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Bringing together research from several lines of inquiry in psychology and education, we propose a conceptual model for understanding how entrenched inequalities embedded within ecological macrosystems play out in the classroom to affect student learning. We consider how implicit teacher beliefs and belief expressions affect teacher-student interactions and relationships, student learning-related processes, and student learning outcomes. First, we review the literature on how teacher beliefs relate to student learning outcomes. Second, we discuss how teacher beliefs may shape critical classroom-level and individual-level teacher-student interactions and how these interactions can affect student factors that are critical to learning. The Teacher Beliefs and Interactions Model, a conceptual model that brings together related bodies of work that have traditionally been separate, proposes teacher beliefs as an important area of inquiry for future empirical research in education and human development.

Risks associated with school dropout have been studied in West Africa, yet more research is needed to understand what protective factors can be associated with academic resilience (i.e., remaining in school despite facing adversity). At the beginning of our longitudinal study in rural Côte d’Ivoire, 1195 students (Mage=10.75, SDage=1.42) were enrolled in fifth grade. Two years later, 7% of students had dropped out. Characteristics related to the child (e.g., child labour), family (e.g., socioeconomic status), and school (e.g., teacher quality) were first examined distinctly. We then applied a cumulative risk (CR) framework to examine child-, family-, and school-level CR and their interactions. To understand academic resilience, we used findings from our risk analysis to identify a “high-risk enrolled” subset of children and compared them to the children who dropped out. Children who dropped out were older, involved in more child labour, had poorer literacy, owned fewer books, and attended schools with poorer learning environments. Child-level CR most strongly predicted dropout (b=-.860, OR=.424); however, children with low child-level CR were more likely to drop out when family-level CR was high (b=.227, OR=1.250). School characteristics (better infrastructure and teachers) were protective for children who were at high risk of dropout yet remained enrolled. Child-, family-, and school-level factors all contributed to dropout and these factors interact to affect dropout. Although child- and family-level factors contribute significantly to dropout, certain school factors may mitigate these risks and promote academic resilience.

Literacy and numeracy are correlated throughout development, however our understanding of this relation is limited. We explored the predictors of literacy and numeracy covariance (i.e., shared fluency between literacy and numeracy) in children (N=1167, girls=563) in rural Côte d’Ivoire, with specific focus on how developmental timing of instruction may relate to covariance. Many Ivorian children experience late enrollment and grade repetition, leading to variation in age-for-grade; participants were between grades 1 to 6 but their ages ranged from 5 to 15 (M=9.19, SD=2.07). Phonological awareness, numerical magnitude, ordinality, working memory, and inhibitory control were cognitive predictors of covariance. Age-for-grade was negatively related to covariance suggesting that covariance is related to timing of instruction.

The role of executive function skills and motivation in supporting children's academic achievement is well-documented, but the vast majority of evidence is from high-income countries. Classrooms in sub-Saharan Africa tend to be large, teacher-driven, and lecture-focused, which may provide extra challenges for children to stay engaged in the learning process. Based in self-regulated learning theory, we tested the contributions of executive functions and motivation for children's literacy and numeracy skills over 1 school year. Our preregistered study of 2,500 primary school students in Côte d'Ivoire used lagged models with a robust set of demographic covariates. Executive functions were directly assessed, and children reported on their levels of motivation for schooling. Findings indicated strong longitudinal continuity of both literacy and numeracy skills over the academic year. Further, we found unique associations of executive functions and intrinsic motivation with changes in children's literacy skills and a unique association of executive functions, but not intrinsic motivation, with changes in children's numeracy skills over the school year. Overall, these results provide evidence for the importance of nonacademic skills for children's learning in a rural, sub-Saharan African context. Implications include improving access to preprimary education, the quality of primary school experiences, and teacher training and supports to increase children's early academic skills, self-regulation skills, and motivation for learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined how exposure to two intervention programmes designed to improve the quality of pre-primary education in Ghana-the Quality Preschool for Ghana project-impacted children's rate of growth in academic (literacy and numeracy) and non-academic skills (social-emotional and executive function) across two school years. This cluster-randomised trial included 240 schools (

