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Earlier research details how quality preschool offers sustained benefits for children from poor families. But the nation’s typical program yields tepid effects for the average middle-class child. We ask whether pre-k impacts range higher when teachers spend more time on activities emphasizing language, preliteracy, and math concepts. Stronger effects are observed for children attending academic classrooms: up to about 0.27 SD in preliteracy and math concepts, compared with peers in home-based care at 52 months of age (n = 6,150). Black children enjoy strong benefits from academic pre-k, up to 0.39 SD for math concepts. Estimated benefits equal 0.43 SD for the average child attending academic pre-k after about eight months. Gains persist through kindergarten. Results stem from a national sample of children, employing a quasi-experimental method to account for confounders related to family practices and children's earlier proficiencies. Future work might focus on the interplay of academic activities with social dimensions of instructional support.

A variety of middle schools has flourished in Saudi Arabia – publicly funded, private, or international in character – as government tries to keep pace with rising family demand. This widening diversity of schools prompts questions over the social-class and ethnic differences of families served, and whether educational quality varies in consequential ways. We first describe the attributes of pupils enrolled in and qualities of 135 Jeddah middle schools, then estimate the extent to which school auspice predicts three elements of school quality (associated with pupil achievement) – length of instructional time, the principal’s focus on instructional rigor, and organizational cohesion among teachers. These estimates take into account pupil attributes, enrollment size, and the adequacy of material inputs. We find that private middle schools serve more advantaged pupils and display higher quality, compared with government-run schools, but no quality advantages for schools run by international sponsors were observed. Levels of instructional materials displayed little relation to the intensity of principal leadership or the social cohesion of teachers inside schools. Implications for equity and government policy are discussed.

Young children's expected social behaviors develop within particular cultural contexts and contribute to their academic experience in large part through their relationships with their teachers. Commonly used measures focus on children's problem behaviors, developed from psychopathology traditions, and rarely situate normative and positive behaviors in context. Building from the literature on parenting goals and socialization expectations in Latino families and a preliminary ethnographic study ( Proyecto Educando Ninos ), we constructed a survey in English and Spanish that measures the expected social behaviors of Mexican-heritage children, ages 3–6 years, using parent and teacher reports. Use of the BEAR Assessment System facilitated the refinement of this instrument to assess the socialization of young, Mexican American children. We report on the psychometric properties of the Mexican American Socialization (MAS) Scale, utilizing item-response theory. Analyses indicate the MAS Scale is reliable and an ecologically valid indicator of multiple constructs of the expected social behaviors of young Mexican American children. In particular, the 41-item Bien Educado subscale showed good reliability and is consistent with socialization constructs described in the literature. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Public spending on child-care has grown steadily over the past two decades, flowing to parents in the form of portable vouchers, especially in the wake of the 1996 welfare reforms. At the same time, Head Start and state preschool programs continue to allocate funds directly to neighborhood and school organizations. Little is known about how diverse low-income parents enter this mixed market of child-care providers, then select from among centers and after-school programs, licensed day-care homes, or individual caregivers. Do parents' attributes, along with participation in welfare, affect whether they enter the market or instead rely on nonmarket caregivers, and what type of care they select? To what extent does the local availability of programs condition parental choice? We address these questions, drawing from interviews with 1974 employed parents moving from welfare to work in three California counties. We found that married parents, Latinos, Vietnamese, and non-English speakers, in general, were less likely to select a center or formal after-program, instead relying on home-based providers. Parents with higher school attainment, working longer hours, and earning more were more likely to choose a center or after-school organization. The ages and number of children in the home were related to selection patterns. Non-English speaking parents residing in neighborhoods with more abundant enrollment slots in child-care centers were more likely to choose such a program. We discuss implications for how we theorize about diverse poor families making choices in mixed markets, or being allocated to organized child-care opportunities across variable neighborhoods.

The effects of center-based care on early development, outside of carefully controlled demonstration programs, appear to be positive yet often modest for children from low-income families. But little is known about variation in the quality of centers and preschools found among low-income neighborhoods. Evidence also remains scarce on the observed quality of home-based care, the settings that most children attend and into which large infusions of federal dollars are now directed. This paper reports on the observed quality of 166 centers and 187 nonparental home settings (including family child care homes and kith or kin providers) serving children in five cities situated in California, Connecticut, or Florida. Centers displayed higher mean quality as gauged by provider education and the intensity of structured learning activities, compared to home-based settings, but did not consistently display more positive child–provider interactions. Great variability among centers and home-based settings was observed, including between-city differences. Second, we found that contextual neighborhood attributes accounted for the quality of providers selected more strongly than family-level selection factors. Mothers with stronger verbal abilities (PPVT scores) did select higher quality centers; those employed longer hours each week relied on kith and kin providers with lower education levels. Interrelationships among different quality measures are detailed. The policy implications of such wide disparities in center and home-based care quality are discussed, including how states could more carefully strengthen regulatory or quality improvement efforts.

