| Jacob Cheadle
Pennsylvania State University
Early childhood academic achievement and the family environment: A unified methodological approach using "GLAMMs" via MCMC
FINAL REPORT:
Drawing on longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class Cohort of 1998-1999, which follows children from kindergarten entry to the end of third grade, this study assesses (1) the generalizeability of Lareau's (2003) notion of 'concerted cultivation' and (2) the extent to which this concept mediates race and social class differences in children's general knowledge, mathematics and reading achievement growth. In the first analytic stage, 'concerted cultivation,' as identified by Lareau (2003) in a recent ethnographic study, is captured as a latent variable using indicators of (a) parental participation with school, (b) child participation in organized leisure activities, (c) and academic resources in the home. Using traditional SEM and IRT modeling techniques, these items are conceptualized as the product of a higher-order factor, labeled 'concerted cultivation.' which embodies a cultural logic of child-rearing. Not only does the evidence support a generalization of Lareau's (2003) observations from a small local sample to the U.S. population, the factor structure of concerted cultivation is highly stable over time and the latent construct varies positively with increasing social class and advantage on other sociodemographic characteristics, largely in accord with expectations. The second analytic stage assesses (a) the association between concerted cultivation and children's academic skills and (b) the role concerted cultivation plays in racial and social class disparities in achievement growth. Findings based on three-level piece-wise growth models illustrate that the measure of concerted cultivation is an important predictor of children's early academic competencies, particularly at kindergarten entry, while also mediating race and class differences in children's growth. Adjusting for concerted cultivation reduces the black-white reading gap to non-significance and mediates the Hispanic-white reading gap by over 40% at kindergarten entry. Concerted cultivation typically reduces race and social class gaps in the growth parameters by 20%-40%, indicating a substantial reduction in coefficient magnitude, although a significant proportion of race and class differences are left unaccounted for. After including concerted cultivation along with the full covariate list, black children continually lose ground in mathematics and reading during the school year, while Asian children gain significant ground relative to other children over the summertime. Consistent with a growing body of research documenting the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping later race and social class achievement disparities, this research further points to the need for effective early childhood policy interventions to reduce disparities in children's academic skill levels at kindergarten entry.
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