The COVID-19 pandemic led to extended school closures globally. Access to remote learning opportunities during this time was vastly unequal within and across countries. Higher-quality early childhood education (ECE) can improve later academic outcomes, but longer-term effects during crises are unknown. This study provides the first experimental evidence of how previously attending a higher-quality ECE program affected child engagement in remote learning and academic scores during pandemic-related school closures in Ghana. Children (N = 1668; 50.1% male; Msubage/sub = 10.1 years; all Ghanaian nationals) who attended higher-quality ECE at age 4 or 5 years had greater engagement in remote learning (d = .14) in October 2020, but not better language and literacy and math scores. Previous exposure to higher-quality ECE may support educational engagement during crises.

Many children in developing countries do not acquire functional literacy skills despite being in school. We apply a cumulative risk (aggregate over a range of risk) and protection framework to asse...

Research on the associations among adversity, executive function (EF), and academic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, where developmental risk factors are more prevalent and impoverished environments are more widespread than in high income countries, is sparse. This study examines the relations among cumulative risk, EF, and learning outcomes measured 2-years later in Ghanaian third- and fourth-graders (

This study investigated how early childhood education teachers’ (N = 444) depressive and anxiety symptoms predicted their professional well-being outcomes and absenteeism over the course of one school year in Ghana. Higher anxiety and depressive symptoms predicted lower job motivation and job satisfaction and higher levels of emotional exhaustion at the end of the school year. Increased depressive symptoms were further associated with more days absent over the course of the school year. Findings point to the importance of considering teachers’ mental health for early educational quality. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

There is a growing literature on the potential of text-message-based nudge interventions to increase parent engagement and improve child learning outcomes. It is unknown whether these interventions can be effective across diverse contexts such as rural West Africa, where child labor is common and learning outcomes are very low. We use a school-randomized trial to test the impacts of a text-message intervention (two messages per week for the duration of one school year) to parents and teachers of second and fourth grade students (N = 198 classrooms, 2,243 students) in rural Cote d’Ivoire. Schools (N = 100) were randomly assigned to have messages sent to (i) parents alone, (ii) teachers alone, (iii) parents and teachers together, and (iv) control. Impacts are found only for the intervention arm targeting parents alone. Specifically, we find positive marginally statistically significant impacts on child numeracy (d = 0.07, p < .09) and increases in child labor based on child-reports (d = 0.11, p < .05). Implications are discussed for nudge-based interventions, international education, child labor, and parent engagement.

BACKGROUND: Children ages 6 to 17 years can accurately assess their own food insecurity, whereas parents are inaccurate reporters of their children's experiences of food insecurity. No globally applicable scale to assess the food insecurity of children has been developed and validated. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to develop a globally applicable, experience-based measure of child and adolescent food insecurity and establish the validity and cross-contextual equivalence of the measure. METHODS: The 10-item Child Food Insecurity Experiences Scale (CFIES) was based on items previously validated from questionnaires from the United States, Venezuela, and Lebanon. Cognitive interviews were conducted to check understanding of the items. The questionnaire then was administered in 15 surveys in 13 countries. Other items in each survey that assessed the household socioeconomic status, household food security, or child psychological functioning were selected as criterion variables to compare to the scores from the CFIES. To investigate accuracy (i.e., criterion validity), linear regression estimated the associations of the CFIES scores with the criterion variables. To investigate the cross-contextual equivalence (i.e., measurement invariance), the alignment method was used based on classical measurement theory. RESULTS: Across the 15 surveys, the mean scale scores for the CFIES ranged from 1.65 to 5.86 (possible range of 0 to 20) and the Cronbach alpha ranged from 0.88 to 0.94. The variance explained by a 1-factor model ranged from 0.92 to 0.99. Accuracy was demonstrated by expected associations with criterion variables. The percentages of equivalent thresholds and loadings across the 15 surveys were 28.0 and 5.33, respectively, for a total percentage of nonequivalent thresholds and loadings of 16.7, well below the guideline of

