Three Developmental Pathways Linking Early Care and Education to Adult Educational Attainment

• In Event: Long-Term Outcomes of Early Supporting Environments and Subsequent Developmental Contexts

Abstract

An important question for developmental research and practice is whether community-based early care and education (ECE) is linked to meaningful outcomes in adulthood. Also important is identifying the developmental processes that underlie these relations. Recent theorizing has suggested three possible underlying processes: (1) that the skills children develop in ECE set the stage for later skills, a process called skills begets skills (Cunha & Heckman, 2007), (2) that subsequent settings such as schools and afterschool programs can serve as sustaining environments (Bailey et al., 2017), and (3) that subsequent opportunities can provide the right experience at the right time, called a foot-in-the-door (Bailey et al., 2017).
In the current study, we used data from the Age 26 Follow-up of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) to examine relations between community-based ECE and two meaningful adult outcomes: educational attainment and occupational prestige. ECE quality, type, and hours were measured across the first five years (N = 1258). Academic assessments were collected in early childhood and from 1st through 5th grades, along with measures of organized afterschool activities. At the end of high school, participants’ grades, coursework, and college plans were collected. At age 26, 814 participants reported their educational attainment and occupations.
SEM was used to model direct and indirect paths between ECE quality, center-type care, and hours, and educational attainment and occupational prestige at age 26. The model was then trimmed by dropping insignificant paths from the covariates. As shown in Figure 1, the model was a good fit to the data and indicated enduring associations between ECE and age 26 educational attainment and occupational prestige via all three processes.
Skills Begets Skills. As shown in Figure 1 and through the indirect effects listed in Table 1, the three ECE indicators were related to adult educational attainment and occupational prestige, in part, through a continuity of participants’ academic functioning over time. Higher quality ECE predicted academic achievement in early childhood, which positively predicted academic achievement during middle childhood, which then positively predicted higher academic performance in adolescence, which predicted educational attainment and occupational prestige.
Organized Activities as a Sustaining Environment. Children’s organized activities in middle childhood also functioned as a pathway linking ECE to adult educational attainment and occupational prestige. As shown in Figure 1 and Table 1, children who spent more hours in ECE and children who received more center-type care spent more time in organized activities in middle childhood, which predicted higher academic performance at the end of high school, which, predicted higher adult educational attainment and occupational prestige at age 26.
High School as a Foot in the Door. Figure 1 also illustrates a foot-in-the-door in which performance at the end of high school (as measured by grades, more rigorous coursework, and college plans) functioned as launching pad that predicted educational attainment and occupational prestige at age 26.
In summary, this longitudinal study found community-based ECE was related to meaningful adult outcomes through all three of the proposed processes.

Authors

• Deborah Lowe Vandell, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Sandra Simpkins, University of California - Irvine