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Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Spring 2007
Note from the Director
One of PRI's major research themes is Inequality and Opportunity, and a key area of emphasis within this theme is the Demography of Education. PRI researchers from Education, Sociology, Rural Sociology and other disciplines are studying the roles of families, schools, and communities in educational outcomes -- and the influence of education on economic inequality and demographic behavior. Focusing on processes that begin in infancy and continue through young adulthood, PRI researchers are investigating topics such as school readiness, early reading and mathematics skills, academic success in primary and secondary school, and the transition to postsecondary education.
Several of PRI's projects which have recently received external funding examine education issues. Building on several prior studies that were funded by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, Anastasia Snyder and Diane McLaughlin have recently been awarded USDA funding for a four-year project, Education Careers and Migration of Rural Youth: What's Happening to Rural America's Future? The main objective of this study is to better understand the choices and outcomes facing today's rural youth, and how the educational and occupational attainment process for rural youth might be unique and closely linked with residential migration. Analyses of primary and secondary data will examine education, career and migration outcomes, highlighting the intersection of these three outcomes in the paths rural youth take from adolescence to adulthood.
George Farkas and Paul Morgan have also been awarded funding for their two-year project, Instructional Effects on Achievement Growth of Children with Learning Difficulties in Mathematics. Funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, this project will use ECLS-K data to identify the most effective type of instruction in the early school years for children with, or at risk for, mathematics disabilities. The study should contribute to the early identification, prevention, and remediation of mathematics disabilities. Farkas and Morgan have also conducted other research on special education. What's Special About Special Education? Modeling the Determinants and Consequences of Special Education Placement Using the ECLS-K, a project funded by the American Education Research Association, investigated the factors driving the increasing placement of children into special education and the consequences of such placement for children's cognitive and behavioral development.
Suet-Ling Pong, with funding from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, is currently studying links between the family and educational outcomes. Her research examines the processes through which mainland-Chinese immigrant families help or hinder their children's academic achievement in Hong Kong. Pong has also been named a Spencer Residence Fellow for Fall 2007. With Lingxin Hao (Johns Hopkins University), she will use the propensity score matching method and counterfactual models to understand the causal relations between neighborhood characteristics and immigrant children's education. In addition, David Post was named a "New Century Scholar" in 2007 by the International Institute of Education's Fulbright program. Post joins a cohort of 10 other Americans and 20 foreign scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, who will jointly collaborate in the broad theme of "Equity and Access in Higher Education."
PRI researchers are also engaged in research on the demographic consequences of education. David Baker and other Penn State colleagues have developed a "schooling-cognition" hypothesis about the causal role of formal education in the demographic transition of modern society. While most demographers and health researchers acknowledge the persistent and significant association between formal schooling and health outcomes, including reduced mortality and positive health behaviors, why education has this influence is not understood. In a project funded by a seed grant from Penn State's Children, Youth, and Families Consortium, Baker is comparing unschooled and moderately schooled adults on their numeracy ability, cognitive development, reasoning abilities, and decision-making skills related to everyday health risks, such as alcohol consumption, in the Andes and Amazon jungle regions of Peru. Baker and Francis Dodoo plan to extend this line of research with a study of the effect of formal education on HIV attitudes, knowledge, and sexual behavior in the Demographic Health Survey data from Ghana and other sub-Saharan African nations.
The importance of understanding the factors contributing to educational outcomes and clarifying the mechanisms through which education affects economic and health outcomes cannot be overstated. Although only a few of the relevant projects could be summarized here, education is the focus of numerous PRI research projects. Additional information about the newly funded projects can be found in the New External Research Funding section of this newsletter.
Nancy Landale
Director
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