Head Start’s Buffering Effect against Household Instability

• In Event: 1-177 - Socioeconomic Inequality and Children’s Development: Trajectories, Contributing Factors, and Policy Approaches

Integrative Statement

The federal Head Start program is designed to increase the school readiness of low-income children ages 3-5 by providing a comprehensive set of services – including education, health, and nutrition – to children and their families (Puma, Bell, Cook, & Heid, 2010). Children’s Head Start participation is associated with improved cognitive and socioemotional development in the short term (Currie & Thomas, 1995, 2000; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), and improved adolescent and adult outcomes (Carneiro & Ginja, 2014; Deming; Ludwig & Miller, 2007). The present study investigates whether Head Start is effective for a particularly at-risk group of children: those experiencing high levels of household instability.

Head Start children experience a broad range of risk factors to positive development, including low income, low levels of parental education, and single-parent households. While individual risk factors may negatively influence child development, the most detrimental effects emerge when children face multiple risk factors simultaneously (Rutter, 1979; Sameroff, 1998). Particularly problematic may be the risks associated with instability in children’s home lives. Residential mobility, additional siblings, income and job instability, and other forms of household instability are associated with decreased social-emotional wellbeing in children (Downey, 2001; Hill, Morris, Gennetian, Wolf, & Tubb, 2013; Levine, Leventhal, Lynch, & Kull, 2013; Ziol-Guest & McKenna, 2013). Although cumulative risk and instability are inherently linked, the instability hypothesis places greater emphasis on the shifting nature of risk as opposed to the static form of cumulative risk, and notes that instability may be risky by virtue of the indicator (e.g., divorce, job loss) as well as through the process of changing status (Fomby & Cherlin, 2007; Adams & Dubay, 2014).

In the present study, we apply this instability hypothesis as we ask whether Head Start can serve as a buffer against the risks associated with cumulative household instability. We hypothesize that children experiencing greater household instability will receive the largest benefits from Head Start participation. Drawing on experimental Head Start Impact Study data (n = 4,442), we use regression analysis to measure the effect of Head Start among a low-income population by comparing the cognitive and socioemotional development of a treatment group randomly assigned to the offer of a Head Start slot to that of a control group which was not. We distinguish between Head Start’s effect on children experiencing higher versus lower levels of household instability during the Head Start year according to an index of indicators representing changes in household composition and maternal relationship and employment statuses, decreased income, residential mobility or homelessness, household violence, and chaos in the home.

We find that in the short term, children’s vocabulary development improves as a result of Head Start participation only among children experiencing relatively low levels of household instability, perhaps because their parents are better able to support their classroom learning of academic skills. However, as hypothesized, while household instability is generally associated with increased behavior problems, Head Start buffers against cumulative instability, reducing hyperactivity only for children experiencing relatively high levels of household instability.

Authors

• Elise Chor, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• William Schneider, Northwestern University
  Non-Presenting Author