External Publications Using GUI Data

Care is fundamental to the fabric of social relationships and a significant proportion of the adult population is engaged in regular care for children and/or adults with illnesses or disabilities. Increasing attention internationally is being paid to the role of young carers (those under 18) and young adult carers (usually 18–25 years of age). However, much of the research conducted has been cross-sectional in nature and has focused on care for those with illnesses, rather than the full spectrum of care for others. This report draws on rich data on over 4,000 young people from Cohort ’98 of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to take a longitudinal perspective, documenting the profile of young adult carers at 17 and 20 years of age and exploring the implications of such caregiving for their wellbeing, relationships and educational pathways.

In this study, we address the following research questions:

1. What is the profile of young adult carers, in terms of gender,social background, family size and structure, migrant status, urban/rural location, and own and parental illness/disability? To whom do they provide care and how much time do they allocate to caregiving?

2. What factors predict young people’s caring at ages 17 and 20?

3. How are care responsibilities associated with young people’s wellbeing, physical health and family relationships?

4. How are care responsibilities at age 17 associated with the post-school pathway pursued at age 20 (higher education, further education and labour market entry), controlling for other factors?

Does a care role constrain postschool choices, either directly through ongoing involvement in care, or indirectly via a potential effect on academic performance?

Background:
Regulatory problems in infancy are associated with internalizing and externalizing symptom trajectories across childhood. It is unknown whether early screen media exposure exacerbates the association between infant regulatory problems and childhood internalizing and externalizing symptom trajectories.

Methods:
We studied 10,170 individuals from the Growing Up in Ireland ’08 cohort. Parents reported on their children’s regulatory problems at 9 months, screen media exposure at 3 years, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms at 3, 5, 7, and 9 years. Children were categorized based on their patterns of co-developing internalizing and externalizing symptoms using parallel process latent class growth analysis. Subsequently, multinominal logistic regression analyses were conducted to estimate whether screen media exposure (>1 hour or >2 hours) moderated the association between regulatory problems in infancy and co-developing internalizing and externalizing symptom classes across childhood.

Results:
There were four groups of children with distinct patterns of co-developing internalizing and externalizing symptoms: 1) low stable internalizing and low decreasing externalizing symptoms (N= 6236; 61.3%); 2) low stable internalizing and moderate stable externalizing symptoms (N= 2029; 20%); 3) moderate increasing internalizing and moderate decreasing externalizing symptoms (N= 1263; 12.4%); 4) moderate increasing internalizing and high increasing externalizing symptoms (N= 642; 6.3%). Presence of regulatory problems at 9 months and excessive screen media exposure at 3 years (particularly >2 hours) were independently associated with increased likelihood of all classes. Excessive screen media exposure at 3 years did not significantly moderate the association between regulatory problems at 9 months and internalizing and externalizing symptom trajectories.

Conclusions:
Both regulatory problems in infancy and screen media exposure >2 hours in early childhood are early risk factors for the development of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. However, the association between infant regulatory problems and childhood internalizing and externalizing symptoms appears to operate independently of excessive screen media exposure. Clinicians should be aware of, and treat, regulatory problems in infancy to prevent chronic patterns of self-regulatory problems across childhood. Further, they should discuss and advocate for family media plans with parents to help decrease the long-term negative effects on internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

The Irish education system is undergoing significant change as it navigates the challenges of the 2020s. Schools are at the frontline of Ireland’s efforts to integrate migrant families, build an inclusive society and tackle generational socioeconomic inequality. They are also, increasingly, key sites of contestation over deep social questions like the place of faith and secularism in public institutions and the best path to ensuring young people thrive, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. While many of these challenges resonate across the second-level sector as all schools grapple with the difficulties and opportunities of educating young adults in today’s Ireland, the focus of this report is on the voluntary secondary school sector. The report presents rich evidence from a mixed-method research study across 21 voluntary secondary schools. The research was commissioned by the Joint Managerial Body for Voluntary Secondary Schools (JMB), with the research questions designed to examine the features and experiences of students, teachers and school leaders across the voluntary sector. However, the study allows for comparisons between experiences in voluntary secondary schools and other sectors. In particular, the survey of students undertaken in this study is compared to the nationally representative longitudinal study Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) and the International Student Assessment (PISA study) on 15 year olds in Ireland and across the European Union (EU). This approach allows for a deep exploration of the voluntary secondary sector, while also placing experiences in a national and international context.

Although children’s relationships with their parents and teachers contribute to their school adjustment and achievement, few studies have examined interactions between these relationships, particularly for father-child relationships. Using the Growing Up in Ireland birth cohort (N = 7507, 50.3% male), we examined child-adult relationship quality – rated by parents at age 3 and by teachers at age 5 – as predictors of teacher-rated behavioural adjustment and academic achievement at age 9 (indexed by self-reported academic self-concepts and performance on formal reading assessments). Controlling for prior levels of problem behaviours, verbal ability, and family SES, our results indicated that children’s relationships with parents and teachers showed small and comparable independent effects on school adjustment and achievement. For mothers and teachers, moderation analyses showed a cumulative risk pattern for conflictual relationships and a compensatory pattern for close relationships. Children are likely to benefit from improving closeness and reducing conflict in adult-child relationships as well as interventions that involve mothers, fathers, and teachers.