Fabrice Tanoh

2 Publications in AERD

Author Publications

Accelerating progress towards eradicating child labour (SDG8.7) with quality education (SDG4): School quality is linked to reduced child cocoa labour in Côte d’Ivoire

By Fabrice Tanoh

Child labour disrupts education, but there is scant research on the reciprocal relationship: education disrupting child labour. We examined the link between school quality and child cocoa agricultural work in a sample of 2168 fifth-grade children from forty-one primary schools in rural Côte d’Ivoire. Children attending a higher quality school were less likely to work on a cocoa plantation. Specifically, quality infrastructure and teaching materials were associated with reduced cocoa agricultural activities, but not with domestic and economic activities. Against the backdrop of a global focus on improving education quality, we suggest that investments in quality education may serve the dual purpose of reducing child labour alongside improving children’s learning outcomes. © The Author(s) 2024.

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Individual Differences in Leveraging Regularity in Emergent L2 Readers in Rural Côte d'Ivoire

By Danielle Kablan

PurposeStatistical learning (SL) approaches to reading maintain that proficient reading requires assimilation of the rich statistical regularities in the writing system. Reading skills in developing first- and second-language readers in English have been shown to be predicted by individual differences in sensitivity to regularities in mappings from orthography to phonology (O-P) and semantics (O-S), with good readers relying more on O-P consistency, and less on O-S associations. However, SL and its relation to reading has been primarily studied in English readers in high-income Western countries.MethodWe examine individual differences in sensitivity to regularities in emergent French readers in rural agricultural communities in Cote d'Ivoire (N = 134).ResultsWe show that, in contrast to previous studies, in this cohort better readers are leveraging semantic associations more strongly, while individual differences in sensitivity to orthographic consistency did not predict reading skill. Relatively little variance in reading skill was explained by sensitivity to regularities, and we discuss these findings in terms of literacy acquisition in low-literacy and low-exposure contexts. This showcases the importance of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research to back up universal theories of literacy, and suggests that current SL accounts of reading must be updated to account for this variance in reading skills.

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