IntroductionMany children in developing countries grow up in environments that lack stimulation, leading to deficiencies in early years of development. Several efficacy trials of early childhood care and education (ECCE) programmes have demonstrated potential to improve child development; evidence on whether these effects can be sustained once programmes are scaled is much more mixed. This study evaluates whether an ECCE programme shown to be effective in an efficacy trial maintains effectiveness when taken to scale by the Government of Ghana (GoG). The findings will provide critical evidence to the GoG on effectiveness of a programme it is investing in, as well as a blueprint for design and scale-up of ECCE programmes in other developing countries, which are expanding their investment in ECCE programmes.Methods and analysisThis study is a cluster randomised controlled trial, in which the order that districts receive the programme is randomised. A minimum sample of 3240 children and 360 schools will be recruited across 72 district school cohort pairs. The primary outcomes are (1) child cognitive and socioemotional development measured using the International Development and Early Learning Assessment tool, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and tasks from the Harvard Laboratory for Development Studies; (2) child health (measured using height/weight for age, height-for-weight Z scores). Secondary outcomes include (1) maternal mental health, (using Kessler-10 and Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale) and knowledge of ECCE practices; (2) teacher knowledge, motivation and teaching quality (measured with classroom observation); (3) parental investment (using the Family Care Index and Home Observation Measurement of the Environment and the Child–Parent Relationship Scale); (4) water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices; (5) acute malnutrition (using mid-upper arm circumference). We will estimate unadjusted and adjusted intent-to-treat effects.Ethics and disseminationStudy protocols have been approved by ethics boards at the University College London (21361/001), Yale University (2000031549) and Ghanaian Health Service Ethics Review Committee (028/09/21). Results will be made available to participating communities, funders, the wider public and other researchers through peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations, social and print media and various community/stakeholder engagement activities.Trial registration numberISRCTN15360698, AEARCTR-0008500.

The transition from student-teaching to full-time teaching is an understudied period in teachers’ careers. This paper uses a cumulative risk (CR) framework to assess personal and professional risks experienced by 135 student-teachers in rural Ghana during pre-service training and later as newly qualified teachers, and examines how risks relate to their professional well-being and learning outcomes of children in their classrooms. Higher CR was associated with lower teacher motivation and personal accomplishment. Furthermore, higher CR predicted lower child numeracy skills and socioemotional development over the school year. Implications for teacher professional development and improving educational quality are discussed.

Low-cost private schools are expanding across sub-Saharan Africa and are often perceived by parents to be of better quality than public schools. This article assesses the interplay between kinderga...

Governments around the world are increasing investments in early childhood education as a way to promote children's learning and development. As research grows on the longer-term effects of early educational programs, some have hypothesized that sustained impacts may depend on the quality of children's subsequent classroom environments and may be more likely to occur in certain nonacademic domains. This study is the first to examine these questions in sub-Saharan Africa, using longitudinal data from a school-randomized trial in Ghana. A 1-year teacher-training and coaching program, delivered with (TTPA) and without (TT) parental-awareness meetings, was implemented when children were enrolled in 1 of 2 grades of preprimary school. Previous studies showed that in Year 1, the implementation year, the TT treatment had positive impacts on children's literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional development, while the TTPA treatment yielded no positive impacts for children in both grades. In this study, I examine impacts in Year 3, at the end of children's 1st or 2nd year of primary school. I find persistent positive impacts of TT on literacy, and new negative impacts of TTPA on numeracy, but these depend on levels of classroom emotional support and teacher burnout in primary school. In addition, there were small persistent impacts of both treatments on children's executive function, and these were not conditional on subsequent classroom environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Young children’s access to early childhood education (ECE) is increasing in low- and middle-income countries, though often without attention to service quality. Monitoring quality requires classroom observations, but most observation tools available were developed in high-income Western countries. In this article, we examine key issues in measuring ECE quality in low- and middle-income countries and consider challenges and opportunities in balancing theoretical grounding, cultural- and contextual-adaptation, and empirical rigor. We then review the literature on observed classroom quality in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on process quality. We find limited evidence that the constructs identified in high-income countries replicate in low- and middle-income countries. Further, the very limited evidence that ECE quality measures used in low- and middle-income countries predict child outcomes is almost exclusively cross-sectional and associations are mixed. We conclude by discussing how future research can build a stronger knowledge base about ECE quality and child development globally.

