Discussion paper

DP11183 The Educational Consequences of Language Proficiency for Young Children

This paper studies the educational consequences of language proficiency by investigating the relationship between dialect-speaking and academic performance of 5-6 year old children in the Netherlands. We find that dialect-speaking has a modestly negative effect on boys' language test scores. In addition, we study whether there are spillover effects of peers' dialect-speaking on test scores. We find no evidence for spillover effect of peers' dialect-speaking. The test scores of neither Dutch-speaking children nor dialect-speaking children are affected by the share of dialect-speaking peers in the classroom.

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Citation

van Ours, J, Y Yao and A Ohinata (2016), ‘DP11183 The Educational Consequences of Language Proficiency for Young Children‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 11183. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp11183