Education and Family

  • Wicked Smart: Massachusetts’s Efforts to Turn Around a Failing School District

    Wicked Smart: Massachusetts’s Efforts to Turn Around a Failing School District

    Just 30 miles north of Boston on the Merrimack River is the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts. This industrial metropolitan area is home to almost 80,000 people, with a median household income of $32,851 and a poverty rate of 29.2 percent. Almost 40 percent of residents are immigrants, coming predominantly from…

  • Bullying in South Korea: A Long-Lasting Burden to Carry

    Bullying in South Korea: A Long-Lasting Burden to Carry

    In their research, Miguel Sarzosa and Sergio Urzúa examine how cognitive and non-cognitive skills can influence the occurrence of bullying, and how these skills can exacerbate the effects of bullying on outcomes such as depression, school attainment, satisfaction, and health.

  • Abortion and Access to Better Schools in Romania

    Abortion and Access to Better Schools in Romania

    In their paper, Ofer Malamud, Cristian Pop-Eleches, and Miguel Urquiola examine—through the combined use of regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference techniques—whether there is a positive interaction between family and school environments in Romania.

  • The Uneven Retreat from Marriage

    The Uneven Retreat from Marriage

    A study shows the ways in which demographic changes regarding marriage, divorce, and cohabitation in the past 50 years have fostered family inequality across socioeconomic groups, causing negative impacts for children.

  • An Intergenerational Analysis of the Impact of War on Child Soldiers

    An Intergenerational Analysis of the Impact of War on Child Soldiers

    Evidence suggests that a one-standard deviation change in the depression and anxiety levels of caregivers is associated with a 0.43-standard deviation change in the negative internalization of symptoms among youth in their care.

  • Does Changing Kindergarten Entry Cutoff Age Help Improve Educational Achievement?

    Does Changing Kindergarten Entry Cutoff Age Help Improve Educational Achievement?

    Research suggests that an earlier kindergarten entry date generally reduces the dispersion of test scores in fourth and eighth grades, which is seen as a measurement of the educational achievement gap among different socioeconomic groups.

  • True Colors: How Ethnic Studies Courses Can Help Minority High School Students

    True Colors: How Ethnic Studies Courses Can Help Minority High School Students

    New research shows promising impacts of Ethnic Studies courses for students in the San Francisco Unified School District.

  • The Impact of College Grant Aid Programs on Borrowing

    The Impact of College Grant Aid Programs on Borrowing

    Benjamin Marx and Lesley Turner use regression discontinuity to measure the impact of the Pell Grant Program on the borrowing decisions and educational attainment of college students at The City University of New York.

  • Assessing the Impact of Paid (Paternity) Leave

    Assessing the Impact of Paid (Paternity) Leave

    What happens when fathers are offered the option of taking time off of work during the first days following their child’s birth?

  • Early Childcare Especially Helps Children from Disorganized Households

    Early Childcare Especially Helps Children from Disorganized Households

    For children living in highly disorganized households, greater childcare hours may lead to more optimal cognitive and social outcomes.

  • Is Student Debt Hindering Entrepreneurship?

    Is Student Debt Hindering Entrepreneurship?

    Evidence suggests that a change in a household’s student debt from $0 to about $35,000 decreases entrepreneurship by three percentage points.