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Parents’ and teachers’ beliefs and evaluations of young people are important. Using a feminist institutionalist perspective, and drawing on rich data from one in seven nine-year-old children in Ireland, this paper examines mothers’ (who make up the overwhelming majority of primary care-givers) and teachers’ perceptions of boys’ and girls’ mathematics performance. The evidence shows that girls’ mathematics performance is underestimated by both relative to boys’. Mother’s gender bias was evident among high performing children, at all levels of children’s academic self-concept, and among mothers with at least third level education. While the judgements reflect children’s actual performance and engagement, a notable gender gap remains. It is suggested that the results reflect gender stereotypes: overestimating boys’ and underestimating girls’ mathematics achievements. The article indicates the importance of the informal dimension of institutions and the part played by women in the effective devaluation of girls by endorsing gendered stereotypes. Women teachers are less likely to rate children highly in mathematics, taking account of performance: arguably reflecting their own lack of confidence in mathematics assessment. The findings raise concerns for girls’ futures since mathematics is seen as an indicator of intelligence. Given the move towards teacher-assessed grading during COVID-19, understanding, and challenging, gender-stereotyping is pressing.

The transition from primary to secondary school represents one of the key junctions in the educational career of young people. Research has shown that much of the challenge in this transition stems from changing social structures and encountering different learning environments. However, the transition experiences of students with special educational needs (SEN) have received relatively little attention. Drawing on large-scale longitudinal data from over 7000 young people, we examine the extent to which students with different SEN experience additional transition barriers to their peers. The findings show that young people with SEN are more likely to experience a negative transition to secondary school. Furthermore, the type of need matters and students with general learning disabilities and intellectual disabilities are three times more likely to experience poor transition compared to young people without SEN. Transition experiences also vary by gender and socio-economic status, with girls and lower socio-economic groups more at risk. This paper highlights the importance of supporting students through to their second year in secondary education, promoting positive teacher–student interactions and providing additional supports for those with lower achievement in primary school. For students with disabilities, the research highlights a need for more effective transition supports, particularly during the pre-transition period.

Keywords
Transition, academic supports, social supports, special educational needs, secondary school

The present study examines whether breastfeeding is associated with neuro-developmental advantages at 9 months of age on a standardised measure of infant development in a large cohort study of Irish children. It is hypothesised that if breast-milk confers an independent benefit, infants who were never breastfed will have reached fewer developmental milestones than those who were partially or exclusively breastfed, after controlling for putative confounding variables. Families with infants aged 9-months were recruited as part of a nationally representative sample for the birth cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study (n = 11,134). Information was collected from mothers on breastfeeding practices, socio-demographic characteristics and developmental progress during a household interview. Parent-report items on development covered communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social skills. Analysis of pass/fail status in each developmental domain using binary logistic regression showed a positive effect of any breastfeeding on gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social skills (but not communication) and these remained after adjustment for a range of confounding variables. There was, however, little evidence of a dose–response effect or advantage of exclusive over partial breastfeeding. A clear advantage of breastfeeding on infant development was demonstrated. However, the lack of a dose–response association on pass rates suggests that the breastfeeding effect may be confounded by other unobserved factors or that there is a critical threshold during which time the effect of breast milk may be particularly salient for bolstering brain development.

This retrospective cross-sectional paper examines the relationship between early breastfeeding exposure and children’s academic test scores at nine years of age independent of a wide range of possible confounders. The final sample comprised 8226 nine-year-old school children participating in the first wave of the Growing Up in Ireland study. The children were selected through the Irish national school system using a 2-stage sampling method and were representative of the nine-year population. Information relating to breastfeeding initiation and exposure duration was obtained retrospectively at nine years of age via parental recall and children’s academic performance was assessed using standardised reading and mathematics tests. Hierarchical linear regression analysis with robust standard errors to control for clustering at the school level was used to quantify the effect of breastfeeding on children’s test scores. Propensity score matching was used to compare treatment effects across groups defined by their propensity to breastfeed. In unadjusted analysis, children who were breastfed scored 8.67 percentage points higher on reading and 7.42 percentage points higher on mathematics compared to those who were never breastfed. While the breastfeeding advantage attenuated appreciably when adjusted for a range of child, maternal, socio-economic and socio-environmental characteristics, children who were breastfed continued to enjoy a significant test score advantage of 3.24 (p < 0.001) and 2.23 (p < 0.001) percentage points on reading and mathematics respectively compared to those who were never breastfed. Any amount of breastfeeding was associated with significantly higher test scores than no exposure, but evidence of a dose-response relationship was weak. The results of the propensity score matching analysis indicated that the test score advantage of breastfed children is robust and that the magnitude of the effect varies across groups defined by their propensity to breastfeed, being largest amongst the most socially disadvantaged and falling to near zero among the most advantaged group.

Whether breastfeeding is protective against the development of childhood overweight and obesity remains the subject of considerable debate. Although a number of meta-analyses and syntheses of the literature have concluded that the greater preponderance of evidence indicates that breastfeeding reduces the risk of obesity, these findings are by no means conclusive. The present study used data from the Growing Up in Ireland study to examine the relationship between retrospectively recalled breastfeeding data and contemporaneously measured weight status for 7798 children at nine-years of age controlling for a wide range of variables including; socio-demographic factors, the child’s own lifestyle-related behaviours, and parental BMI. The results of the multivariable analysis indicated that being breastfed for between 13 and 25 weeks was associated with a 38 percent (p < 0.05) reduction in the risk of obesity at nine-years of age, while being breastfed for 26 weeks or more was associated with a 51 percent (p < 0.01) reduction in the risk of obesity at nine-years of age. Moreover, results pointed towards a dose–response patterning in the data for those breastfed in excess of 4 weeks. Possible mechanisms conveying this health benefit include slower patterns of growth among breastfed children, which it is believed, are largely attributable to differences in the composition of human breast milk compared with synthesised formula. The suggestion that the choice of infant feeding method has important implications for health and development is tantalising as it identifies a modifiable health behaviour that is amenable to intervention in primary health care settings and has the potential to improve the health of the population.

