Chapter 3. Primary School Skill Development: from First to Sixth Grade Our results show strong positive associations between students’ firstand sixth-grade skill levels. Furthermore, we establish that a substantial proportion of the achievement gap in sixth grade by socioeconomic status (SES) and sex is already in place in the early years of primary education. In contrast, the achievement gap between native and migrant students reverses throughout schooling, with migrant students eventually outperforming their native peers by sixth grade. These results, which highlight the connection between early and later skill levels, show that early skills serve as a signal for later issues in student performance and educational inequality. This chapter is inspired by Cunha and Heckman’s (2007) technology of skill formation, which highlights two characteristics: 1) self-productivity, where early learning fosters motivation for further learning, and 2) dynamic complementarity, where mastering skills makes future learning more efficient. These two characteristics are formalized in a model that describes how skills evolve over time, with the stock of skills in each period depending on initial skills, parental characteristics (e.g., education), and investments (e.g., schooling). This model aligns with broader literature that highlights the role of parents and investments in shaping skill development (e.g., Attanasio et al., 2022; Cunha et al., 2006, 2010; Esping-Andersen, 2008; Heckman & Mosso, 2014). Our chapter contributes to two strands of the skill development literature. First, we build upon existing research on the connection between early skill levels and their relation to later skill levels. Several papers examine the relationship between preschool skills and schoolaged skills and report that early skills are strong predictors for sub42
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