Early Childhood Home, Child Care, and Neighborhood Predictors of African American Children’s Achievement Trajectories

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Development contexts during early childhood can have lasting consequences for children’s achievement and life chances. Evaluation studies of random-assignment parenting interventions indicate that the benefits of positive parenting practices (i.e., cognitively stimulating and sensitive caregiving) on achievement can last well into the schooling years (e.g., Brennan et al., 2013). Outside of the home, high-quality early education and care (ECE) has also demonstrated lasting associations with high achievement into adolescence in longitudinal observational studies (e.g., Vandell et al., 2010), although evidence from experimental evaluations of high-quality preschool is arguably more mixed (Bailey et al., 2017). Neighborhood contexts during early childhood are likewise associated with later achievement (Sastry & Pebley, 2010). However, African American children’s early childhood experiences remain understudied compared with those of White children. In particular, far too few studies have been grounded in a strengths-based perspective, oriented toward uncovering early experiences that promote achievement for young African American children. Indeed, we are unaware of any studies to date that have simultaneously examined home, ECE, and neighborhood contexts in order to disentangle their unique, additive, and/or interactive contributions to achievement for African American children. The present study was designed to add to the cumulative knowledge in these respects.

Using secondary analyses of 176 African American children who participated in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we examined early childhood (6-54 months) home, ECE, and neighborhood predictors of math and literacy achievement test scores (Woodcock Johnson Applied Problems and Picture Vocabulary subtests) from 4.5 to 15 years of age. Multilevel models were used to estimate children’s average achievement and rate of growth as a function of demographic indicators, maternal characteristics, early learning engagement in the home environment, ECE experiences, and neighborhood socioeconomic and racial characteristics. Results of these models are summarized in Table 1. For brevity, we report only the main effects of predictors (i.e., associations between the predictors and children’s average achievement over time); predictors for which there were also interactions with time (i.e., variations in growth rates) are noted using bold font.

For both math and literacy achievement, each of the three domains of developmental context (home, ECE, and neighborhood) were significantly related to the outcomes. For example, more progressive child rearing values, more hours in ECE, and living in a middle-income neighborhood with a high concentration of other Black families were all positively associated with applied problem scores. The longitudinal implications of these associations are illustrated in Figure 1, wherein the average linear growth rate and the size of group differences as function of child age and child care hours, child rearing values, and neighborhoods are plotted for Applied Problem scores. As evident in the figure, group differences associated with the significant predictors were largest around 6 years of age and declined somewhat by age 15, but remained sizable across time. For the presentation, the implications of early home, ECE, and neighborhood environments for supporting the positive development of African American children will be discussed.

Authors

• Julie Joohyun Kim, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Eric Dearing, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daphne A. Henry, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author