Concentrated poverty in preschools and children's cognitive skills: The mediational role of peers and teachers

The Role of Preschool Peers in Children's Language Development

“…1 With that said, the literature that does exist suggests potential benefits of having income variation within the preschool classroom for children's early academic and social-behavioral functioning, including their language development. [39][40][41][42] For example, with a sample of approximately 3,400 preschoolers from 500 classrooms across the United States, Coley and colleagues found that the percentage of children in the classroom who were poor was associated with children's language development, above and beyond the association with children's own families' socioeconomic status. 39 Similar patterns have been documented in multistate studies 41 and community-based studies 42 of socioeconomic composition and children's early language development.…”

“…[39][40][41][42] For example, with a sample of approximately 3,400 preschoolers from 500 classrooms across the United States, Coley and colleagues found that the percentage of children in the classroom who were poor was associated with children's language development, above and beyond the association with children's own families' socioeconomic status. 39 Similar patterns have been documented in multistate studies 41 and community-based studies 42 of socioeconomic composition and children's early language development. Importantly, this literature suggests that preschoolers from low-income families show greater language skill gains when enrolled in classrooms with a greater proportion of mixed-income (as opposed to low-income) peers.…”

“…First, in their study of classroom socioeconomic composition and concentrated poverty, Coley and colleagues found that children in classrooms with a larger percentage of poor classmates demonstrated lower average initial classroom-level language skills as compared with children in classrooms with fewer poor classmates, with effect sizes larger than most seen in other observational studies of preschool characteristics. 39 Ultimately, these authors found that one of the primary reasons why concentrated poverty in preschool was associated with children's language development was because of exposure to classmates with lower language skills. As another example, Foster and colleagues found that classmates' language skills were associated with growth in individual children's expressive and receptive vocabulary performance across the preschool year, even when controlling for classroom age composition.…”

“…Studies examining interactional quality conclude that the composition of classrooms matters for the quality of teacher-child interactions, including classroom age 21,81,82 and socioeconomic composition. 23,39,41,75 Studies of preschool programs from eleven states from across the country reveal that the poorest quality classrooms are generally those composed of higher proportions of children in poverty 23,83 and the quality of teacher-child interactions is generally lower in classrooms with greater age diversity. 21,84 As mentioned earlier, however, there is some indication that more educated teachers are better able to engage in high-quality interactions even in the face of classrooms with greater diversity in children's needs.…”

Local Leaders' Perceptions of Housing Access and Segregation in their Communities

“…Residential segregation among people with extremely low incomes, referred to as concentrated poverty, is linked to economic restructuring, suburban exclusion, discrimination in the housing market, disinvestment, and government policies, and often coincides with segregation by race and ethnicity (Goetz, 2003). Living in segregated places is associated with economic, educational, employment, and racial inequalities (Coley et al., 2019; Massey & Denton, 1993; Wilson, 1987). While research on segregation is often focused on urban environments, segregation by income, race, and ethnicity is also a problem in rural areas.…”