This paper reviews recent studies on the effectiveness of services and incentives offered to disadvantaged youths both in the US and abroad. We focus our analysis on three types of interventions: mentoring, educational services, and financial rewards. The objective of this article is threefold. First, we explain alternative theoretical points of view in favor (or against—when applicable) each of these interventions. We then discuss how recent empirical work has affected that view and summarize the latest findings. We conclude by considering which questions remain to be examined. Our hope is that this article will serve as a resource for those seeking to understand which educational interventions work and for whom, and to be used as a starting point for the debate on where to go next.
Policies aiming at improving high-school graduation and post-secondary education enrollment have recently received renewed attention from policy makers, practitioners and researchers in response to the observed increasing earnings differential between the most and least educated workers since the late 1970s. As a consequence, there has been a new wave of interventions whose main objective is to improve the school performance of disadvantaged youths. Most of these interventions involve one or the combination of the following services: a mentoring component, an educational component, and a financial incentive component. Reviewing the theoretical motivation and the empirical evidence of these three interventions is the main focus of this paper.
The objective of this article is threefold. First, we explain the alternative theoretical points of view in favor (or against—when applicable) of each of these interventions. We then discuss how recent empirical work has affected that view and summarize the latest findings. We conclude by considering which questions remain to be examined. The paper also presents the evidence on gender differential effects.
The paper focuses on recent studies that use either experimental design or quasi-experimental design approaches, and excludes those studies that do not provide a control group (or a rigorous comparison group). Most of the review is narrowed to recently conducted studies, that is, within the last decade, to reduce the overlap with the extended literature on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at youths. The review includes studies from the US and abroad. The main studies are summarized in Table 1 at the end the paper. Three main findings arise. First, rigorous evidence on mentoring programs finds positive but modest effects on the young participants, and that the most disadvantaged or at-risk seem to benefit the most. However, there are concerns (and evidence) that these programs can be ineffective and even backfire. Second, effect heterogeneity by gender appears so frequently that it is almost the rule rather than the exception. Third, interactions between different programs and services can potentially strengthen the effects.
A number of previous papers review the effectiveness of: (i) mentoring programs from the psychologist perspective (DuBois et al., 2002 and Jekielek et al., 2002Rhodes, 2008 and Tolan et al., 2008); (ii) input-based schooling policies—such as lowering class sizes or tightening the requirement for teaching credentials—(Hanushek, 2003 and Rockoff, 2009); (iii) interventions on human capital skill formation (Cunha et al., 2006 and Heckman, 2000); (iv) early childhood education programs (Barnett, 1995, Currie, 2001 and Heckman, 2000); (v) training and employment programs (Heckman, 2000, Heckman et al., 1998 and LaLonde, 1995); or (v) financial incentives in laboratory experiments (Bonner et al., 1996, Camerer and Hogarth, 1999 and Jenkins et al., 1998). The main contribution of the current paper lies in the degree to which it reveals conclusions from the overall literature that would not be apparent when considering each of the summarized studies on a case-by-case basis. Our hope is that this article will serve as a resource for those seeking to understand which educational interventions work and to be used as a starting point for the debate on where to go next.
