The selection of preschool for immigrant and native-born Latino families in the United States

Abstract

With the national push to expand preschool education, there has been growing interest in understanding why Latino families are enrolled in preschool at lower rates than non-Latino families. This study applied the accommodations model by Meyers and Jordan (2006) to the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n = 5,850) to provide a more nuanced understanding of the preschool selection of U.S.- and foreign-born Latino families. Results from this investigation underscored the similarities and differences that existed in the selection behaviors of different groups of families, while also highlighting important differences within the Latino population. In general, these differences within the Latino population cut across community language use, child factors, and parents’ beliefs about school readiness. Moreover, after accounting for the various selection factors, there were no longer any consistent differences in the preschool enrollment rates between Latino children and their Black and White peers. When taken together, these findings suggest that careful attention must be paid to the heterogeneity in the experiences of Latino families in navigating the preschool market.

Variation in the long-term benefits of child care: The role of classroom quality in elementary school.

“…Each of these factors, in turn, is included in regression models predicting children’s math and language and literacy achievement. These variables included are largely based on prior child care studies done with the NICHD SECCYD (e.g., Belsky et al, 2007; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network & Duncan, 2003; Vandell et al, 2010, 2016) and theoretically informed studies done on child care and preschool selection (e.g., Ansari, 2017; Coley, Votruba-Drzal, Collins, & Miller, 2014; Crosnoe, Purtell, Davis-Kean, Ansari, & Benner, 2016).…”

“…Although it is often argued that early investments are one of the most cost-effective means of improving children’s long-term educational prospects (Heckman, 2006), the efficacy of child care and other early childhood programs are increasingly in question. This is because the long-term impacts of contemporary early childhood programs have been ambiguous, with some scholars documenting continued, albeit modest, benefits throughout middle childhood and adolescence (Ansari et al, 2017; Ansari, in press; Muschkin, Ladd, & Dodge, 2015; Vandell, Burchinal, & Pierce, 2016) and others finding no discernable effects shortly after kindergarten (Hill, Gormley, & Adelstein, 2015; Lipsey, Farran, & Hofer, 2015; Magnuson, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2007; Puma et al, 2012).…”

Habilidades de preparación para la escuela y familias hispanas. Revisión documental

“…El análisis documental efectuado permitió identificar la existencia de un importante cuerpo de investigación en torno al impacto de la participación de las familias hispanas en los servicios de educación que tienen como objetivo la preparación para la escuela, incluyendo la asistencia de los niños y niñas a centros de educación temprana, así como la participación de las familias en programas de visitas domiciliarias (Ansari, 2017;Ansari et al, 2017;Bierman et al, 2017Bierman et al, , 2018Nix et al, 2018;Padilla & Ryan, 2020;Peterson et al, 2020;Rispoli et al, 2019;Susman-Stillman et al, 2018;Welsh et al, 2020).…”

Influence of pre-schooler and parent nutrition education on carotenoid levels of Mexican-heritage children

“…Preschool participation in both study communities was low compared with national estimates for Hispanic children (40,41) ; yet, enrolment of age-eligible children was even lower in the comparison community. Parent characteristics, such as age, income, education and place of birth, have been associated with preschool participation (40,42) . While mothers in the intervention group were older than controls, they had similar education attainment.…”