What is schools’ role in the stratification system? One view is that schools are an important mechanism for perpetuating inequality because children from advantaged backgrounds (white and high socioeconomic) enjoy better school learning environments than their disadvantaged peers. But it is difficult to know this with confidence because children’s development is a product of both school and nonschool factors, making it a challenge to isolate school’s role. A novel approach for isolating school effects is to estimate the difference in learning when school is in versus out, what is called impact. Scholars employing this strategy have come to a remarkable conclusion—that schools serving disadvantaged children produce as much learning as those serving advantaged children. The empirical basis for this position is modest, however, and so we address several shortcomings of the previous research by analyzing a nationally representative sample of about 3,500 children in 270 schools from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort of 2011. With more comprehensive data and better scales, we also find no difference in impact on reading scores across schools serving poor or black children versus those serving nonpoor or white children. These patterns challenge the view that differences in school quality play an important role shaping achievement gaps and prompt us to reconsider theoretical positions regarding schools and inequality.

Objective This article analyzes the relationship between educational aspirations and fertility aspirations early in the life course in three different settings. Background The negative relationship between women's educational attainment and childbearing is one of the most consistent associations in social science. Family scholars have a more limited understanding of the relationship between educational aspirations and fertility aspirations before childbearing or union formation. Method The authors use data collected in Jalisco, Mexico; Gaza, Mozambique; and Chitwan Valley, Nepal as part of the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes project. They estimate nested Poisson regressions to model the relationship between adolescent educational aspirations and desired family size, controlling for individual‐ and household‐level sociodemographic variables as well as adolescent beliefs and values. Results On average, adolescents who desire more education want fewer children in unadjusted models. In Mozambique and Nepal, this association is attenuated in models accounting for household characteristics. In Mexico, the association persists after incorporating these factors, but the inclusion of individual aspirations attenuates the relationship between educational aspirations and desired family size. In Mozambique, the association of educational aspirations with desired family size is moderated by gender. Conclusion As young people enter adolescence, their desires for education and childbearing are inversely related, but the mechanisms driving this association vary across contexts. This variation may be related to linkages between education, social status, and family values.

Adolescent mental health has implications for current and future wellbeing. While a link exists between poverty and mental health, little is known about how experiencing material hardship, such as insecurity of food, housing, utilities, and medical care, throughout early childhood affects adolescent mental health. We examine the relationship between material hardship in childhood and adolescent mental health. We use Poisson regression to examine the effect of material hardship experienced at different stages of childhood on adolescent depression and anxiety outcomes at age 15. We use longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study ( N = 3,222). We find that recently experiencing material hardship during childhood is positively and significantly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms at age 15, even when controlling for material hardship at age 15. Additionally, we find that insecurity during mid-childhood and the stress of lacking basic needs during a critical age may influence mental health in adolescence.

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2016),"Reflections on the value and impact of library and information services: Part 3: towards an assessment culture", Performance Measurement and Metrics, Vol. 17 Iss 1 pp. 29-44 http:// dx.