Low-Income Children's Self-Regulation in the Classroom: Scientific Inquiry for Social Change

Over 21% of children in the United States today are poor, and the income gap between our nation's richest and poorest children has widened dramatically over time. This article considers children's self-regulation as a key mediating mechanism through which poverty has deleterious consequences for their later life outcomes. Evidence from field experiments suggests that low-income children's self-regulation is modifiable by early educational intervention, offering a powerful policy option for reducing poverty's negative impact. The author discusses ways that scientific models of self-regulation can be expanded to include multiple developmental periods and real-world classroom contexts. Recommendations for advances in research design, measurement, and analysis are discussed, as are implications for policy formation and evaluation.