Schooling and Cognitive Outcomes from Childhood to Youth : A Longitudinal Analysis

The analysis in this chapter explores the relationships between cognitive skill development, schooling, and patterns of advantage and disadvantage at the child and household levels over time. It examines ‘skills gaps’ across a number of key factors of advantage and disadvantage, both within and between countries, and explores how these develop over the child's early life-course. In so doing, it considers the factors that contribute to early advantage in the development of cognitive skills (at the age of 8), and the potential role of formal schooling in enabling children to overcome early disadvantage later on (at the ages of 12 and 15)