Scholars agree that the early childhood years are highly consequential for later educational outcomes, but we know little about the impact of early childhood socioeconomic conditions at the societal level. This study contributes to the literature by bringing to comparative sociology the proposition that variations in the social structures into which children are born have lasting impacts on their educational outcomes as they progress through secondary education. Drawing on theories of welfare regimes and social stratification, we analyze nation-level data on socioeconomic conditions from the early 2000s via the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and educational performance data from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (N = 35). In line with our hypotheses, societal inequalities and disadvantages present when children are young are associated with negative achievement outcomes 15 years later and policies that guarantee people basic securities are more consistently associated with positive achievement outcomes than are broad measures of social spending. We conclude by highlighting the value of our approach and suggesting directions for future research on cross-national variations in achievement as a product of socioeconomic conditions during early childhood.

学者们认为，幼儿期对于以后的教育成果具有高度的后果，但我们对幼儿社会经济状况在社会层面的影响知之甚少。这项研究通过向比较社会学提出这样的命题，为文学做出了贡献：随着初等教育的发展，孩子出生的社会结构的变化会对他们的教育成果产生持久的影响。根据福利制度和社会分层的理论，我们通过经济合作与发展组织分析了2000年代初国家社会经济状况的数据以及2015年国际学生评估计划的教育绩效数据（N= 35）。与我们的假设相符，15岁后儿童出现的社会不平等和劣势与负面成就相关，而保证人们基本安全的政策与正面成就相比具有更广泛的一致性，而不是广泛的社会支出指标。作为总结，我们着重强调了我们的方法的价值，并提出了关于跨国学习成就差异的未来研究方向，这些成就是儿童早期社会经济状况的产物。