Publication Summary
This is a review of the evidence for any causal links leading from the attitudes, aspirations and behaviour of children and parents (AABs) to educational outcomes defined as attainment and participation. The review is firmly predicated on the desire of the funder, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, to be surer about whether working to improve AABs for less advantaged families would have an effect on school outcomes. If so, and if lower SES families generally portray less aspiration, lower motivation, or poorer behaviour for example, then working with AABs might be part of the solution to reducing the poverty gap in attainment. On the other hand, if AABs are not stratified by SES or do not have an effect on educational outcomes then this approach is a much less promising way forward. In the struggle to reduce the stratification of school outcomes by poverty, a focus on AABs may be a red herring or worse. That is why this review is significant. However, clearly neither the funders nor the reviewers accept as a premise that poverty should continue to exist, or that more promising and direct attempts to overcome the transmission of disadvantage should be ignored.
CAER Authors
Prof. Stephen Gorard
University of Durham - Professor in the School of Education