Household Educational Resources

Children's educational environments are affected by the social class of their parents. Parents are their children's first teachers and the resources they use at home have important implications for child cognition, child social adjustment, and children's success in formal schooling. Children's educational environments begin at birth with the interactions they experience in their families.

Scholars have become increasingly attuned to the inequality of family resources as they impact young children's development, and have argued that by the time children reach school age, their educational environments have already prepared them either well or poorly for formal schooling. If children experience weak household learning environments during formal schooling, such lack of resources will further hinder school performance. Conversely, children who experience enriched home learning environments over time will ...