Poster #172 - An Ecological Perspective on Latino Children’s Early Elementary Science Achievement

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

As the fastest growing minority population in the United States, the historic underachievement of Latino children has become a concern of researchers and policy makers alike (Garcia & Jensen, 2009; Hemphill & Vanneman, 2011). A body of work has focused on reading and mathematics achievement of Latino children, but little exists on Latino children’s science achievement. Taking an ecological perspective on factors that may be related to school achievement, the present study examines the academic performance of Latino children in early elementary science. In doing so, we take a within-group approach by examining the variability found within Latino children with the aim of identifying specific factors relevant to this population. Such a within-group approach is consistent with a child-in-context perspective that stresses the importance of testing models within sub-populations rather than on cross-group comparisons (Garcia Coll et al., 1996).
Data for this study were collected as part of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011. This study relied on restricted data from fall of kindergarten, spring of first grade, and spring of second grade. Information was collected from students, parents or guardians, teachers, and school administrators. Direct assessment of children’s language skills, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and scientific knowledge were collected by trained child assessors. Because this study focused on Latino children, the criteria for inclusion relied on two composite variables created by the ECLS-K:2011 to identify children’s race and ethnicity (N = 4,590; see Table 1 for sample descriptives).
Structural equation modeling was used to examine differences among Latino children’s science achievement. A series of four models looked at child, family, classroom, and school factors as predictors of science achievement in spring of first grade and the change in science achievement between first and second grade (see Table 2 for results).
The results have important implications for social policy in the field of education. First, child level findings call for the support of early childhood intervention programs that promote the development of children’s self-regulatory skills prior to school entry. It also makes clear an obligation to provide support for children who enter school with lower levels of oral language proficiency. Relatedly, results argue in favor of programs that support children who are coming from Spanish speaking backgrounds and children whose parents are from other countries in developing conceptual knowledge in science. Family level variables also remind us of the importance of supporting anti-poverty programs to improve educational opportunities.
The addition of classroom and school level variables also revealed some important findings with social policy implications. While there was little relation between the teaching of science and science achievement, school level variables point to potential structural inequalities in education. Schools with a greater percent of Hispanic students in the school the child was enrolled in during first grade were associated with lower first grade science scores. This may speak to systematic differences in opportunities for the learning of science being afforded to the children in these schools as compared to schools with fewer Hispanic students.

Authors

• Natalie L Bohlmann, Montana State University Billings
  Presenting Author

• Natalia Palacios, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author