This article appears in Child Maltreatment in Residential Care: History, Research, and Current Practice, a volume of research examining the institutionalization of children, child abuse and neglect in residential care, and interventions preventing and responding to violence against children living in out-of-home care settings around the world.
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the self-reported academic performance of Romanian institutionalized children placed in long-term residential centers in 1999 and multiple child- and institution-related variables considered to have an impact on children’s development and their everyday functioning.
A nationally representative sample of 1479 institutionalized children (783 boys and 696 girls) aged 7–19 years old (M = 12.69; SD = 2.83) and living in 53 long-term residential centers was used. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to measure the effect of punishments enacted by staff and children and institutional characteristics on children’s performance. The analyses revealed that 53.5% of children reported having a very good or good academic performance, and this performance varied based on individual characteristics (e.g., age, gender, type of education), experiences of punishment by institutional staff, as well as institutional characteristics (e.g., readiness of institutional setting to protect children’s most basic rights, optimal child–staff ratio, type of institution). These results provide an insight into some of the contributing factors that predict school achievement in a highly vulnerable population of school-aged children and may be informative for practitioners working with institutionalized children around the globe and policymakers tasked with improving the quality of care and education for this population.