Sharon Lynn Kagan

The relation of preschool child-care quality to children's cognitive and social developmental trajectories through second grade

The cognitive and socioemotional development of 733 children was examined longitudinally from ages 4 to 8 years as a function of the quality of their preschool experiences in community child-care centers, after adjusting for family selection factors related to child-care quality and development. These results provide evidence that child-care quality has a modest long-term effect on childrens patterns of cognitive and socioemotional development at least through kindergarten, and in some cases, through second grade. Differential effects on childrens development were found for two aspects of child-care quality. Observed classroom practices were related to childrens language and academic skills, whereas the closeness of the teacher-child relationship was related to both cognitive and social skills, with the strongest effects for the latter. Moderating influences of family characteristics were observed for some outcomes, indicating stronger positive effects of child-care quality for children from more at-risk backgrounds. These findings contribute further evidence of the long-term influences of the quality of child-care environments on childrens cognitive and social skills through the elementary school years and are consistent with a bioecological model of development that considers the multiple environmental contexts that the child experiences.

Lessons from Three Decades of Transition Research

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of activities to ease childrens transitions to school. In an effort to inform current and future work, in this article we review the major federally initiated transition demonstration efforts of the past 3 decades (Follow Through and Head Start Planned Variation; Project Development Continuity; the Head Start Transition Project, the National Transition Study; and the National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Project). Although the findings from these studies have been far from conclusive and have not strongly affected policy and practice, they do offer lessons for those concerned about implementing transitions. After investigating what has been learned from past research, we recommend a multipronged approach to promote continuity in childrens early development and learning.

Putting families first : America's family support movement and the challenge of change

Sweeping social changes of the past three decades have dramatically altered American family life. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that the strength of our society is inextricably linked to the strength of its families. In this book, leading scholars and practitioners in family support come together to reflect on the issues and challenges currently faced in the family support field and to offer insights into strengthening policies, programs, and services. Drawing on their diverse and unique perspectives, the authors examine the evolution of current principles and practices in family support and discuss future directions in quality services, training, and evaluation. They analyze the movement of family support programs into mainstream institutions such as schools, the workplace, churches, and prisons. And they project a vision in which family support approaches guide the manner in which systems, communities, and national policies work to promote family well-being.

Early Learning Standards: Changing the Parlance and Practice of Early Childhood Education?.

ERHAPS more than any other formulation, the question “What should students know and be able to do?” has shaped both the parlance and practice of education over the past decade. Ushering in an era of standards and accountability, this widely intoned question has precipitated the most massive reform American education has experienced, with no part of the education system, including early childhood education, exempt. Our purpose here is to examine how this focus has affected young children — to address specifically the prevalence of standards, their nature, and their use as they relate to children who are just entering our schools. To be fair, the issue of learning standards for young children did not come out of nowhere. Those who concentrate their efforts on young children have grappled with the correlates of “ready children” (and ready schools and communities). Decades of work by the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) yielded detailed Early Learning Standards: Changing the Parlance and Practice of Early Childhood Education?

Educating culturally and linguistically diverse preschoolers: Moving the agenda

Despite growing interest in childrens policy and in research regarding childhood bilingualism and language acquisition, much concern exists regarding the early care and education of linguistically and culturally diverse preschoolers. This article attributes comparative policy inattention to linguistically and culturally diverse preschoolers to several causes including widely and tenaciously held personal beliefs, political ideologies, misperceptions regarding the lack of a demographic imperative, and academic disciplinary fragmentation. After questioning these causes, the authors explore the current state of todays practice, suggesting that four fundamental issues must be addressed if policy and practice in this domain are to improve: (1) socialization, resocialization, and the family/child relationship; (2) modalities of instruction; (3) contextually discontinuous strategies; and (4) subsystem creation versus system reform. Each issue is discussed, and action principles and leadership strategies are presented in hopes of moving an action agenda to assure linguistically and culturally diverse preschoolers access to high quality and developmentally appropriate preschool experiences.

Early Schooling: The National Debate.

Essays offer differing viewpoints on schooling for four-year-olds, the educat of Black children, psychological aspects of early education, curriculum, and preschools.

Does Maternal Employment Influence Poor Children's Social Development?.

