Educational performance and child labor in Paraguay

In this paper, the schooling attainment and labor characteristics of those aged 12–19 years is assessed using data from the 1990 household survey from Paraguay. Although schooling is compulsory to age 13, it was found that 28% of those 12 years of age are already out of school. Among those out of school, 19% work formally in the labor market and contribute about a quarter of total family income. Among the 12-year-olds still in school, one-quarter have repeated a grade or more. The analysis suggests that language strongly influences school attainment and performance. Those who speak only Guarani at home may receive equal access to schooling, but their performance in school (in terms of years of attainment and grade repetition), is considerably inferior to that of Spanish-only and bilingual pupils. The number of siblings was found not to have had much of an effect on school enrollment, although it did have a significant impact on the probability of child labor. These findings may be evidence of ‘specialization’ in the household, whereby some children work, while their siblings are permitted to attend school and concentrate on studying. The results indicate that subsidies to poor households may be necessary to enable them to maintain their children in school for at least the duration of the primary cycle.     

普通中学生的家庭教养方式及其与职高生的异同

采用修订的《家庭教养方式调查表》测查了470名普通中学生的家庭教养方式,并探讨了其中247名普通高中生家庭教养方式与321名职高生家庭教养方式的异同。结果显示,由24道题组成的调查表具有较好的一致性和效度;普通高中生父母对子女的要求程度和关心程度都显著低于初中生,父母对子女的要求程度显著高于其关心程度;尽管母亲对中学男女生的教养方式没有明显差异,父亲对男生尤其是高中男生的要求程度、对女生尤其是初中女生的关心程度都明显高一些;结合两个维度对中学生家庭教养方式进行诊断之后发现,采取放任型教养方式的父母的文化程度偏低,而权威型和溺爱型的父母文化程度则较高。应用该调查表对职业高中生的测查发现了类似的规律,但职高生父母对子女的关心程度明显高于其要求程度,这与普高生父母的做法刚好相反;尽管他们采用权威型教养方式的比例差别不大,但有更多的职高生父母采取了放任型和溺爱型的教养方式,采取专制型教养方式的职高生父母相对更少。     

An instructional guide for reducing the stress of hearing parents of hearing-impaired children

The impact of a self-instructional program to reduce stress levels of parents of hearing-impaired children is examined. Fifty parents with hearing-impaired children were randomly assigned to one of two groups: Participating Parents, who received a Self-Instructional Parent Program (SIPP); and Non-participating Parents, who received no such program. Findings indicate that the participating parents did not experience significant decreases in their stress levels or in the perceived incidence of misbehavior in their children in comparison with non-participating parents. Participating parents, however, reported a decrease in their children's misbehavior; non-participating parents noted an increase. Additionally, the findings also associated increasing stress on the part of parents with parental perceptions of burgeoning misbehavior on the part of the child.     

Child‐Care Subsidies: Do They Impact the Quality of Care Children Experience?

The federal child‐care subsidy program represents one of the government’s largest investments in early care and education, but little is known about whether it increases low‐income children’s access to higher quality child care. This study used newly available nationally representative data on 4‐year‐old children (N = 750) to investigate whether subsidy receipt elevates child‐care quality. Results indicate that subsidy recipients use higher quality care compared to nonrecipients who use no other publicly funded care, but lower quality care compared to nonrecipients who instead use Head Start or public pre‐k. Findings suggest that subsidies may have the potential to enhance care quality but that parents who use subsidies are not accessing the highest quality care available to low‐income families.     

Child‐Care Subsidies and School Readiness in Kindergarten

The federal child‐care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education. Using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, this study examines associations, among subsidy‐eligible families, between child‐care subsidy receipt when children are 4 years old and a range of school readiness outcomes in kindergarten (sample n ≈ 1,400). Findings suggest that subsidy receipt in preschool is not directly linked to subsequent reading or social‐emotional skills. However, subsidy receipt predicted lower math scores among children attending community‐based centers. Supplementary analyses revealed that subsidies predicted greater use of center care, but this association did not appear to affect school readiness.     