This retrospective cross-sectional paper examines the relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy and children’s behavioural problems at 9 years of age independent of a wide range of possible confounders. The final sample comprised 7,505 nine-year-old school children participating in the first wave of the Growing Up in Ireland study. The children were selected through the Irish national school system using a 2-stage sampling method and were representative of the nine-year population. Information on maternal smoking during pregnancy was obtained retrospectively at 9 years of age via parental recall and children’s behavioural problems were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire across separate parent and teacher-report instruments. A quasi-experimental approach using propensity score matching was used to create treatment (smoking) and control (non-smoking) groups which did not differ significantly in their propensity to smoke in terms of 16 observed characteristics. After matching on the propensity score, children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were 3.5 % (p < 0.001) and 3.4 % (p < 0.001) more likely to score in the problematic range on the SDQ total difficulties index according to parent and teacher-report respectively. Maternal smoking during pregnancy was more strongly associated with externalising than internalising behavioural problems. Analysis of the dose–response relationship showed that the differential between matched treatment and control groups increased with level of maternal smoking. Given that smoking is a modifiable risk factor, the promotion of successful cessation in pregnancy may prevent potentially adverse long-term consequences.

Background
Unintended pregnancy is associated with increased risk for adverse neonatal and early childhood outcomes spanning an array of indicators, but it remains unclear whether these risks hold independent of other biological, social and environmental risk factors.

Methods
This study uses data from the first wave of the ‘Growing Up in Ireland Study’, a large nationally representative cohort study of more than 11 000 infants, to examine the risk factors associated with unintended pregnancy. Adopting a staged approach to the analysis, the study investigates whether pregnancy intention influences maternal health behaviours during pregnancy independent of background characteristics, and whether pregnancy intention carries any additional risk for adverse infant and maternal health outcomes when we adjust for background characteristics and prenatal behaviours.

Results
The study confirmed that sociodemographic factors are strongly associated with unintended pregnancy and that unintended pregnancy is associated with a range of health compromising behaviours that are known to be harmful to the developing fetus. While there was little evidence to suggest that pregnancy intention was associated with adverse neonatal outcomes or developmental delay independent of other covariates, there was strong evidence that intention status had a bearing on the mother’s psychosocial health. Unintended pregnancy was associated with increased risk of depression (risk ratio 1.36 [95% confidence interval 1.19, 1.54]), and higher parenting stress (risk ratio 1.27 [95% confidence interval 1.16, 1.38]).

Conclusions
Ascertaining the mother’s pregnancy intention during the first antenatal visit may represent a means for monitoring those at greatest risk for adverse mother and child outcomes.

Background
Social inequalities in the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity are well-established, but less is known about when the social gradient first emerges and how it evolves across childhood and adolescence.

Objective
This study examines maternal education differentials in children’s body mass trajectories in infancy, childhood and adolescence using data from four contemporary European child cohorts.

Methods
Prospective data on children’s body mass index (BMI) were obtained from four cohort studies—Generation XXI (G21—Portugal), Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) infant and child cohorts, and the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS—UK)—involving a total sample of 41,399 children and 120,140 observations. Children’s BMI trajectories were modelled by maternal education level using mixed-effect models.

Results
Maternal educational inequalities in children’s BMI were evident as early as three years of age. Children from lower maternal educational backgrounds were characterised by accelerated BMI growth, and the extent of the disparity was such that boys from primary-educated backgrounds measured 0.42 kg/m2 (95% CI 0.24, 0.60) heavier at 7 years of age in G21, 0.90 kg/m2(95% CI 0.60, 1.19) heavier at 13 years of age in GUI and 0.75 kg/m2 (95% CI 0.52, 0.97) heavier in MCS at 14 years of age. The corresponding figures for girls were 0.71 kg/m2 (95% CI 0.50, 0.91), 1.31 kg/m2 (95% CI 1.00, 1.62) and 0.76 kg/m2 (95% CI 0.53, 1.00) in G21, GUI and MCS, respectively.

Conclusions
Maternal education is a strong predictor of BMI across European nations. Socio-economic differentials emerge early and widen across childhood, highlighting the need for early intervention.

Background
Height is regarded as a marker of early-life illness, adversity, nutrition and psychosocial stress, but the extent to which differences in height are determined by early-life socioeconomic circumstances, particularly in contemporary populations, is unclear. This study examined socioeconomic differences in children’s height trajectories from birth through to 21 years of age in four European countries.

Methods
Data were from six prospective cohort studies—Generation XXI, Growing Up in Ireland (infant and child cohorts), Millennium Cohort Study, EPITeen and Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study—comprising a total of 49 492 children with growth measured repeatedly from 1980 to 2014. We modelled differences in children’s growth trajectories over time by maternal educational level using hierarchical models with fixed and random components for each cohort study.

Results
Across most cohorts at practically all ages, children from lower educated mothers were shorter on average. The gradient in height was consistently observed at 3 years of age with the difference in expected height between maternal education groups ranging between −0.55 and −1.53 cm for boys and −0.42 to −1.50 cm for girls across the different studies and widening across childhood. The height deficit persists into adolescence and early adulthood. By age 21, boys from primary educated maternal backgrounds lag the tertiary educated by −0.67 cm (Portugal) and −2.15 cm (Finland). The comparable figures for girls were −2.49 cm (Portugal) and −2.93 cm (Finland).

Conclusions
Significant differences in children’s height by maternal education persist in modern child populations in Europe.