Increasing social inequalities in educational attainment over adolescence follow increasing inequalities in working memory
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
By the end of primary school, the poorest UK pupils are around a year behind their peers in terms of educational attainment. This gap doubles by the age of 16. Using longitudinal data from the demographically representative Study of Cognition, Adolescents, and Mobile Phones (SCAMP), we previously showed that working memory (WM) gaps also widen during adolescence. In the current study, SCAMP data were linked with data from the UK Department for Education's National Pupil Database (n = 2726). Analyses showed that differences in WM skill development mediated some of the widening socioeconomic gradient in educational attainment during adolescence. Interestingly, some (parental occupation and income poverty), but not all aspects of socioeconomic status (parental education), predicted individual differences in academic progress via WM. While correlational, these results provide an important starting point for understanding different ways in which socioeconomic status might impact attainment during adolescence.
Date Issued
2026-08-01
Date Acceptance
2026-04-14
Citation
Mind, Brain, and Education, 2026, 20 (3)
ISSN
1751-2271
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Mind, Brain, and Education
Volume
20
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Mind, Brain, and Education published by International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
10.1111/mbe.70048
Subjects
adolescence
educational attainment
social inequalities
socioeconomic factors
working memory
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e70048
Date Publish Online
2026-05-29