Do private schools really produce more learning than public schools in India? Accounting for student’s school absenteeism and the time spent on homework

Do students attending private schools learn more and have higher cognitive abilities than their public school counterparts in India? Though some recent works have discussed this question, the empirical contours to address the issue remain unclear, particularly in a diversifying school education market in India. This paper examines the factors determining the inequality in children’s learning outcomes (i.e., reading and math scores) in India using the second round of India Human Development Survey data. We examine the effect of a child’s ‘school absenteeism’ and ‘time spent for studying and doing homework’ on learning outcomes, and how these explain the existing learning gap between private and government school children. We provide strong evidence that the children attending private schools have significantly better learning outcomes than their government school counterparts. However, this performance difference between private and government school-going children reduces with the increase in school attendance and the time spent in studying and doing homework by a child. The findings of the study implicate that the cognitive abilities of low performing government school students can be improved by reducing their absenteeism in schools and increasing time for studying and doing homework after school.     

Effects of livestock herd migration on child schooling in Marsabit District,Kenya

To throw light on the challenge of providing education to pastoral households in the context of social and economic change, this study investigates the effects of herd migration on child schooling in Northern Kenya. Specifically, the analysis uses both household panel data and community-level focus-group data to identify the barriers to schooling, which include an insufficient number of schools, nomadism and communal conflicts. The results also reveal that herd migration has a significantly negative effect on school attendance – about a 26% probability of failure to attend among the children of livestock migrating households. The child’s age and mother’s literacy have a positive impact on child school attendance, but with girls more likely to attend than boys, probably because of higher opportunity costs. That is, attending school takes boys away from activities like herding, which have greater economic value than the nonmonetisable household duties performed by girls.     

Access to college and heterogeneous returns to education in China

We apply a semi-parametric latent variable model to estimate selection and sorting effects on the evolution of private returns to schooling for college graduates during China's reform between 1988 and 2002. We find that there were substantial sorting gains under the traditional system, but such gains have dissipated to negligible levels in the most recent data. We take this as evidence of growing influence of private financial constraints on decisions to attend college as tuition costs have risen and the relative importance of government subsidies has declined. The main policy implication of our results is that labor and education reform without concomitant capital market reform and government support for the financially disadvantaged exacerbates increases in inequality inherent in elimination of the traditional “wage-grid”.     

The Right to Education for Children in Domestic Labour: Empirical Evidence from Kenya

Since 1948, various UN conventions have recognised basic education as a human right. Yet this right continues to be denied to many child labourers across the world. This articles draws on the results of a study examining how children in domestic labour in Kenya access and participate in education. Three issues were explored: (1) the correlates of child domestic labourers; (2) their working conditions and contexts; and (3) the right to education. Interviews and group discussions held in one city and two rural districts elicited data from 91 child domestic labourers and 84 adults. The results indicated that child labour was both poverty-induced and adult-initiated, and that children worked in hazardous environments characterised by economic exploitation. Most did not attend school; those who did had to contend with a rigid school structure and an authoritarian class environment. Children in domestic labour often skipped school, and their participation in classes was low.     

From Learning Beliefs to Achievement Among Chinese Immigrant and European American Preschool Children

Little research exists on how immigrant children develop their beliefs about school learning (BASLs) in their home and host cultures. We examined the BASLs and achievement children of Chinese immigrants’ (CCI) and European American (EA) children. We followed longitudinally 120 middle-class children from age 4 to 5, balanced for gender. Children heard two story beginnings depicting a child eager to attend school and another not. Children completed the stories and were tested for math and literacy achievement. We found seven BASLs. CCIs and EAs showed similar BASLs. Awareness of parental involvement and intellectual benefit consistently explained their achievement, with CCIs showing greater achievement. CCIs’ (but not EAs’) valuation of learning explained their net academic growth. Implications on CCIs’ development are discussed.     

Changes in children’s reasoning about the social inclusion of aggressive children over the early years of elementary school

While there is growing understanding about children’s moral reasoning for social inclusion and exclusion, we know little about how children reason specifically about the inclusion of aggressive children in school settings. To investigate children’s decisions about such inclusion and how they justified those decisions, this study reports data from 172 children interviewed in Year 1 (female?=?85, male?=?87), between the ages of six and seven and 155 children (female?=?78, male?=?79) who were interviewed again in Year 2. The children’s responses to scenarios regarding inclusion or exclusion of an aggressive child (who is bossy and pushes others around) in their play at school demonstrated that they were more likely to include an aggressive child in their play in Year 2 than in Year 1 of elementary school. They were also more likely in Year 2 to provide justifications that demonstrated a deeper understanding of the reasons for children’s aggressive behaviour at school. These data suggest that children’s school experiences may contribute to their ability to access multiple perspectives when reasoning about inclusion of others. Findings suggest the need to consider more closely how contextual experiences influence young children’s moral reasoning.     

