IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0223056.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contextual variation in young children’s acquisition of social-emotional skills

Author

Listed:
  • Dana C McCoy
  • Jorge Cuartas
  • Marcus Waldman
  • Günther Fink

Abstract

This study examined variation in the timing of 5,447 infants’ and toddlers’ reported acquisition of 12 basic social-emotional skills across and within 11 developing and developed country sites. Although children differed significantly across sites in when they attained social-emotional skills on average (e.g., M age Brazil = 20.50 months vs. M age India = 26.92 months), there was also substantial heterogeneity across skills. For example, children in Pakistan were reported to demonstrate sympathy on average seven months earlier than their peers in Ghana, whereas the opposite was true for sharing. Overall, country-level health and education were strongly associated (r > .60) with earlier site-level skill attainment. In addition to heterogeneity across sites, we also observed notable within-site variability in skill development (ICCs = .03 to .38). Future research is needed to identify sources of variability and how to promote skills that matter within a given context.

Suggested Citation

  • Dana C McCoy & Jorge Cuartas & Marcus Waldman & Günther Fink, 2019. "Contextual variation in young children’s acquisition of social-emotional skills," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-13, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0223056
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223056
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223056&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0223056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lia C. H. Fernald & Elizabeth Prado & Patricia Kariger & Abbie Raikes, 2017. "A Toolkit for Measuring Early Childhood Development in Low and Middle-Income Countries," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 29000, December.
    2. Altafim, Elisa Rachel Pisani & McCoy, Dana Charles & Linhares, Maria Beatriz Martins, 2018. "Relations between parenting practices, socioeconomic status, and child behavior in Brazil," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 93-102.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Holla,Alaka & Bendini,Maria Magdalena & Dinarte Diaz,Lelys Ileana & Trako,Iva, 2021. "Is Investment in Preprimary Education Too Low ? Lessons from (Quasi) ExperimentalEvidence across Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9723, The World Bank.
    2. Orazio Attanasio & Helen Baker-Henningham & Raquel Bernal & Costas Meghir & Diana Pineda & Marta Rubio-Codina, 2022. "Early Stimulation and Nutrition: The Impacts of a Scalable Intervention," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1395-1432.
    3. Qi, Di & Wu, Yichao, 2020. "Family’s social economic status and child educational outcomes in China: The mediating effects of parenting practices and children’s learning attitudes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    4. Özler, Berk & Fernald, Lia C.H. & Kariger, Patricia & McConnell, Christin & Neuman, Michelle & Fraga, Eduardo, 2018. "Combining pre-school teacher training with parenting education: A cluster-randomized controlled trial," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 448-467.
    5. Jorge Luis García & James J. Heckman, 2022. "Parenting Promotes Social Mobility Within and Across Generations," NBER Working Papers 30610, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Buck,Lindsey & Fiala,Nathan V. & Prakash,Nishith & Sabarwal,Shwetlena & Saraswat,Deepak & Shrestha,Deepika, 2020. "Educator Knowledge of Early Childhood Development : Evidence from Eastern Nepal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9381, The World Bank.
    7. Orazio Attanasio & Raquel Bernal & Michele Giannola & Milagros Nores, 2021. "Child Development in the Early Years: Parental Investment and the Changing Dynamics of Different Domains," CSEF Working Papers 626, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    8. Belotti, Francine & Altafim, Elisa Rachel Pisani & Linhares, Maria Beatriz Martins, 2019. "Feasibility study of a preventive parenting program with mothers of children born preterm," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    9. Nores, Milagros & Bernal, Raquel & Barnett, W. Steven, 2019. "Center-based care for infants and toddlers: The aeioTU randomized trial," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 30-43.
    10. Lotto, Camila Regina & Altafim, Elisa Rachel Pisani & Linhares, Maria Beatriz Martins, 2022. "Feasibility and acceptability study of the online ACT-Raising Safe Kids program," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    11. Toran, Mehmet & Özden, Bülent, 2022. "Are there any changes in mothers' attitudes? Analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on child-rearing attitudes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Xu, Yanfeng & Man, Xiaoou & Zhang, Lixia & DeForge, Bruce, 2020. "Family foster care and children’s outcomes in China: Evidence from a scoping review," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    13. Lawrenz, Priscila & Yousafzai, Aisha Khizar & Habigzang, Luísa Fernanda, 2021. "ACT Raising Safe Kids Program improves parenting practices, beliefs about physical punishment, management of anger, and mental health: Initial evidence from a study in Brazil," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    14. Raquel Bernal & Michele Giannola & Milagros Nores, 2022. "The Effect of Center-Based Early Education on Disadvantaged Children's Developmental Trajectories: Experimental Evidence from Colombia," Working Papers 2022-027, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    15. Sue Woolfenden & Kate Milner & Kali Tora & Kelera Naulumatua & Reapi Mataika & Fleur Smith & Raghu Lingam & Joseph Kado & Ilisapeci Tuibeqa, 2020. "Strengthening Health Systems to Support Children with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in Fiji—A Commentary," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-11, February.
    16. Alves, Claudia R.L. & Gaspardo, Claudia M. & Altafim, Elisa R.P. & Linhares, Maria Beatriz M., 2022. "Effectiveness of a longitudinal psychosocial intervention to strengthen mother–child interactions: The role of biological and contextual moderators," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. Orazio Attanasio & Raquel Bernal & Michele Giannola & Milagros Nores, 2020. "Child Development in the Early Years: Parental Investment and the Changing Dynamics of Different Dimensions," NBER Working Papers 27812, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Rubio-Codina, Marta & Grantham-McGregor, Sally, 2020. "Validez predictiva de pruebas cortas comúnmente usadas para medir el desarrollo infantil en estudios a gran escala," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 10868, Inter-American Development Bank.
    19. Liu, Qianqian & Zhou, Nan & Cao, Hongjian & Hong, Xiumin, 2020. "Family socioeconomic status and Chinese young children’ social competence: Parenting processes as mediators and contextualizing factors as moderators," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    20. Sarah Cattan & Christine Farquharson & Sonya Krutikova & Andrew McKendrick & Almudena Sevilla, 2023. "Parental labour market instability and children's mental health during the pandemic," IFS Working Papers W23/21, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0223056. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.