Experts unanimously agree that armed conflict is harmful to children. However, few studies exist that examine the link between armed conflict and language and cognitive development in the early years. This paper uses the Young Lives data from Perú and Ethiopia to analyze the relationship between armed conflict and early language and cognitive development using two standardized measures, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and the Cognitive Development Assessment-Quantitative (CDA-Q), both administered at or near age 5.

This report presents initial findings from the third round of data collection by Young Lives in Peru, carried ,out from late 2009 to early 2010 with two age cohorts of children. It gives a broad outline of some of the key indicators of childhood poverty and changes that have taken place in the children’s lives between the earlier rounds of data collection in 2002 and 2006 and this third round. Data are mainly presented for the entire age cohort, in most cases separated into gender, wealth groups, rural/urban location, and maternal mother tongue (as a proxy of ethnicity).

This paper examines the causal link between early childhood nutrition and cognition, applying instrumental variables to sibling-differences for a sample of pre-school aged Peruvian children. Child-specific shocks in the form of food price changes and household shocks during the critical developmental period of a child are used as instruments. The analysis shows significant and positive returns to early childhood nutritional investments.

This working paper discusses views and experiences of discipline and punishment in everyday schooling among a group of boys and girls aged between 14 and 16 years old, who are attending a public high school in an urban Andean city in Peru. It draws on data collected using a range of a qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with students, their parents, teachers and headteacher; group discussions with students; and class-, school- and home-based observations.

The past few decades have witnessed international pressure to get more children in the world educated, for longer. The view that school education is core to definitions of good childhoods and successful youth transitions is increasingly widespread, globally and locally.  However, structural inequalities persist and migration for education has become an important individual, family and community response to overcome these gaps.