卓越社会流动性教育路径:芬兰的理念与行动北大核心CSSCI

卓越的社会流动性,可以使贫寒子代与富庶子代不受父辈阶层束缚,拥有大致相等的机会从而获得良好的社会处境,而教育通常被认为是促进社会流动性提升、减少社会不平等的主要路径。芬兰以卓越的社会流动性和"教育世界第一"的美名著称,这与其紧紧围绕教育公平、教育质量和终身学习的教育理念促进教育发展和社会公平密不可分。其主要教育行动包括:学校系统的全免费制度、无差异学校、路路通式教育体系、高师资标准;政府系统的援助性财政计划、规范型政策法规、信任型指导体制、劳动力预测网络;社会系统的第三方教育评估、企业积极支持、公民社会组织等。     

Training,experience, and child care providers’ perceptions of inclusion

Teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs have been shown to affect their behavior. This study investigated center- and home-based child care providers’ perceptions of inclusion-related needs and barriers and (a) the providers’ participation in disability-related training, and (b) their current experience working with children with disabilities. A mailed survey was used to gather demographic data, information on training and experience, and to rate a list of needs and concerns. Younger and African American caregivers working in center-based programs were more likely to attend training and serve children with disabilities. Participating in training and serving children with disabilities was positively associated with caregivers’ perceptions of needs and barriers, but not with child care providers’ attitudes. Results indicate that program and provider characteristics are related to participation in disability-related training and serving children with disabilities that, in turn, are related to perceptions of needs and barriers. Further investigation of the mechanisms associated with training and its influence on attitudes, beliefs and practice of parents and special education teachers, as well as child care providers is indicated.     

Contribution of rural roads improvement on children’s school attendance: Evidence in Cambodia

This study used quantitative and qualitative data collected in rural Cambodia after road improvements to investigate whether children living along better-conditioned roads attend basic education school more. The quantitative analysis revealed that the road conditions did not influence children's attendance, while suggesting significant influences of school travel distance as well as household’s ownership of two-wheeled vehicles and its member composition. The qualitative analysis complemented these results by confirming that improved roads motivated households to purchase those vehicles for easing children’s schooling; and household members’ appreciation of education and socioeconomic characteristics influenced their children’s education attainment.     

The role of early childhood settings for 4–5 year old children in early academic skills and later achievement in Australia

Formal early childhood education programs have been shown to promote the early academic skills of young children. However, the academic benefits acquired through program attendance fade quickly in the early elementary school years. Using a nationally representative sample of Australian children, we describe the programmatic and teacher differences between different types of formal early childhood programs for children between 4 and 5 years old—pre-year 1, school-based preschool, standalone preschool, and center-based child care. We examine the child and family background characteristics that are correlated with selection into different settings and how these settings are associated with children's early academic skills and on their subsequent achievement. We focus on understanding if there are differential academic benefits accrued from each program type and whether or not these benefits persist into the early elementary school years. Results indicate that maternal employment and economic disadvantage are correlated with program participation and that pre-year 1 and preschool teachers have higher qualifications. Results also show that children who attended a pre-year 1 program held an initial, significant advantage in early academic skills compared to children enrolled in center child care. Center child care was associated with higher early math skills than preschools. Children who did not attend any early childhood programming lagged behind their peers in school readiness skills. By middle childhood, all the early skill advantages had disappeared, showing rapid fadeout of academic benefits acquired from these specific types of early childhood programs. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

A different result of community participation in education: an Indonesian case study of parental participation in public primary schools

Parental participation in school management is regarded as a good thing according to the rationale that local people know better and are able to be more responsive to their own needs. However, little is understood about the implications of the School Operational Support policy for community participation in education. This study investigated parental participation in the context of education decentralisation with regard to the changing situation in which the Indonesian government provides sufficient funds for school operational costs. Using a qualitative inquiry, researchers collected data through document analyses, questionnaires and interviews with stakeholders of two public primary schools in Depok, Indonesia. The study found that prior to the Free School Program, parental participation was limited to parents’ financial contribution and associated matters. However, since school was made free, parents’ involvement in school budgeting has become very limited; they are no longer engaged in the planning of allocations, and neither they nor the school committees are able to make inputs into decision making; even the functions of the school committees are limited to rubber stamping the school budget.     