Research on classroom peer effects has focused nearly exclusively on high-income countries and on academic skills. Little is known about peer effects in low-income countries and whether effects differ under different educational environments (e.g., teacher-directed versus child-centered, conditions of concentrated advantage or disadvantage). Based on a data set of Ghanaian preprimary classrooms in the Greater Accra Region collected in the 2015-2016 school year, we use complex system networks with multilevel modeling to study the presence and magnitude of peer effects. Results corroborated small statistically significant effects on academic and nonacademic skills (d = .06-.10). Peer effects on literacy were larger for children in public schools, who are relatively more disadvantaged than their private school counterparts. Teacher-directivity intensity did not moderate peer effects.

We used a cluster-randomized, wait-list controlled trial to examine impacts of a school-based social-emotional learning intervention on Congolese students and teachers. Seventy-six school c...

We examine how incidence and accumulation of two domains of risk factors—deprivation and threat of harm—predict early childhood development, testing a framework put forth by McLaughlin and Sheridan (2016). Using the ECLSK: 11 (N = 18,200, M = 5.6 years; 48.7% female), a nationally representative sample of kindergarteners, we consider behavioral and cognitive indicators that represent different learning processes. We find partial support for the hypothesis that deprivation (but not threat) risks predict higher-order learning outcomes, with both incidence and accumulation of risk negatively predicting reading scores but mixed associations for executive function outcomes. We find support that incidence of threat (but not deprivation) risks negatively predict emotional and behavioral outcomes as hypothesized. When modeled cumulatively, however, both deprivation and threat risks predict behavioral outcomes. Finally, in line with hypothesized processes, both deprivation and threat risks negatively predict math scores, which represent pattern-learning processes. Implications for research in childhood adversity are discussed.

Using a randomized-control trial, this study evaluates a program designed to support Ghanaian kindergarten student-teachers during pre-service training through mentorship and in-classroom training. Several potential barriers to improved teaching quality and learning outcomes are examined. Findings show that the program improved knowledge and implementation of the national curriculum for individuals both when they were student-teachers and, the following year, when they became newly qualified teachers (NQTs). There were mixed impacts on professional well-being, increasing personal accomplishment and motivation but decreasing job satisfaction for NQTs. There were mixed impacts on teaching quality, with increases in child-led learning but decreases in some other aspects of quality. There were no impacts on NQTs’ student learning outcomes. The findings highlight system level challenges with both the posting of NQTs and the absence of support in their first teaching year. Implications for global early childhood education policy and teacher education are discussed.

We assessed the impacts of a teacher professional development program for public and private kindergartens in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We examined impacts on teacher professional well-bei...

Income instability is an important and under-studied dimension of the established empirical relation between family income and children's healthy development. Frequent fluctuations in income may influence daily processes and routines of family life, but the nature of such effects also may vary by specific patterns of income instability, parents' responses, and children's characteristics. In this article, we review existing theory and research on income, family functioning, and child development to better understand the potential implications of income instability for children's development. We also integrate theoretical insights from developmental psychology, economics, sociology, and social neuroscience to propose a set of testable hypotheses for social science investigations on this topic.

