In very safe neighborhoods, curiosity does not differ between lower-resourced and higher-resourced children, while a gap appears in fairly safe neighborhoods¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · checked against its sources 2026-10-19 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Lower-resourced children in very safe neighborhoods showed curiosity above the mean, commensurate with middle- and higher-resourced children, whereas in fairly safe neighborhoods their curiosity was below the mean (M = −0.19 vs M = 0.11, p = 0.003). → Shah PE 2023

Evidence¶

Shah PE 2023¶

Shah PE, Hirsh-Pasek K, Spinelli M, Ozor J, Weeks HM, McCaffery H and Kaciroti N (2023). Ecological contexts associated with early childhood curiosity: Neighborhood safety, home and parenting quality, and socioeconomic status. Front. Psychol. 14:986221. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.986221

q3 · i? · associational · r3

Post hoc pairwise comparisons of mean curiosity by neighborhood safety within SES tertiles (Figure 1), on the weighted ECLS-B sample. Lower- vs higher-resourced children in fairly safe neighborhoods differed (Mlower = −0.19 vs Mhigher = 0.11, p = 0.003); in very safe neighborhoods, and in the small group of unsafe ones (about 7% of the sample), mean curiosity did not vary across SES tertiles. The analysis is observational, with post hoc comparisons: it shows where the gap is and is not found, not that making a neighborhood safer would close it.

"lower-resourced children demonstrated curiosity below the mean if they lived in “unsafe” and “fairly safe” neighborhoods, but demonstrated curiosity above the meanif they lived in a “very safe” neighborhood, with curiosity levels commensurate with children who were from middle-resourced or higher- resourced environments."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Interest — outcome: instruction changes it
• Safety — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Higher SES is associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten — related
• More positive parenting is associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten in a nationally representative US sample — related
• Living in a very safe neighborhood is associated with higher kindergarten curiosity, but only for lower- and middle-resourced children — related
• Multiple dimensions of school climate were associated with lower school absences, with stronger relationships after the pandemic than before — related