The Child and Adult Care Food Program and the nutrition of preschoolers

Children spend a considerable amount of time in preschools and child care centers. As a result, these settings may have an influence on their diet, weight, and food security, and are potentially important contexts for interventions to address nutritional health. The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is one such intervention. No national study has compared nutrition-related outcomes of children in CACFP-participating centers to those of similar children in non-participating centers. We use a sample of four-year-old children drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort to obtain estimates of associations between CACFP program participation and consumption of milk, fruits, vegetables, fast food, and sweets, and indicators of overweight, underweight status and food insecurity. We find that, among low-income children, CACFP participation moderately increases consumption of milk and vegetables, and may also reduce the prevalence of overweight and underweight. Effects on other outcomes are generally small and not statistically significant.     

The Impact of Child Care Subsidy Use on Child Care Quality

In 2008, the federal government allotted $7 billion in child care subsidies to low-income families through the state-administered Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), now the government's largest child care program (US DHHS, 2008). Although subsidies reduce costs for families and facilitate parental employment, it is unclear how they impact the quality of care families purchase. This study investigates the impact of government subsidization on parents’ selection of child care quality using multivariate regression and propensity score matching approaches to account for differential selection into subsidy receipt and care arrangements. Data were drawn from the Child Care Supplement to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (CCS-FFCWS), conducted in 2002 and 2003 in 14 of the 20 FFCWS cities when focal children were 3 years old (N = 456). Our results indicate that families who used subsidies chose higher quality care than comparable mothers who did not use subsidies, but only because subsidy recipients were more likely to use center-based care. Subgroup analyses revealed that families using subsidies purchased higher-quality home-based care but lower-quality center-based care than comparable non-recipients. Findings suggest that child care subsidies may serve as more than a work support for low-income families by enhancing the quality of nonmaternal care children experience but that this effect is largely attributable to recipients’ using formal child care arrangements (versus kith and kin care) more often than non-recipients.     

Child Care Subsidies and the School Readiness of Children of Immigrants

This study is the first to test whether receipt of a federal child care subsidy is associated with children of immigrants' school readiness skills. Using nationally representative data (n ≈ 2,900), this study estimates the associations between subsidy receipt at age 4 and kindergarten cognitive and social outcomes, for children of immigrant versus native‐born parents. Among children of immigrants, subsidized center‐based care (vs. subsidized and unsubsidized home‐based care) was positively linked with reading. Among children of native‐born parents, those in subsidized center care displayed poorer math skills than those in unsubsidized centers, and more externalizing problems than those in unsubsidized home‐based care.     

A Two-State Study of Family Child Care Engagement in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems: A Mixed-Methods Analysis

ABSTRACT

Research Findings. The current study is a mixed-methods investigation of family child care provider participation in voluntary Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) in 2 states. Study 1 is an analysis of matched QRIS and child care licensing administrative data extracted from both states in May, 2014. Poverty and population density variables were added to the dataset by aligning U.S. Census data and Rural Urban Commuting Area codes (RUCA) to the matched state child care data. Participation patterns differed in the 2 states relative to provider characteristics (subsidy receipt, years licensed, and location). Study 2 consists of focus groups with participating (n = 22) and non-participating (n = 19) providers. Professionalism and financial incentives emerged as significant in attracting family child care providers to QRIS. Although family child care providers identified several clear benefits to QRIS, many more challenges emerged that negatively impact their participation. Practice or Policy. As most states are employing a QRIS framework to integrate quality improvement efforts, perspectives from this sector of early care and education are often overlooked. Study findings suggest that QRIS can be more responsive and effective with family child care providers if more consideration of their unique features are considered in systems design and implementation.