Head Start's Intergenerational Potential: Do Program Impacts Vary by Mother's Participation?

• In Event: 66.053 - New Evidence on the Impacts of Early Childhood Interventions

Abstract

In this paper, I ask whether the effect of Head Start differs for the children of former program participants, as compared to the children of non-participants, and find using experimental data that the children of mothers who participated in Head Start receive larger programmatic effects on their cognitive test scores. I try to determine the source of this difference by exploring several potential channels. I find that mothers’ daily literacy practices improve by more if they participated in the program as a child than if they did not, suggesting that the improved parenting practices of former participant mothers drive the larger treatment effect on their children’s cognitive skills. My findings indicate that first- and second-generation Head Start participation are complementary.

Author

• Elise Chor, Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern University