PhD Candidate
Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS), The Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP)
Research Interest(s): Education ; Early childhood care ; Childcare centers ; Inequalities in childcare arrangements ; Public policies for early childhood
Discipline(s): Sociology
After 8 months as a research assistant at the LIEPP during her gap year, Laudine resumes her Master 2 in Cognitive Sciences at ENS (PSL) in 2020-2021. The same year, she obtains a doctoral contract at the Centre de Recherche sur les Inégalités Sociales (Sciences Po). Since her undergraduate studies, she has been passionate about transdisciplinarity and is currently working on a thesis between Sociology and Cognitive Sciences under the supervision of Carlo Barone (CRIS, Sciences Po) and Coralie Chevallier (LNCC, ENS). Her research focuses on inequalities in access to daycare centers, their link with public policies and their impact on the cognitive development of young children. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods.
The cognitive and structural determinants of the early childcare enrolment gap according to socioeconomic background (provisional title)
Thesis supervisor: Carlo Barone (Sciences Po - CRIS and LIEPP) and Coralie Chevallier (LNCC, ENS)
Funding: Sciences Po doctoral contract (2021-2024)
While the use of ECEC is a very effective lever for reducing developmental inequalities in early childhood, these facilities are themselves marked by strong inequalities in access. Understanding the reason of these inequalities in access is therefore crucial. Affordability and accessibility barriers (e.g., shortage of places, access criteria) are known to hinder participation of underprivileged families to ECEC. However, we have shown in a previous systematic review and meta-analysis that information barriers (e.g., underprivileged parents overestimate the costs of these facilities) could also contribute to these access inequalities. The goal of my dissertation is to investigate these information barriers to ECEC for underprivileged parents through a Randomised Controlled Trial design in the French context, and to compare them with accessibility and accessibility barriers.
Granted in 2022 by the Mustela Fundation (Bourse de Recherche pour l'Enfance de la Fondation Mustela).