The burden of food insecurity is large in Sub-Saharan Africa, yet the evidence-base on the relation between household food insecurity and early child development is extremely limited. Furthermore, available research mostly relies on cross-sectional data, limiting the quality of existing evidence. We use longitudinal data on preschool-aged children and their households in Ghana to investigate how being in a food insecure household was associated with early child development outcomes across three years. Household food insecurity was measured over three years using the Household Hunger Score. Households were first classified as “ever food insecure” if they were food insecure at any round. We also assessed persistence of household food insecurity by classifying households into three categories: (i) never food insecure; (ii) transitory food insecurity, if the household was food insecure only in one wave; and (iii) persistent food insecurity, if the household was food insecure in two or all waves. Child development was assessed across literacy, numeracy, social-emotional, short-term memory, and self-regulation domains. Controlling for baseline values of each respective outcome and child and household characteristics, children from ever food insecure households had lower literacy, numeracy and short-term memory. When we distinguished between transitory and persistent food insecurity, transitory spells of food insecurity predicted decreased numeracy (β = -0.176, 95% CI: -0.317; -0.035), short-term memory (β = -0.237, 95% CI: -0.382; -0.092), and self-regulation (β = -0.154, 95% CI: -0.326; 0.017) compared with children from never food insecure households. By contrast, children residing in persistently food insecure households had lower literacy scores (β = -0.243, 95% CI: -0.496; 0.009). No gender differences were detected. Results were broadly robust to the inclusion of additional controls. This novel evidence from a Sub-Saharan African country highlights the need for multi-sectoral approaches including social protection and nutrition to support early child development.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the demand for and supply of early childhood education (ECE) in low- and middle-income countries. There is also growing awareness that unless ECE is of high quality, children may attend school but not learn. There is a large literature on the conceptualization and measurement of ECE quality in the United States that focuses on the nature of teacher-child interactions. Efforts to expand access to high quality ECE in low- and middle-income countries will require similar measurement efforts that are theoretically-grounded and culturally-adapted. This paper assesses the factor structure and concurrent validity of an observational classroom quality tool to assess teacher-child interactions—the Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System© (TIPPS; Seidman et al., 2013)—in Ghanaian pre-primary classrooms. We find evidence of three conceptually distinct but empirically correlated domains of quality: Facilitating Deeper Learning (FDL), Supporting Student Expression (SSE), and Emotional Support and Behavior Management (ESBM). Teachers’ schooling level, training in early childhood development, and professional well-being positively predict the three quality domains in different ways. SSE and ESBM predict classroom end-of-the-school-year academic outcomes, and SSE predicts classroom end-of-the-school-year social-emotional outcomes. Implications for the field of international education and global ECE policy and research are discussed.

As policy makers and practitioners work to increase access to early childhood education (ECE) and to improve the quality of existing services, it is important that the field consider the perspective of a key stakeholder: parents. This study analyzes 33 interviews with parents of young children in urban Ghana. The interviews investigate (1) what parents believe to be the purpose of ECE, and (2) parents’ perspective on what and how young children should learn. Results are analyzed around five themes: play, homework, mobility, language and diversity, and age of entry into school. Implications for global ECE policy are discussed.

Social-emotional (SE) skills grow rapidly during the preschool years and support children's ability to manage stress and form positive relationships. Yet little research exists on how SE skills develop over time, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. We examined the development of prosocial SE skills with four waves of data over three years in a sample of Ghanaian preschoolers (N = 1916; 47.6% female). We used factor analysis and vertical scaling to assess the dimensionality of prosocial SE skills and latent growth mixture modeling to identify subgroups as defined by different trajectories. We found two distinct subgroups—normative, in which children gained SE skills over time, and low-growth, in which children had lower initial skill levels and acquired skills at a slower rate over time. Group membership was associated with demographic characteristics and children's first grade academic outcomes, as well as other important non-academic skills.

Although there is a wealth of research on the relationship between income level and employment status and child well-being, the relationship between economic instability and health during early childhood is understudied. We examine the associations between the incidence, accumulation, and timing of intrayear employment and income instability with household and child food insecurity and child health using a nationally representative sample of households. The sample includes children age 3–5 from households in the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (N=5,056). We find that young children’s households experience high levels of both income and employment instability. Both the incidence and the accumulation of instability predict poorer child outcomes, more recent instability is more strongly associated with child outcomes, and these relations are stronger for children with less educated parents. Employment and income changes have separate, unique associations with each outcome and operate ...