Abstract Various initiatives over the past 40 years have aimed to strengthen children’s early learning and social development. One policy theory—manifest in recent welfare reforms—postulates that requiring single mothers to work more outside the home will advance children’s well-being. We first examine whether young children’s social development is related to maternal employment among 405 women who entered welfare-to-work programs in 1998. For girls, age 24–42 months, we found that their mother’s recent employment duration was significantly associated with a lower incidence of aggressive behavior and inattentiveness, measured by two scales from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL 2/3). Yet these relationships with employment were weaker than more robust associations observed for proximal child-rearing practices, including the frequency of reading with the child, enforcing a regular bedtime, the propensity to spank the child, as well as levels of maternal depression. We then assess whether broader measures of the mother’s economic security help to predict these proximal determinants of development. We observed that food security and indicators of job quality consistently predicted the proximal factors. Structural equation models (SEM) provided additional evidence that these broader indicators of economic security, but not recent employment per se, operated through parenting practices and maternal depression to influence girls’ and boys’ social development. These results are consistent with recent findings from random-assignment experiments, showing that employment gains rarely affect child outcomes unless mothers’ income and broader economic security also improve.

Assessing Child-Care Quality with a Telephone Interview.

Abstract As increasing numbers of children enter child-care environments that are subsidized by federal and state funds, the demand has risen from policy makers and activists for valid, cost-effective methods of assessing the quality of those environments. In this study we asked whether data on child-care quality obtained from a telephone interview with the provider can serve as an adequate proxy for data obtained from direct observation. Observations were conducted in 89 family child-care homes and 92 centers using the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) and the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS-R), respectively. The target providers and teachers were subsequently interviewed by telephone using a protocol developed by the authors. For the family child-care providers, the 25 item telephone interview explained 49% of the variance (adjusted r 2 ) in the total FDCRS score. Discriminant analyses revealed that the telephone interview was able to predict accurately 92% of the homes in terms of three FDCRS-derived categories of quality: “poor,” “mediocre,” or “developmentally appropriate.” For the centers, the 22 item telephone interview accounted for 51% of the variance (adjusted r 2 ) in the total ECERS-R score. The telephone interview was able to predict the classification of 89% of the centers in terms of the ECERS-R derived categories of “poor,” “mediocre,” or “developmentally appropriate.” Shorter forms of the telephone interviews (12 items for family child-care; 13 items for center-based care) also demonstrated adequate predictive capability. These findings suggest that the telephone interview can be a valid source of data concerning the global quality of a child-care environment.

Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention: Early Care and Education: Current Issues and Future Strategies

Throughout the 1990s, interest in and support for our youngest citizens has expanded considerably in the public and private sectors. Throughout the United States, researchers, policy makers, business leaders, media, and parents have recognized the significance of early care and education to fostering childrens early learning and development. Yet, despite recent attention to and activity concerning early care and education, persistent challenges pervade the delivery of services for young children and their families. Historically our nation, while voicing commitment to young children and their families, has layered an insufficient number of piecemeal and idiosyncratic services upon one another, constantly reinforcing – rather than alleviating – an inequitable, nonsystem of early care and education. Although innovative efforts have been launched to redress this situation, like the direct services themselves, these efforts have been without significant coordination or collaboration. Given the increasing utilization of early care and education services, the significant attention being accorded to young children, and the willingness of the public to act more aggressively on this issue than ever before, how can we create a strategic approach to advancing early care and education in the United States? In this chapter, we tackle these issues, first discussing the status of American early care and education today, particularly recent changes in demographics, service delivery, and attitudes. We then delve into the pervasive problems that have plagued the field throughout its history. Given this context, we describe some current innovative efforts in early care and education.

Professional development of the early childhood education teaching workforce in the United States: an overview

Resulting from a fragmented landscape of policies for and uneven investments in the early childhood education (ECE) field in the United States, the qualifications of the ECE teaching workforce are typically quite low. This article first reviews the history and status of the ECE teaching workforce in the United States, focusing on the evolution of the field, current demographic characteristics of the teaching workforce and the pathways to professional development and professional preparation of the teaching workforce. The authors then discuss the legacies of this history and policy landscape: a lack of quality, equity and sustainability. Offering a re-conceptualization of professional development within the context of systems thinking, the article concludes with a discussion of innovations and challenges with which the field contends relative to workforce development.