We hear it all the time: we have to work longer. This leads to tensions, strikes, and demonstrations. Just this week, among the pilots in the country where I live. But… are there also personal benefits to working longer? It is perhaps a question that some might find offensive, but it is one that Noah Arman… Read More Does working longer keep your brain sharp? The answer is nuanced
When I talk to people about demographics, after a while we quickly run into *the* question: why are we having fewer children? A popular explanation is that more education for women means marrying later, having children later, and ultimately having fewer children. That narrative is so deeply ingrained in how we think about education and demographics… Read More Doesn’t education lead to fewer children after all?
I already raised this on my blog before: when we talk about the increase in mental health problems among young people, these seem to be rising mainly among children from more advantaged backgrounds. At the same time, it remains true, as it has for decades, that young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are on average… Read More Is the mental health crisis amongst young people an elite problem? A longer read on a complex theme!
Some children are simply late to start talking. We call them late talkers. It seems logical that this resides within the child. A matter of innate ability. Be patient, and it will sort itself out. A recent study in Child Development by Avelar and colleagues raises some questions about that idea. The researchers studied nearly… Read More What childcare teaches us about late talkers and language development
Students with hearing or visual impairments were once seen as a challenge for inclusive education. In many ways, they still sometimes can be. But over time, schools have built up expertise, support structures and experience. In many systems, this is no longer where the greatest tensions lie. The group that increasingly defines the challenge looks… Read More When youth services fail, schools become the safety net
There is something irresistible about large international studies. Seventy countries. Three decades. Thousands of data points. The kind of research that immediately gives the impression that we are getting closer to answering a big question. In this case, what does cultural change do to the mental health of children and young people? Does a more… Read More Does Individualism Make Children More Anxious? What a Global Study Really Shows
We have known for some time that early-life stress can play a role in how children learn and develop. Think of effects on attention, memory, and emotion regulation. By now, that is fairly well established. New research again suggests that this same early stress is also associated with something that at first sight seems more… Read More Early Life Stress and Later Gut Problems?
I have been a fan of Louis Theroux for a long time, and of his brother as well. Since his early documentaries, he has had a rare way of working: friendly, almost naïve in appearance, yet remarkably persistent. He asks questions that sound simple, but are often difficult to avoid answering. So when his new… Read More Everyone Uses Everyone in the Manosphere
It is a remark I have heard more than once over the past few years from teachers, or seen appearing in Teacher Tapp results. Not as a grand theory or dramatic analysis, but simply as an observation from the classroom: “Since Covid, it seems as if some pupils have more difficulty paying attention.”“It takes longer… Read More Since the pandemic, some pupils seem to find it harder to sustain their attention
Young people are surrounded by many peers in their daily lives. One of the most important topics in adolescent development is peer influence among adolescents. But which peers influence what? A paper by Mary Page Leggett-James, René Veenstra, Goda Kaniušonytė and Brett Laursen answers part of that question. The authors directly compare the influence of… Read More Not all peers are equal: who influences what among young people?