This paper examines the effects of Opportunity New York City-Family Rewards, the first holistic conditional cash transfer (CCT) program evaluated in the USA, on adolescents' mental health and problem behavior (key outcomes outside of the direct targets of the program) as well as on key potential mechanisms of these effects. The Family Rewards program, launched by the Center for Economic Opportunity in the Mayor's Office of the City of New York in 2007 and co-designed and evaluated by MDRC, offered cash assistance to low-income families to reduce economic hardship. The cash rewards were offered to families in three key areas: children's education, family preventive health care, and parents' employment. Results that rely on the random assignment design of the study find that Family Rewards resulted in statistically significant reductions in adolescent aggression and rates of substance use by program group adolescents as well as their friends, relative to adolescents in the control condition, but no statistically significant impacts on adolescent mental health. One possible mechanism for the benefits to adolescent behavior appears to be time spent with peers, as fewer adolescents in the program group spent time with friends and more adolescents in the program group spent time with family. Findings are discussed with regard to their implication for conditional cash transfer programs as well as for interventions targeting high-risk youth.

The post 2015 context for international development has led to a demand for assessments that measure multiple dimensions of children's school readiness and are feasibly administered in low-resource settings. The present study assesses the construct validity of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) developed by Save the Children using data from a sample of children (∼5 years of age; N = 682) from rural Ethiopia. The study (a) uses exploratory and confirmatory bi-factor analyses to assess the internal structure of the assessment with respect to four hypothesized domains of school-readiness (Early Numeracy, Early Literacy, Social-Emotional development, and Motor development); (b) uses latent regression to examine concurrent validity of the domains against a limited set of child and family characteristics; and (c) establishes measurement invariance across three focal comparisons (children enrolled in center-based care versus home-based care; girls versus boys; and treatment status in a cluster randomized controlled trial of a center-based program). The results support the conclusion that the IDELA is useful for making inferences about children's school readiness. Implications for future use of the IDELA and similar instruments are discussed.

This article examines the effects of one year of exposure to “Learning to Read in a Healing Classroom” (LRHC) on the reading and math skills of second- to fourth-grade children in the low-income and conflict-affected Democratic Republic of the Congo. LRHC consists of two primary components: teacher resource materials that infuse social-emotional learning principles into a reading curriculum and collaborative school-based teacher learning circles to exchange information about and solve problems in using the teacher resource materials. To test the impact of LRHC on children's reading and math skills, 40 school clusters containing 64 schools and 4,465 students were randomized to begin LRHC in 2011–2012 or to serve as wait-list controls. Hierarchical linear models (students nested in schools, nested in school clusters) were fitted. Results indicate marginally significant positive impacts on children's reading scores (dwt = .14) and geometry scores (dwt = .14) but not on their addition/subtraction scor...

We evaluated a program to improve literacy instruction on the Kenyan Coast using training workshops, semi-scripted lesson plans and weekly text message support for teachers to understand its impact on students' literacy outcomes and on the classroom practices leading to those outcomes. The evaluation ran from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2 in 51 government primary schools chosen at random, with 50 schools acting as controls. The intervention had an impact on classroom practices with effect sizes from 0.57 to 1.15. There was more instruction with written text and more focus on letters and sounds. There was a positive impact on 3 of 4 primary measures of children's literacy after 2 years, with effect sizes up to 0.64, and school dropout reduced from 5.3% to 2.1%. This approach to literacy instruction is sustainable and affordable and a similar approach has subsequently been adopted nationally in Kenya.

Preschool programs have expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, but there are widespread concerns about whether they are of sufficient quality to promote children's learning and development. We conducted a large school-randomized control trial (‘Quality Preschool for Ghana’ – QP4G) of a one-year teacher training and coaching program, with and without parental-awareness meetings, designed to improve preschool quality and child development. We followed 3,435 children in 240 schools in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, a country with universal pre-primary education. A previous study reported positive impacts of teacher training (but not teacher training plus parental-awareness meetings) at the end of the implementation year on some dimensions of classroom quality, teacher well-being, and children's school readiness (Wolf et al., [2019] Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 12, 10–37). The present study analyzed a new round of data collected 1 year after the end of implementation to assess (a) the extent of persistence in impacts on child development and (b) whether such impacts vary by select child, household, and school characteristics. We found impacts of the teacher training intervention on children's overall school readiness were sustained (d = 0.13), but were only marginally statistically significant. When broken down by domain, impacts on social–emotional skills specifically persisted. Persistent negative effects of teacher training plus parental-awareness meetings varied by the literacy status of the male parent such that negative impacts were concentrated in children in households with non-literate male heads.

