Neural mechanisms underlying the income-achievement gap: the role of the ventral visual stream

Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) households have lower academic achievement than their higher-SES peers. Growing evidence suggests that SES-related differences in brain regions supporting higher-order cognitive abilities may contribute to these differences in achievement. We investigate a novel hypothesis that differences in earlier-developing sensory networks—specifically the ventral visual stream (VVS), which is involved in processing visual stimuli—contribute to SES-related disparities in attention, executive functions, and academic outcomes. In a sample of children (6-8 years, n = 62), we use fMRI to investigate SES-related differences in neural function during two attentional tasks associated with academic achievement and involving interaction between visual processing and top-down control: (i) cued attention—the ability to use an external visual cue to direct spatial attention, and (ii) memory-guided attention—the ability to use past experience to direct spatial attention. SES-related differences emerged in recruitment of the anterior insula, inferior frontal gyrus, and VVS during cued attention. Critically, recruitment of the VVS during both tasks was associated with executive functions and academic achievement. VVS activation during cued attention mediated SES-related differences in academic achievement. Further, the link between VVS activation during both attention tasks and academic achievement was mediated by differences in executive functioning. These findings extend previous work by highlighting that (i) early-developing visual processing regions play an important role in supporting complex attentional processes, (ii) childhood SES is associated with VVS development, and (iii) individual differences in VVS function may be a neural mechanism in the emergence of the income-achievement gap.

Does curricular tracking explain global SES gaps? an international comparison of the SES achievement gaps from 2000 to 2015

The literature on achievement inequality has recently started to focus on the dynamics of the socio-economic achievement gap in cognitive abilities. The main findings come from research in the U.S. revealing that the 90th/10th income achievement gap has widened by about 50% in the last 30 years. This chapter aims to investigate whether there are discernible patterns in the evolution of the achievement gap from a comparative perspective. Using over 15 years of data and 32 countries from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), I find that there is considerable variation in the way in which the gap is evolving, with the U.S. and Germany closing at about 50% and 30% in the last 15 years while France is widening at a similar rate. I find that curricular tracking and vocational enrollment explain 40% of the variance in the achievement gap between countries and show that the relationship is conditioned by a strong interaction. Low curricular tracking is associated with a small achievement gap, whereas high levels of curricular tracking is associated with wide achievement gaps. However, once tracking is coupled with high vocational enrollment this can remedy the potential adverse effects and reduce the gap by over 1 standard deviation. I use simulations to show that switching to less curricular tracking can help decrease a country’s SES gap by about 11% while switching to more tracking would increase the achievement gap by about 51% percent.