Professor Ariel Kalil
Associate Investigator
University of Chicago
This event was recorded. Watch it here:
The gap in skill development between advantaged and disadvantaged children is large in the United States and has hardly narrowed over the last generation. Policies in the United States have not reduced this gap by much. Perhaps the only viable, sustainable, and cost-effective solution to narrowing the skill gap is to engage parents in the process. By far most learning takes place outside of schools and in environments selected and controlled by parents. This talk documents the ways in which parent engagement in child learning differs between advantaged and disadvantaged parents and how these differences affect child skills. It focuses on theories from cognitive science that try to account for gaps in the standard economic model. It also describes our recent research using behavioral tools and technology showing how these tools can help disadvantaged parents overcome cognitive barriers that prevent them from engaging in their children’s learning.