Low-income children's self-regulation in the classroom: scientific inquiry for social change.

Over 21% of children in the United States today are poor, and the income gap between our nation's richest and poorest children has widened dramatically over time. This article considers children's self-regulation as a key mediating mechanism through which poverty has deleterious consequences for their later life outcomes. Evidence from field experiments suggests that low-income children's self-regulation is modifiable by early educational intervention, offering a powerful policy option for reducing poverty's negative impact. The author discusses ways that scientific models of self-regulation can be expanded to include multiple developmental periods and real-world classroom contexts. Recommendations for advances in research design, measurement, and analysis are discussed, as are implications for policy formation and evaluation. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.