Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T14:44:56.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Continuity and Discontinuity in Middle Childhood: Implications for Adult Outcomes in the UK 1970 Birth Cohort

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2009

Leon Feinstein
Affiliation:
Reader in the Economics of Education, Institute of Education, University of London
John Bynner
Affiliation:
Professor of Social Sciences in Education, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Bedford Group, Institute of Education, University of London
Aletha C. Huston
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Marika N. Ripke
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Get access

Summary

There is a large body of evidence pointing to the importance of the early years of life, in laying the foundations for later childhood development and adult outcomes. The early years – by which we mean the period from birth to age 5 – encompass infancy and the preschool period before kindergarten and formal schooling begin. It is a period of far greater change in apparent abilities, propensities, and physical constitution and brain development than at any other time (Caviness, Philipek, & Kennedy, 1993). The basic elements of cognitive and behavioral functioning are set down during this period as are the more intangible elements of development bound up with “risk” and “protection” (Rutter, 1990; Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, & Maritato, 1997; Bynner, 2001; Schoon et al., 2002). These include family circumstances and the behavior and values of parents as well as the individual attributes of children concerned with disposition and temperament through which personality is formed. Such characteristics lie at the heart of children's resilience or vulnerability to adversity on which much subsequent success will depend.

For these reasons, much attention has been given to interventions in the early years that halt or reverse the negative processes that will impede performance on entry into school. Such initiatives as Early Head Start in the United States and Sure Start in Great Britain (Glass, 1999) reflect the well-established belief in policy circles that the earlier intervention begins, the greater the returns to government investment, reinforcing the personal and external resources that children bring with them into the school age period (Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 1993).

