Sandra Scarr

Child-Care Quality and Children's Social Development.

This study examined the influence on childrens social development of variation in the quality of their child-care environments. The sample consisted of 166 children attending representative childcare centers that varied widely in quality. Possible relations associated with age, child-care experience, and family background were controlled using hierarchical multiple regression. Both global estimates of child-care quality and specific program features, such as director experience, ratios, and verbal interactions, were obtained from observational measures and staff questionnaires. Measures of social development were derived from parent and caregiver ratings of the children. Of greatest importance is the finding that overall quality, caregiver-child verbal interactions, and director experience were each highly predictive of the childrens social development in child care. Family background measures were also significantly predictive of several of the social outcomes, whereas childcare experience showed few significant effects. The implications for social policies and future research in child care are discussed. The developmental effects of child care have long held interest for psychologists, first because child care represented an intriguing exception to parental care, and now because some form of child care is the norm for over half of all American children. Parallel with these demographic trends, the research literature has shifted from questions that entail comparisons of home-reared children and those enrolled in child care to more sophisticated questions about how children in child care are affected by differences in program quality (Belsky, 1984; Clarke-Stewart & Fein, 1983). A related issue concerns the identification of specific quality indicators that affect child development. A third, relatively new, empirical focus is on the joint effects of child care and family variables (Everson, Sarnat, &

IQ test performance of Black children adopted by White families.

The poor performance of black children on IQ tests and in school has been hypothesized to arise from (a) genetic racial differences or (6) cultural/ environmental disadvantages. To separate genetic fac- tors from rearing conditions, 130 black/interracial chil- dren adopted by advantaged white families were studied. The socially classified black adoptees, whose natural parents were educationally average, scored above the IQ and the school achievement mean of the white popu- lation. Biological children of the adoptive parents scored even higher. Genetic and environmental de- terminants of differences among the black/interracial adoptees were largely confounded. The high IQ scores of the socially classified black adoptees indicate malle- ability for IQ under rearing conditions that are relevant to the tests and the schools. It is well known that black children reared by their own families achieve IQ scores that average about a standard deviation (IS points) below whites (Jensen, 1973; Loehlin, Lindzey, & Spuhler, 197S). This finding is at the heart of a continuing contro- versy in the educational arena. Recent studies (Cleary, Humphreys, Kendrick, & Wesman, 1975) confirm the hypothesis that low IQ scores predict poor school performance, regardless of race. Thus, more black children than white children fail to achieve academically and to earn the credentials required by higher occupational status, with its

Within and Beyond the Classroom Door: Assessing Quality in Child Care Centers.

Abstract This study reports data from a multisite study of typical center-based child care and children’s development regarding (a) associations among quality of care defined by structural features, process indicators, and compliance with state regulations, (b) variation in quality based on the stringency of state child care regulations and center compliance, and (c) specific quality indicators that show especially strong links to children’s experiences in child care. Findings confirmed prior evidence regarding the importance of ratios, teacher training, and group size for high quality classroom processes, but demonstrated the more significant contribution of teacher wages and parent fees. Both structural and process measures of quality varied with the location of the center in a state with more or less stringent child care regulations. The results indicate the importance of incorporating economic and regulatory considerations into future studies of childcare quality.

Parenting stress among dual-earner mothers and fathers: Are there gender differences?

Stress in the parenting role has been found to be related to family functioning and parenting behavior. However, most research in this area has been conducted with clinical samples and has not compared parenting stress of mothers and fathers. In this study, 589 married couples with young children (1

Child Care Research: Issues, Perspectives, and Results

CONTEXTS OF CHILD CARE RESEARCH 613 DEFINITION AL ISSUES . . . . . . . . . . 615 CHILD CARE AS RlSK. 618 CHILD CARE OUTCOMES . ...... . . . . . . .. ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626 SCIENTIFIC IMPLICATIONS . . . 636 PUBLIC POLICY 637

The Minnesota transracial adoption study: A follow-up of IQ test performance at adolescence

Abstract Members of 101 transracial adoptive families were restudied 10 years after the initial research (Scarr & Weinberg, 1976, 1978). In this article we report on IQ scores and school achievements of the black and interracial children and other adopted children, and the biological offspring of the adoptive families at mid- to late-adolescence. Because of changes in tests and in norms, members of the adoptive families, including parents, scored on average lower at Time 2 follow-up than at Time 1. There were no differences between the transracial adoptees and the biological offspring of the adoptive parents in IQ score change from Time 1 to Time 2. In general, the results support the original findings: Being reared in the culture of the tests and the culture of the schools benefits all childrens IQ scores and school achievements.

Day care as intervention: Comparisons of varying quality programs

Disadvantaged children attending a high-quality, government-run intervention program were compared with children attending other day care programs of varying quality on intellectual, language, and social skill. Thus, quality serves as a proxy for treatment intensity here. Although the intervention children had less intelligent mothers of lower occupational status, they were rated by their caregivers as having better communicative skills and were rated by both their parents and their caregivers as more considerate and more sociable than children attending other day care programs. There were no differences between the two groups on ratings of maladjustment or dependency. When the intervention children were compared to children of similar family background, these findings held, and, in addition, the intervention children had higher scores on both the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) and the Preschool Language Assessment Instrument. Thus, high-quality day care can function as an effective intervention. Effect-size estimates are compared with those from five other day care intervention programs. The present study concludes with a discussion of four considerations that should guide both our interpretation of existing data and our plans for future research: (1) program type, (2) intervention participants, (3) quality of the evaluation, and (4) long-term vs. short-term effects.

Race and gender as psychological variables. Social and ethical issues.

In this article, I argue that cowardice about minority and gender differences in research will lead us nowhere

Facts, Fantasies and the Future of Child Care in the United States

Psychologists in both family practice and developmental research may be puzzled about the scientific status of research on child care as it affects children, parents, and caregivers. What conclusions can be reached about mothers in the labor force, about the advisability of various child care arrangements, about their short and long-term consequences, and what advice do we as psychologists have to offer in the public interest to parents of infants and young children? In this article, we review research on child care, and discuss its implications for the nation and for psychology as a research enterprise and a helping profession.

IQ Correlations in Transracial Adoptive Families

Abstract IQ tests were administered to all available members over 4 years old in 101 transracial adoptive families when the adopted children were an average of 7 years old and again when they averaged 17 years old. At both times, 426 members of 93 families were studied; 398 were seen in person and administered the WAIS-R or WISC-R. IQ correlations were calculated for adopted and biological parent-child pairs, and for genetically related and unrelated siblings. Educational levels of birth parents were correlated with the IQ scores of their adopted-away children. Results show that biologically related family members tended to resemble each other intellectually more than did adoptive family members at both time points. IQ correlations for biological parent-child pairs exceeded those for adoptive parent-child pairs, and correlations were greater for genetically related than unrelated siblings. In late adolescence, the IQ scores of unrelated siblings in the transracial adoptive families were more similar than those of unrelated adolescent siblings pairs reported in other studies. The pattern of IQ correlations for unrelated siblings suggested that familial environmental influences on IQ decline from childhood to late adolescence, but this conclusion was not supported by parent-child IQ correlations. The effects of selective placement on familial IQ correlations were small. Estimates of genetic and familial environmental influences on IQ were very similar to those of other studies. This suggests that the influences on intellectual development in this sample of black/interracial adoptees reared in white families are similar to those for children in the majority populations of the United States and Western Europe.