Thinking of home learning environments when countries have high income inequality

Contributing author: Siyu Ma

This article was written as part of the TalkTogether’s academic blog writing programme for early career researchers.

Based on: Nag, S., Vagh, S. B., Dulay, K. M., Snowling, M., Donolato, E., & Melby-Lervåg, M. (2024). Home learning environments and children’s language and literacy skills: A meta-analytic review of studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries. Psychological Bulletin, 150(2), 132-153. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000417 

Income inequality (i.e., the distribution of wealth across a country) is increasing rapidly in many parts of the world, both in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries as well as high-income economies. It appears that growing up in countries with large income inequality has a negative impact on children’s health, school performance, and wellbeing [1, 2]. However, for children in LMI countries with large income inequality, the consequence could be worse developmental outcomes. This is because children from poor families in LMI countries are arguably exposed to a wider range, greater quantity, and higher intensity of risk factors compared to their counterparts in high-income countries [3]. But then, how does the country-level income inequality at the macrolevel relate to families and their children at the microlevel? And what are the possible mechanisms that link these factors together? So far, we do not have enough targeted research on the pathways of impact from a country’s economic status to individual children’s experience of learning opportunities. A good place to begin is to unpack their linkages with home learning environments, a focus of a recent meta-analysis from TalkTogether [4].

The home and child outcomes

The bioecological model [5, 6] is a useful starting point when seeking to understand layers of influence on a child. This model posits that child outcomes depend on a myriad of bidirectional factors relating to the child and different levels of the environment. 

At the macrolevel, influential factors are laws, and the economic and sociopolitical systems of the country, including its income inequality. Nested within these macrosystems is the microsystem, which encompasses the ‘proximal processes’ in the child’s immediate environments such as the home and the school [6]. Indeed, it is widely recognised that the environments which children grow up in are major determinants of their educational achievement, and the home environment seems particularly crucial in the early years. 

Within the home environment, the attributes that link to the child’s language and literacy development are termed as the home language and literacy environment (HLLE) [7]. The HLLE refers to the languages and the literacy-related resources and practices in the home. The dynamics of languages could be the languages spoken to the child at home, and whether the home languages match the school language. Literacy-related resources include books, magazines, newspapers, and media resources (e.g., radio, TV, smartphone) at home. Literacy practices could be, for example, shared reading between family members and the child, teaching the child how to write their name, library visits, parental leisure habits, and other literacy-intensive pursuits [8, 9, 10].

Extensive research from high-income countries has shown that a rich HLLE benefits children’s language and literacy development. For example, when the child engages in shared book reading with a family member, the verbal communications related to the storyline, characters, and pictures in the book are likely to improve the child’s oral language skills as they gradually learn more vocabulary in the process. The vocabulary size eventually contributes to their reading comprehension, so that they grasp what a long stretch of text is trying to convey [11, 12]. Likewise, when family members directly teach how to read and write, the child learns to transform printed symbols into sounds, which is essentially their decoding skill [8, 13]. 

What do we not know yet?

The associations between HLLE and child language and literacy are well supported by studies in high-income countries, but less research has been done in LMI countries. This could be a problem especially for families of lower socioeconomic status in LMI countries. In these households, there may be few or no literacy-related resources, low or no interactions around storybooks, and the family members may know the school language to a limited extent or not know how to speak it at all [14,15]. When these factors come into play, the picture may look even more complicated – the associations between HLLE and child language and literacy may be weakened or strengthened. Meanwhile, viewed through the bioecological lens [6], we know that the home as a microlevel factor is influenced by factors at the macrolevel, which includes country-level income inequality. 

Although many researchers have investigated how income inequality impacts on children’s development in general, only a few have looked at it in relation to HLLE and its association with children’s language and literacy skills. For instance, Park [16] revealed that the associations between home attributes and child language and literacy varied greatly across countries and found the differences could be partially explained by their level of economic development. Yet the author did not explore the role of within-country income inequality. Altogether, we do not have a clear picture of the link between economic development, HLLE and child language and literacy in LMI countries, and specifically how within-country income inequality at the macrolevel could impact this link.

What is TalkTogether research showing?

At TalkTogether, Nag et al. combined results from different studies and datasets on home attributes and child outcomes to get a more comprehensive and reliable understanding of the overall situation. The research team delved into 6,678 statistical relationships from studies in 43 LMI countries and conducted a meta-analysis [4]. This approach to examining the data is like looking at the bigger picture by bringing together the snapshots provided by individual studies. The studies included in the meta-analysis explored the associations between the HLLE and children’s language and literacy skills (e.g., vocabulary, name writing, list reading, reading comprehension), and covered preschool children (aged 3 years) up to Grade 8 children.

In this bigger picture, significant associations between HLLE and children’s language and literacy skills in LMI countries were found but these were much smaller in size compared to associations reported in high-income countries. This does not mean the home attributes are not important enablers for child outcomes or that they do not make a positive difference for children’s language and literacy skills in LMI countries. In fact, the association was stronger in studies with customised assessments which took account of the local realities and were therefore more situated in their research context. However, many studies included in this meta-analysis had applied common measures developed elsewhere to their own context. The authors argue that the real differences in populations across countries may be better detected after using assessments that accurately represent how homes are in different contexts. This is particularly important for research in LMI countries which are diverse in many ways including, for example, in their languages, writing systems, and home resources.

Notably for this writing is that among the 43 LMI countries, the association between HLLE and child outcomes was larger in countries with greater income inequality compared to countries with a relatively more even distribution of wealth. That is to say, the HLLE contributes even more to individual differences in children’s language and literacy development when there is a large income inequality at the country level. 

Perhaps this means that, where there are huge differences in the financial status across a country, some families might have limited access to literacy-related resources and activities than others, which in turn affects child outcomes. In essence, this could happen because the countries with high income inequality are particularly falling short in supporting their most disadvantaged families [17, 18]. 

Altogether, the findings suggest that the HLLE as a microsystem is potentially affected in a far-reaching way by differences in access that exist in the economic and sociopolitical system of a country at the macrolevel. 

What is left to explore?

With that said, it is not clear exactly how the income inequality affects children’s language and literacy skills because we do not know how their daily lives at home, especially the literacy-related home attributes, are affected by this macrolevel factor. Studies are needed to examine how country-level income inequality relates to the different dimensions of the home learning environment, including books at home, home tutoring, adult literacy practices, and home-school connections [7]. Further studies are also needed to examine how income inequality relates to child language and literacy, possibly via the mediation of home learning environments. 

Conclusion

The meta-analysis by Nag et al. [4] demonstrates that there is a link between home environments and children’s language and literacy skills, and that this link is stronger in countries with larger income inequality. This finding appears to suggest that when there is higher within-country income inequality, families who struggle the most to provide resources to their children receive the least support. Leaving the most vulnerable families the least supported can then further widen the education gap between socio-economic groups. However, the real reasons for this finding – the possible mechanisms that link country-level income inequality with child language and literacy – are yet to be explored. 

About the Author

Siyu Ma is a DPhil candidate at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research interests include home learning environment, sibling relationship quality, and early language and literacy development.

References

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