Type
Chapter
Information
Developmental Contexts in Middle Childhood
Bridges to Adolescence and Adulthood
, pp. 327 - 349
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brimer, M. A., and Dunn, L. M. (1968). English Picture and Vocabulary Test. Newnham, U.K.: Educational Evaluation Enterprises.Google Scholar
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brooks-Gunn, J., Duncan, G. J., & Maritato, N. (1997). Poor families, poor outcomes: The well-being of children and youth. In Duncan, G. J. & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.), Consequences of growing up poor (pp. 1–17). New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Butler, N. R., Haslum, M. N., Barker, W., & Morris, A. C. (1982). Child health and education study. First report to the Department of Education and Science on the 10-Year follow-up. Bristol: Department of Child Health, University of Bristol.Google Scholar
Bynner, J. (2001). Childhood risks and protective factors in social exclusion. Children and Society, 15, 285–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, D. (1999). The causal effect of education on earnings. In Ashenfelter, O. & Card, D. (Eds.), Handbook of labor economics: Vol. 3. North Holland: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Caspi, A., Elder, G. H., & Herbener, E. S. (1990). Childhood personality and the prediction of life's course patterns. In Robins, L. & Rutter, M. (Eds.), Straight and devious pathways from childhood to adulthood (pp. 13–35). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Entner Wright, B. R., & Silva, P. A. (1998). Early failure in the labour market: Childhood and adolescent predictors of unemployment in the transition to adulthood. American Sociological Review, 63, 424–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caviness, V. S., Philipek, P. A., & Kennedy, D. N. (1993). Longitudinal research and biology of human brain development and behavior. In Magnusson, D. & Casear, P. (Eds), Longitudinal research on individual development: Present status and future perspectives (pp. 60–74). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, A. M., & Clarke, A. D. B. (1998). Early experience: Myth and evidence. London: Open Books.Google Scholar
Davis-Kean, P. E., & Magnuson, K. (2005). The influence of parent education and family income on child achievement: The indirect role of parental expectations and the home environment. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 294–304.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DfES (2002). Education and skills – Delivering the results: A strategy to 2006. London: Department for Education and Skills.
Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. (Eds.). (2002). Communities and youth: Investing in our future. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Elder, G. H. (1998). The life course and human development. In Lerner, R. M. (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Farrington, D. P. (2000). Explaining and preventing crime: The globalization of knowledge: The American Society of Criminology 1999 Presidential Address. Criminology, 38, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinstein, L. (2000). The relative economic importance of academic, psychological and behavioral attributes developed in childhood. Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper, No. 443.
Feinstein, L. (2002). Quantitative estimates of the social benefits of learning: 1: Crime (Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report 5). London: Institute of Education.Google Scholar
Feinstein, L. (2003). Inequality in the early cognitive development of British children in the 1970 cohort. Economica, 70, 73–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinstein, L., & Symons, J. (1999). Attainment in secondary school. Oxford Economic Papers, 51, 300–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferri, E., Bynner, J., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2003). Changing Britain: Changing lives. London: Bedford Way Papers, Institute of Education.Google Scholar
Garmezy, N. (1993). Developmental psychopathology: Some historical and current perspectives. In Magnusson, D. & Casaer, P. (Eds.), Longitudinal research in individual development: Present status and future perspectives (pp. 95–126). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glass, N. (1999). Sure Start: The development of and early intervention programme for young children in the United Kingdom. Children and Society, 13, 257–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581–586.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodman, R. (2001). Psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1337–1345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregg, P., & Wadsworth, M. (1996). More work in fewer households. In Hills, J. (Ed.), New inequalities: The changing distribution of income and wealth in the U.K.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, C. (2002). Learning to be healthy (The Wider Benefits of Learning Papers: No. 3). London: Institute of Education.Google Scholar
Harris, D. B. (1963). Children's drawings as measures of intellectual maturity. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.Google Scholar
Hartup, W. W. (2002). Growing points in developmental science: A summing up. In Hartup, W. W. & Silbereisen, R. K. (Eds.), Growing points in developmental science (pp. 329–344). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Kagan, J. (1998). Three seductive ideas. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Koppitz, E. M. (1968). Psychological evaluation of children's human figure drawings. New York: Grure and Stratton.Google Scholar
Lerner, R. (1996). Relative plasticity, integration, temporality and diversity in human development. Developmental Psychology, 32, 781–786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moffitt, T. E., & Harrington H. L. (1996). Delinquency: The natural history of antisocial behaviour. In Silva, P. A. & Stanton, W. R. (Eds.), Child to Adult (pp. 163–185). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pilling, D. (1990). Escape from disadvantage. London: The Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Ramey, C., & Ramey, S. (2000). Persistent effects of early childhood education on high risk children and their mothers. Applied Developmental Science, 4, 2–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, D., & Symons, J. (2003). Do peer groups matter? Peer group versus schooling effects on academic attainment. Economica, 70, 31–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robins, L., & Rutter, M. (1990). Straight and devious pathways from childhood to adulthood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rutter, M. (1967). A children's behavior questionnaire for completion by teachers: Preliminary findings. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 8, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutter, M. (1990). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. In Rolf, J., Masten, A. S., Cicchetti, D., Nuechterlein, K. H., & Weintraub, S. (Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutter, M., Tizard, J., & Whitmore, K. (1970). Education, health and behavior. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Sanford, M., Offord, D., McLeod, K., Boyle, M., Byrne, C., & Hall, B. (1993). Pathways into the workforce: Antecedents of school and workforce status. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 33, 1036–1046.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, H. R. (2002). The early experience assumption: Past, present and future, in Hartup, W. W., & Silbereisen, R. K. (Eds.), Growing points in developmental science. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Schoon, I., Bynner, J., Joshi, H., Parsons, S., Wiggins, R. D., & Sacker, A. (2002). The influence, timing and duration of risk experiences for the passage of childhood to midadulthood. Child Development, 73, 1486–1504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schweinhart, L. J., Barnes, H. V., & Weikart, D. P. (1993). Significant benefits: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study through age 27. Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 10.Google Scholar
UK Government Social Exclusion Unit. (1998). Bringing Britain together: A national strategy for neighbourhood renewal. London: The Stationery Office.
Werner, E. E. (1989). Vulnerability and resiliency: A longitudinal perspective. In Bambring, M., Lsel, F., & Skowronick, H. (Eds.), Children at risk: Assessment, longitudinal research and intervention. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Yeung, W. J., Linver, M. R., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2002). How money matters for young children's development: Investment and family process. Child Development, 73, 1861–1879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×