Cumulative Family Disadvantage, Child Development, and Underachievement as a Global Problem

Cumulative family disadvantages have increased over several past decades, raising concerns about associated multiple risks for child development and school achievement across the globe, including Bangladesh. Despite this, past research has poorly conceptualized and focused on the relationships between family disadvantage, child development, and school achievement. Drawing from the cumulative disadvantage framework, this chapter broadly conceptualizes children growing up in the cumulative disadvantaged families such as poverty, low-SES, broken family, over-family size, and crowded housing have multiple risks in their physical, cognitive, language, socio-emotional and behavioral development, and school achievement during childhood through adolescence. In so doing, we used a narrative approach to select and review relevant literature during class one through class ten. Literature review suggests that children growing up in cumulative family disadvantages are at greater risk for their multiple areas of physical growth and development that, in turn, promote their underachievement throughout the schooling. Evidence in the literature is informative for future research and policy implications to improve disadvantaged families and child development and achievement.