The proposed study will investigate the developmental histories and behavioral consequences of after school care of 570, 9 to 11 year old European-American and African- American children since kindergarten. The sample is representative of a broad range of socioeconomic classes, skewed towards high-risk children from low income neighborhoods from three geographic sites and in two cohorts. Retrospective accounts of early family and day care experiences were provided by the parent at age 5. Prospective descriptions of after school and summer care arrangements, family stress, and family social supports have been collected yearly since kindergarten.Comprehensive yearly assessments have been made of children's social and academic adjustment, based on parent, teacher, and peer ratings, direct observations at school, and structured tests of children's interpersonal problem solving and self-esteem. These data will be supplemented by in- depth parent and child interviews at ages 10-11 in order to create parallel historical profiles of (1) the extensivity, quality and stability of children's after school care throughout the elementary school years, and (2) the psychological and behavioral characteristics displayed by the children during this same period. Additional assessments will be made of current care arrangements at yearly intervals from ages 10-11 through age 15, based on data obtained from parents, children, and in adult-care situations, those directly responsible for providing care. Newly devised measures will assess qualitative aspects of care in center based, school based, and family settings. The data analysis will focus on the concurrent and cumulative effects of after school care on children's behavioral and psychological adjustment and the degree to which these effects are moderated (amplified or dampened) by geographic location (rural, suburban, urban), community risk (low-versus high crime), parent child relationships (presence or absence of distal monitoring and firm guidance), child characteristics (sex, age, temperament, early patterns of behavioral adjustment), and family demographic characteristics (family structure, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity).Hypotheses will be tested through correlation, regression, structural modeling, and growth curve modeling techniques.
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