Eric Dearing

Family Involvement in School and Low-Income Children's Literacy: Longitudinal Associations Between and Within Families

Longitudinal data from kindergarten to 5th grade on both family involvement in school and childrens literacy performance were examined for an ethnically diverse, low-income sample (N = 281). Within families, increased school involvement predicted improved child literacy. In addition, although there was an achievement gap in average literacy performance between children of more and less educated mothers if family involvement levels were low, this gap was nonexistent if family involvement levels were high. These results add to existing evidence on the value of family involvement in school by demonstrating that increased involvement between kindergarten and 5th grade is associated with increased literacy performance and that high levels of school involvement may have added reward for low-income children with the added risk of low parent education. As such, these results support arguments that family involvement in school should be a central aim of practice and policy solutions to the achievement gap between lower and higher income children.

Does Higher Quality Early Child Care Promote Low‐Income Children’s Math and Reading Achievement in Middle Childhood?

Higher quality child care during infancy and early childhood (6-54 months of age) was examined as a moderator of associations between family economic status and childrens (N = 1,364) math and reading achievement in middle childhood (4.5-11 years of age). Low income was less strongly predictive of underachievement for children who had been in higher quality care than for those who had not. Consistent with a cognitive advantage hypothesis, higher quality care appeared to promote achievement indirectly via early school readiness skills. Family characteristics associated with selection into child care also appeared to promote the achievement of low-income children, but the moderating effect of higher quality care per se remained evident when controlling for selection using covariates and propensity scores.

Teacher-Child Relationship and Behavior Problem Trajectories in Elementary School

The present study examined associations between the quality of teacher-child relationships and behavior problems among elementary school students using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a study of 1,364 children from birth through adolescence. There were two main findings. First, high-quality teacher-child relationships predicted low levels of externalizing behaviors. Second, high-quality relationships acted as protective factors, helping to prevent children with high levels of internalizing behaviors in early childhood from developing trajectories of long-term internalizing behavior problems. Teacher-child relationships may be proximal phenomena that can be targeted in interventions to help prevent behavior problems in middle childhood.

Incomes and Outcomes in Early Childhood.

Prior research has identified statistically significant but small income effects for children’s cognitive, language, and social outcomes. We examine the impact of family economic resources on developmental outcomes in early childhood, the stage of life during which developmental psychologists have suggested income effects should be largest. Using participants from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, we estimate income effects that are comparable in absolute terms to those reported in previous research. Relative income effect sizes are found to have practical significance, however, both within our sample, and compared to participation in Early Head Start.

Implications of Family Income Dynamics for Women’s Depressive Symptoms During the First 3 Years After Childbirth

OBJECTIVES We examined within-person associations between changes in family income and womens depressive symptoms during the first 3 years after childbirth. METHODS Data were analyzed for 1351 women (mean baseline age = 28.13 years) who participated in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Nineteen percent of these women belonged to an ethnic minority, and 35% were poor at some time during the study. RESULTS Changes in income and poverty status were significantly associated with changes in depressive symptoms. Effects were greatest for chronically poor women and for women who perceived fewer costs associated with their employment. CONCLUSIONS Given that women head most poor households in the United States, our findings indicate that reductions in poverty would have mental health benefits for women and families.

Psychological Costs of Growing Up Poor

This chapter provides a synopsis of the extensive empirical and theoretical literatures on the psychological development of youth growing up poor. Low family income has statistically and practically significant costs for childrens psychological development in cognitive and social–emotional domains, as shown by high rates of academic failure and mental health problems among youth growing up poor. These psychological costs are incurred primarily because poverty limits childrens access to developmental stimulation and heightens their exposure to stress in both their physical and psychosocial environments. Yet, convergent evidence from experimental and nonexperimental studies also indicates that improving the economic well‐being of poor families translates into improved psychological well‐being for poor youth.

Increased Family Involvement in School Predicts Improved Child–Teacher Relationships and Feelings About School for Low-Income Children

ABSTRACT Family involvement in school, childrens relationships with their teachers, and childrens feelings about school were examined longitudinally from kindergarten through fifth grade for an ethnically diverse, low-income sample (N = 329). Within-families analyses indicated that changes in family involvement in school were directly associated with changes in childrens relationships with their teachers and indirectly associated with changes in childrens feelings about school, with student–teacher relationships mediating this latter association. Increases in family involvement in school predicted improvements in student–teacher relationships, and, in turn, these improvements in student–teacher relationships predicted improvements in childrens perceptions of competency in literacy and mathematics as well as improvements in childrens attitudes toward school, more generally. These results are consistent with systems theories of child development and help answer why family educational involvement matters for low-income children. This research was supported by a grant to the authors from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (5R03HD052858-02). Principal investigators of the School Transitions Study were Deborah Stipek, Heather Weiss, Penny Hauser-Cram, Walter Secada, and Jennifer Greene, who were supported in part by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Foundation for Child Development, and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Do neighborhood and home contexts help explain why low-income children miss opportunities to participate in activities outside of school?

In this study, childrens participation (N = 1,420) in activities outside of elementary school was examined as a function of disparities in family income using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement. Childrens neighborhood and home environments were investigated as mechanisms linking income disparities and participation rates. Family income was positively associated with childrens participation in activities, with the largest effect sizes evident for children at the lowest end of the income distribution. Affluence in the neighborhood and cognitive stimulation in the home were both important mediators of the association between income and participation, explaining from approximately one tenth to one half of the estimated associations between income and participation.

A New Model for Student Support in High-Poverty Urban Elementary Schools Effects on Elementary and Middle School Academic Outcomes

Efforts to support children in schools require addressing not only academic issues, but also out-of-school factors that can affect students’ ability to succeed. This study examined academic achievement of students participating in City Connects, a student support intervention operating in high-poverty elementary schools. The sample included 7,948 kindergarten to fifth-grade students in a large urban district during 1999–2009. School- and student-level treatment effects on report card grades and standardized test scores in elementary through middle school were estimated. Propensity score methods accounted for pre-intervention group differences. City Connects students demonstrated higher report card scores than comparisons and scored higher on middle school English language arts and mathematics tests. This study provides evidence for the value of addressing out-of-school factors that impact student learning.

A longitudinal study of self-efficacy and depressive symptoms in youth of a North American Plains tribe.

We used a 3-year cross-sequential longitudinal design to examine the relations between self-efficacy judgments in three different domains (academic, social, resisting negative peer influences), cultural identity, theories of intelligence, and depressive symptoms. One hundred ninety-eight American Indian youths participated in the study, who all attended a middle school on a reservation in the northern plains of the United States. We conducted multilevel models to examine both between- and within-person associations as well as to investigate lagged within-youth associations. We found that not only did youths with relatively high self-efficacy have lower depressive symptom levels than other youths, but also increases in efficacy beliefs for academic, social, and for resisting negative peer influences predicted decreases in depressive symptoms within youths, even after controlling for previous levels of depressive symptoms as well as both contemporaneous and previous academic achievement. Neither cultural identity nor theories of intelligence moderated the relationship between self-efficacy and depression. As the first evidence that within-youth improvements in self-efficacy has developmental benefits, our findings help fill a long empty niche in the line of studies investigating the impact of efficacy beliefs on depressive symptoms.