Working Paper Abstract

Children's Cognitive Skill Development in Britain and the United States
Robert T. Michael
http://www.harrisschool.uchicago.edu/faculty/web-pages/robert-michael.asp

Abstract:
The paper compares the cognitive test scores of children in Great Britain and the United States in vocabulary, reading, mathematics and memory of words and numbers. Children age 5-9 in Britain systematically out-perform their U.S. counterparts on reading, mathematics tests, while children age 10-14 show far fewer differences. In many of the comparisons, there are no statistical differences in the distributions of test scores between the British and United States children. The explanation for the observed differences between the younger children in the two nations in reading and mathematics may be the earlier age of entry into formal schooling in Britain. The similarity of the observed skills of the older children in the two nations, given the differences in social and economic conditions experienced by those children, challenges the notion that these differences are critically important in the children's cognitive development.

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