Word gaps and world gaps

The final day of the European Congress of Psychology included a panel discussion on children's experiences and perceptions of socioeconomic inequalities. Led by Developmental Psychologist Professor Robin Banerjee (University of Sussex), the panel included a social psychologist, social worker, and those working with local authorities in early years services and education.

Banerjee asked the panel about developmental considerations when thinking about children and inequalities. Jo Templeman, who works in early-years settings with Brighton and Hove City Council, emphasised the importance of development from conception until a child turns five, and the research on the 'word gap' among children experiencing inequality.

'Some research that was done back in 2013 found that a child who is considered a child on welfare at the age of three will have about 600 words, a child who is deemed to be in a working class family will have about 1,200 words, and a child in what is deemed a professional family will have over 2,000 words. If you think in terms of how that feeds into education later in life, it's important we understand that.

Templeman said that through Covid, this gap has been exacerbated 'because of the inequalities that existed in terms of the environments that our children were in as a result of lockdown… what we've seen is a bigger gap in speech and language, in social and emotional development… and in gross motor skills.'

 The panel also discussed whether schools were set up to help children who had lived with inequality in their early years. Lewis Doyle, a social psychology doctoral researcher (University of Sussex), pointed to research which found that teachers call on children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds much less in answering questions. He said this expectation that these children will not be able to contribute much to discussions, due to the word gap described by Templeman, would only serve to widen inequalities in later education.

Lead Practitioner in children's social work in Brighton and Hove, Jim Park, said poverty and inequality was structured into the fabric of our society and pointed to a BPS publication which outlined the risks of stereotype threat to children. 'Children from poorer backgrounds entering education come with a stereotype threat in their minds, where they already know they'll be treated differently and in a way that is othering.

'Research says that poverty often creates an environment in which stress and fatigue and anxiety and mental health difficulties can impact on a parent's ability to parent the child, it creates stress and it creates more circumstances for domestic violence can come in, aspects of abuse and neglect can be seen to develop. Couple into that that social workers are very well-meaning… but it is a fairly middle class profession and comes with classist preconceptions, and they can play out when you walk into someone's home which is very different to the home you grow up in.'

Katie Bates, who works in health improvement for Brighton and Hove City Council, shared some of the findings of the Safe and Well at School Survey which started in 2009 and is filled out by primary and secondary school students in the area every two years. She said since 2009 there had been negative trends across the board – an increase in inequalities which widened with the pandemic, increasing mental health difficulties and teachers almost working as social workers. 'There's a lot of brilliant work going on in schools but they are under-funded and under-resourced and I don't think they have the support they need.'

Migrant experience

Winner of the first European Federation of Psychologists' Associations and BPS Undergraduate Research Prize, Francesca Margherita De Falco (Università Degli Studi Di Napoli "Federico II"), spoke about her two-year project on understanding the experiences of migrants in Naples. The Yalla! Social Communities Services Action Research research was part of a FAMI (Asylum, Immigration and Integration Fund) project managed by the municipality of Naples in collaboration with universities and organisations which support refugees and migrants.

The overall project has an aim to improve services for migrant populations living and working in Naples and De Falco's work hoped to uncover the experiences of these people using community psychology approaches. 'We wanted to build a local network of third sector organisations and institutions, and to strengthen intercultural competencies of social operators, experiment with new models of social inclusion, to sensitise the local community about culture to others and diversity, acceptance of others and human rights.'

De Falco's research focused on the 10 municipalities of Naples where she collected data to construct socioenvironmental profiles of each area. This included socio-demographic data of migrants living in each area of the city including ethnicity, gender, age and employment, as well as information on their access to health services and migrant services.

She also carried out 30 focus groups, involving 87 people aged between 20 and 76, which included migrants working in voluntary associations, cultural mediators and operators involved in social, health and educational services. They discussed the effectiveness of services and the live-ability of different municipalities from a migrant's point of view.

De Falco found that migrants tended to live in areas with lower-cost housing and more stable services and in those areas with both formal and informal networks of support. However migrants were also seen to work in some areas of Naples but were unable to live in those areas.

De Falco said there needed to be better integration of services and for services to uncover what migrants want and need. 'We have created an online platform which shows where services are in the city and includes courses for updating the training of service operators.'