 42
1.5 Vietnam: Household and community mathematics
score d eterminants at the age of 8 43
2.1 Descriptive statistics for dependent and independent
variables across countries 55
2.2 Regression results for child’s PPVT score 57
2.3 Regression results for child’s psychosocial skills index 59
2.4 Regression results for child’s PPVT score including child’s
psychosocial skills index in the explanatory variables 62
A2.1 Summated scale for child’s psychosocial skills
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.62) 67
A2.2 Summated scale for caregiver’s psychosocial skills
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.67) 68
3.1 Incidence of self-reported shocks and households’
perceptions of their importance (%) 74
3.2 Probability of households reporting experiencing
a shock in 2009 according to household characteristics
collected in 2006 (Ethiopia) 81
3.3 Effect of selected shocks on children’s BMI z-scores 86
vii
viii List of Tables
3.4 Effect of selected shocks on children’s mathematics
standardized achievement tests 87
3.5 Effect of selected shocks on children’s agency 88
5.1 School enrolment by country and age 122
5.2 Mathematics test scores at the age of 15 for the most-
and least-a dvantaged groups 126
A5.1 Numeracy outcomes 132
A5.2 Reading and writing outcomes: Ethiopia and India 134
A5.3 Reading and writing outcomes: Peru and Vietnam 136
A5.4 Cognitive skill outcomes (PPVT vocabulary measure) 137
6.1 Ethiopia: Enrolment of children in school,
trends over time, 2002–09 (%) 142
6.2 Main activities of case study children in Tach-Meret 144
6.3 Main activities of case study children in Poompuhar 151
8.1 Achievement deficits of (average) stunted children
compared to non-stunted children (aged 12) 184
8.2 Reasons for dropping out of school in Ethiopia,
by gender and location 188
9.1 Mean test score in mathematics by pre-school
household wealth quartile: Peru and Vietnam 211
9.2 Mean scores in mathematics by school quality quartile 214
9.3 Mean standardized estimates of school quality
(measured in test score points) by pre-school
wealth quartile 215
9.4 Gaps in attainment and school quality between
children from more- and less-advantaged backgrounds 218
10.1 Education histories of the Cham H’Roi children
in the Young Lives qualitative sub-sample 230
11.1 Educational characteristics of children by individual
and family variables 253
List of Tables ix
11.2 Predictive factors behind dependent mediator variables
(standardized coefficients reported) 260
11.3 Predictive factors behind children’s verbal skills
at age 8 (2009) (standardized coefficients reported) 261
11.4 Predictive factors behind children’s mathematics
achievements at age 8 (2009) (standardized coefficients
reported) 262