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.

Recent work reveals sharp disparities in which types of children participate in centers and preschools. Enrollment rates are especially low for Latino children, relative to Black and Anglo preschoolers, a gap that remains after taking into account maternal employment and family income. Early attempts to model parents’ likelihood of enrolling their youngster in a center have drawn heavily from the household-economics tradition, emphasizing the influence of cost and family income. Yet we show that, after controlling for household-economic factors, the household’s social structure and the mother’s language, child-rearing beliefs, and practices further help to predict the probability of selecting a center-based program. Children are more likely to be enrolled in a center when the mother defines child rearing as an explicit process that should impart school-related skills—reading to her youngster, frequenting the library, teaching cooperative skills, and speaking English. After taking these social factors into account, ethnic differences in center selection still operate: African American families continue to participate at higher rates for reasons that may not be solely attributable to family-level processes, such as greater access to Head Start centers or state preschools. In addition, the lower center selection rate for Latinos appears to be lodged primarily in those families which speak Spanish in the home, further pointing to how cultural preferences are diverse and interact with the local supply of centers. These findings stem from an analysis of whether, and at what age, a national sample of 3,624 children first entered a center, using discrete-time survival analysis. We discuss how center selection can be seen as one element of a broader parental agenda, linked to parents’ acculturation to middle-class Anglo commitments and involving the task of getting one’s child ready for school.

Prior research reveals wide variation in the number of independent preschools and child-care centers. Some analysts have alluded to supply “shortages”, while others attribute “uneven” center distribution to economic and demographically induced variations in demand. Combining a 100-county sample of preschools with 1990 census data, we address this classic identification issue by simultaneously estimating supply and demand. Price shows predictably negative effects on hours demanded. More are purchased in poorer counties with proportionately more black single-parents and rapid population growth. Supply responds to price. Also, hours supplied are greater in counties with more developed public sectors and where richer input mixes are used. Parents accept center accreditation as a quality indicator: it significantly increases demand. In contrast, regulations requiring accreditation depress supply. Finally, our results indicate that public provision crowds-out the number of private hours used, mainly through a weakly negative but significant impact on demand.

In this qualitative, longitudinal study, multiple interviews were conducted over 3 years with 14 low-income single mothers (4 White, 6 Black, and 4 Latino). The women talked about socialization goals for their preschoolaged children as well as their views concerning the role of mother and the role of child care providers in attaining those goals. A central objective for all mothers was preparing their children to succeed in school. Most of the women expected their child's provider to engage in didactic lessons aimed at teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills. However, they all viewed other teacher-structured activities as important (e.g., art, music, cooking, field trips, and book reading). Most did not see play as being related to learning, although they acknowledged the emotional and physical benefits of play. These women's views of learning were not entirely congruent with the constructivist position of many early childhood educators, nor were they narrowly defined solely in terms of academic skills. They were receptive to information from child care professionals and other “experts” when these perspectives furthered their own goals for their children. Their views about preschool learning were linked to other cultural models of childrearing including respecting authority, contributing to one's family or community, and differentially allocating responsibility for teaching to parents or to teachers.

In Ethiopia only one-fourth of primary school-age girls are actually enrolled. Despite progress since the 1974 revolution, 57% of all females who enter grade 1 drop out before reaching grade 2. This paper reports on regional variation in girls' persistence through primary school and performance on the national exam. We then examine the relative influence of community characteristics and school qualities in explaining female persistence and performance, based on a sample of 182 schools and surrounding communities. We find that girls attending schools located in urban centers persist at higher rates (in absolute terms and relative to boys) and do better on the national exam. Girls from non Amharic-speaking communities persist further through school at a slightly higher rate, compared to girls from Amharic-speaking areas. Yet enrolment equity is higher in Amhara communities. Girls attending larger, more formalized schools persist longer, controlling for the influence of community characteristics. Crowded school conditions (indicated by large class sizes and multiple shifts) do not hinder girls' persistence. In fact, such indicators of high social demand for schooling are positively related to girls' attainment. In rural schools, higher female persistence is associated with teachers' length of experience but not with the presence of more female teachers.

Attempting to identify factors that boost the effectiveness of Third World schools, policymakers and researchers often focus on basic material inputs (such as textbooks, desks, or expenditures). Inquiry within the West continues to shift away from this production-function metaphor, instead focusing on achievement effects stemming from teacher quality and teaching practices. Yet these two aspects of school effectiveness have received little empirical attention in the Third World. This paper examines three teacher qualities : knowledge of subject-matter, pedagogical practice, and beliefs about teaching. We then empirically examine how the teacher's social-class background, training, and the classroom setting shape these teacher qualities. We find that (a) greater availability of pupil textbooks and a teacher guide raise the teacher's own knowledge of the subject-matter presented to students, (b) completion of secondary school by younger teachers is associated with positive pedagogical outcomes, and (c) teachers with more training and less crowded classrooms more often believe that pupils should be asked questions and become more active participants in class.