Abstract
In a longitudinal sample from Britain, we tested if attending private, fee-charging schools rather than non-selective state schools benefitted children's social-emotional development. State (N=2,413) and private school children (N=269) showed no differences in well-being across adolescence, but private school children reported fewer behaviour problems and greater peer victimisation over time than state schoolers. These results were independent of schools' selection criteria, including family background, and prior academic and cognitive performance. At age 21, private and state school students differed marginally in social-emotional behaviours, such as self-control, volunteering, sexual conduct, and substance use. After considering schools' selection criteria, only risk taking and age at having the first alcoholic drink differed between private and state school children, with the privately educated ones being less risk averse and drinking at younger ages than those attending state school. Our results suggest that private education adds little positive value to children's social-emotional development.
Highlights
Key characteristics of private school education include a classical academic curriculum, distinct extracurricular activities, and a boarding school structure (Reeves et al, 2017)
Private school children increased in peer victimisation (s = .147), while state school students showed a reduction in peer victimisation over time (s = −.017)
Restricting the regression coefficients to be equal across groups, in addition to restricting the means of the latent factors, did not result in a significantly worsened model fit for behaviour problems and peer victimisation (χ2diff behaviour (6) = 5.65, p = .464; χ2diff peer (6) = 10.20, p = .117). (Well-being was not included in this analysis step, because the latent growth factors did not differ between private and state school students.) Restricting regression coefficients individually did not result in significant worse model fit for behaviour problems and peer victimisation. These findings suggest that the observed differences in the development of behaviour problems and peer victimisation could not be attributed to the influence of the school selection criteria family background, prior academic performance, and prior cognitive ability
Summary
Key characteristics of private school education include a classical academic curriculum (they are exempted from the United Kingdom’s national curricula), distinct extracurricular activities, and a boarding school structure (Reeves et al, 2017). Private schools expend greater educational resources than state schools for their pupils; for example, they afford better qualified teachers (Broughton et al, 2014), and smaller classrooms with lower pupil–teacher ratios (1:9 in private vs 1:18 in state schools; Independent Schools Council, 2019) The combination of these factors is thought to yield an educational experience that enriches children’s academic achievement and social–emotional development to a greater extent than state education does. A recent analysis of more than 4,000 children from England and Wales showed that school type explained less than 1% of the variance in national examination scores at age 16 (i.e., GCSEs), once school’s selection criteria were included (Smith-Woolley et al, 2018) This finding suggests that the privilege of family background, rather than the type of school, informs privately educated children’s superior academic achievement. Social–emotional behaviours are important drivers of success in postsecondary education and in professional contexts (Roberts & Robins, 2000; Rothmann & Coetzer, 2003; von Stumm, Gale, Batty, & Deary, 2009), suggesting that they may be an important pathway for the transmission of the advantages of private education for later status attainment (Green et al, 2017)
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