Looking Back, How Do Kids Feel About Having Been Red-Shirted?
Suzanne Jones, an education researcher who recently finished her graduate work at Texas A&M University, shared with me her dissertation, which looked at a question of interest to many parents: Does red-shirting your child lead to better outcomes later on? The language of her dissertation abstract is a bit technical, but basically the answer is, “Yes”:
Academic red-shirting refers to the practice of not starting an age-eligible child in kindergarten. Other terms used are holding out or delayed entry. Research has shown that 9% of
children are academically red-shirted. This practice takes place most often with upper socioeconomic status Caucasian males born in the months just prior to the school district admissions date.
The purpose of this study was to measure the life satisfaction of male students in 6th-12th grade who have summer birthdays and were red-shirted, and to compare these results to the life satisfaction of male students in 6th-12th grade who have summer birthdays and were not red-shirted.
In this mixed design of quantitative and qualitative research, a purposeful sample of
students in an upper socioeconomic district was administered the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction scale. A statistical U test determined if there existed a significant difference in the life satisfaction of these two groups of students. In addition, a sample of students and parents were interviewed about their thoughts and feelings toward being relatively the youngest or oldest students in their grade. Interview data were coded for positive or negative trends.
In this study, the null hypothesis was rejected because students who were academically red-shirted had a higher life satisfaction score as measured by the MSLSS. Two subgroups, family and living environment, also had significantly higher scores for red-shirted students.
Qualitative data confirmed these results as parents and students in the red-shirted group had many positive things to say about their experiences, as opposed to the non-red-shirted To date, most of the research related to this subject has been conducted with elementary students or with combined red-shirted and retained students, or it has measured academic achievement alone.
The results of this research allows parents and educators insight into the minds of those who are affected by this trend during their adolescent years.” Read more here.
Jones’s research is one piece of evidence parents can take into consideration when deciding whether to delay the start of school for their children: the red-shirted kids in her study, now teenagers, express more satisfaction with their lives and have more positive things to say about their experiences in school than kids who were not red-shirted.
Having shared classes with Suzanne and heard her talk about this phenomenon, it still didn’t hit me until I read this blog that there is an interesting correlation here to Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion in his book Outliers of how hockey players in Canada are selected based inadvertently on the months in which they were born. It makes one wonder how many other children are not encouraged or allowed to develop to their full potential because of arbitrary deadlines we have imposed on them. Are we really about educating every child?
Since the red-shirting trend is growing in the suburban district where I live, this research is very timely and has great information for parents who are torn with what to do.
Having red-shirted two of my own children. I know first hand the benefits. I think this research will be of benefit to parents and well as educators.
One of the unintended and troubling outcomes of redshirting is that it amplifies the achievement gap between children from low-income families and those from higher income families. Those families who can afford to redshirt aren’t likely to make a decision to enroll their child for the good of other kids if they don’t think it will be in the best interests of their own. But where does that leave the children from families who can’t afford another year of child care, who end up being over a year younger than children who already have the advantages of greater family resources? They start out behind and the gap gets larger every year, with a compounding impact on kids emotionally and socially as well as academically.
Kathy, I agree! This is a topic of further research mentioned in this study. I tend to think that multi-age classrooms could be one option. However, this study took place in all upper SES level school districts. The study could and should be replicated for other types of districts and look at other questions relating to the development of the two groups of students.