This study explores the personal, professional, and contextual conditions faced by early childhood education (ECE) teachers in under-resourced settings and how these relate to teacher responsiveness to professional development (PD): namely, teacher attrition (a sign of PD failure when occurring shortly after PD), take-up of offered PD, adherence to PD training/materials, and quality of implementation. We use data from six disadvantaged districts in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana and PD focused on implementation of a national, play-based curriculum. Descriptive statistics indicate that ECE teachers (n = 302) face a multitude of barriers to high quality teaching across the bioecological model. Multilevel mixed effects models find that teachers with low job satisfaction are more likely to leave the school within the academic year. Teachers with moderate to severe depression are less likely to attend PD trainings. Senior teachers and those with poverty risks are less likely to adhere to PD material. Teachers with many time demand barriers are more likely to adhere to material. They also implement the content at higher observed quality as do teachers with bachelor's degrees and early childhood development (ECD) training. Take-up of PD also predicts quality of implementation. Practice and research implications are discussed.

To conduct a scoping review of the literature to describe current conceptualization and measurement of socioeconomic status in pediatric health research.Four databases were used to identify relevant studies, followed by selection and data extraction. Inclusion criteria for studies were the following: enrolled subjects18 years old, included a health-related outcome, published from 1999 to 2018, and explicitly measured socioeconomic status (SES).Our literature search identified 1768 publications and 1627 unique records. After screening for duplication and relevance, 228 studies satisfied the inclusion criteria, with 75% (n = 170) published since 2009. There were 52 unique singular measures and an additional 20 composite measures. Income-related measures were used in 65% of studies (n = 147) and measures of education in 42% (n = 95). The majority of studies using census-derived variables or insurance status were conducted within the previous 10 years.Pediatric studies use a variety of SES measures, which limits comparisons between studies. Few studies provide an evidenced-based rationale that connects the SES indicator to the health outcome, but the majority of studies do find a significant impact of SES on outcomes. SES should be comprehensively studied so that meaningful measures can be used to identify specific SES mechanisms that impact child health.

Relatively little research has addressed whether conceptual frameworks of early learning generalize across different national contexts. This article reports on a cross-country measurement invariance analysis of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). The IDELA is a direct assessment tool for 3- to 6-year-old children, intended to measure Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, Motor, and Social-Emotional development. Its generalizability is evaluated using samples from 5 countries: Afghanistan (N = 2,629); Bolivia (N = 480); Ethiopia (N = 682); Uganda (N = 504); and Vietnam (N = 675). The 4-domain model of the IDELA was supported in each country, although the domains were highly correlated. Measurement invariance analysis revealed that most IDELA items do not provide a basis for comparing children's development over the 5 countries. This research supports the use of the IDELA for program evaluation and within-country monitoring purposes, but cautions against its use for international comparisons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

We tested the role of teacher-child closeness in moderating the associations between early childhood adversity, measured as a cumulative risk index, and child outcomes during the kindergarten year. Using the ECLSK:11, a national dataset of kindergarteners in the 2010-11 academic year, we examined three dimensions of executive function (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, working memory), as well as early reading and math scores, as key skills that facilitate the transition to school. Cumulative risk was negatively associated with all outcomes, and teacher-child closeness was positively associated with all outcomes. Teacher-child closeness moderated the relation between cumulative risk and working memory and cumulative risk and reading scores in a protective manner, but not cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, or math scores. Implications for research in early childhood adversity and education are discussed.

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa have made marked efforts to increase school enrollment. Yet attendance and completion rates remain low, particularly for girls. This study examines the reasons that school children do not attend school in a sample of Ghanaian students. Girls were more likely to miss school because a family member was sick, whereas boys were more likely to miss school due to work. Caregivers’ inability to pay school fees and belief that it is better to educate boys than girls were related to lower school attendance for girls but not for boys. Implications of the findings to inform efforts to improve educational access for all children are discussed.