Minority children are more likely to experience early academic failure than are non-minority children. Increased risk of academic failure is associated with a host of family factors such as family poverty, maternal depression, low maternal education, and harsh/punitive parenting. At the child level, greater self regulation is associated with lower levels of problem behaviors, greater academic readiness, and more optimal academic adjustment during the early school years. Despite the recent growth of research on self-regulation and its relation to school readiness as well as compelling interests in remedying the achievement gap for poor, minority children, little research has been conducted with at risk and/or with ethnically diverse samples, and very little longitudinal data on self regulation over the period of its rapid growth in the preschool years are available for high risk samples. Further, very few studies have examined the combined impact of both maternal and paternal relationships on socioemotional and selfregulatory development of young children and the impact of these relationships on the development of capacities related to academic readiness. In this study, we will follow a sample of 360 children in low income African American and Latino families from age 30 through 42 months with repeated assessments of emerging capacities for self regulation and school readiness.
The specific aims for the project are as follows:
Aim 1. To identify universal and culture-specific parenting values and practices associated with the development of self-regulation and school readiness among high risk across African American children and Latino children who will mostly be of Mexican descent.
Aim 2. To identify universal and culturespecific parenting values and practices associated with the change of self regulation and with the change in school readiness among these children from 30 to 42 months of age. Home visits will be conducted at two time points (30m and 42m), and measures will include child self regulation tasks, assessments of academic readiness and social competence, family racial/ethnic socialization practices and parenting values, and observational ratings of the quality of mother-child and father-child interactions. Analytic methods will include multiple linear regression, structural equations modeling, and latent growth curve analysis. The proposed project addresses the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) in a number of important ways. First, the project will directly create 15 new jobs (6 full time and 9 part-time), and indirectly contribute over $4M in economic growth for the State of Texas. In addition, the results of this research will have important scientific as well as policy implications for reducing disparities in early academic achievement.
Minority children are more likely to experience early academic failure than are non-minority children, and these differences in early achievement have many long-term implications, including differential rates for high school graduation. Children who display greater ability to regulate their behavior self regulate as preschoolers do better in kindergarten and first grade. In this study, we will follow a sample of 360 children from poor, ethnic minority families from age 24 through 48 months with repeated assessments of their emerging capacities for self regulation and its relation to school readiness.
