CREATE Open Seminar: Using a Developmental Perspective to Fill Empirical and Theoretical Gaps in "Opportunity Gap" Research

The “opportunity gap” explanation of social disparities in academic success is a powerful stylized fact in educational research. Yet nearly all empirical work on educational opportunities is piecemeal and atheoretical. Researchers tend to study educational opportunities in a single domain (e.g., literacy or mathematical or emotional or social), in a single context (e.g., home or preschool or primary school or secondary school or after school), during a single stage of children’s educational development. And they tend to do so without theoretical guidance on the complexities of child development. From a series of collaborative papers, I will present empirical and theoretical perspectives addressing (helping fill) these gaps in the opportunity gap literature.