Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty

Promises, Programs, and Long-Term Results

Edited by W. Steven Barnett & Sarane Spence Boocock

Subjects: Early Childhood Studies
Series: SUNY series, Youth Social Services, Schooling, and Public Policy, SUNY series, Early Childhood Education: Inquiries and Insights
Paperback : 9780791436202, 352 pages, March 1998
Hardcover : 9780791436196, 352 pages, March 1998

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Table of contents

Introduction

1. Long-Term Effects on Cognitive Development and School Success
W. S. Barnett

2. Long-Term Outcomes in Other Nations
S. S. Boocock & M. Larner

3. Preschool Program Quality in Programs for Children in Poverty
E. C. Frede

4. Regenerating Two-Generation Programs
R. G. St. Pierre, J. L Layzer, and H. V. Barnes

5. The Effects of Welfare Reform on Teenage Parents and Their Children
J. L. Aber, J. Brooks-Gunn, and R. Maynard

6. Early-Childhood Programs and Success in School: The Abecedarian Study
F. A. Campbell, R. Helms, J. J. Sparling, and C. T. Ramey

7. How Preschool Education Influences Long Term Cognitive Development and School Success: A Causal Model
W. S. Barnett, W. Young, and L. J. Schweinhart

8. Economic and Social Disadvantages of Young Children: Alternative Policy Responses
D. J. Hernandez

9. Equity-Efficiency Tradeoffs and Government Policy in the United States, the Netherlands, and Sweden
S. S. Gustafsson and F. P. Stafford

10. Culture Clash: Translating Research Findings into Public Policy
A. Zervigon-Hakes

References

Contributors

Index

Establishes the power of early care and education to change children's lives, particularly children in poverty.

Description

Barnett and Boocock present a multi-disciplinary assessment of the long-term outcomes of early care and education in the United States and abroad. Innovative new research, together with up-to-date, comprehensive reviews, provide lessons for the design of early childhood programs, policies, and research. Contributors from the fields of education, psychology, sociology, and economics address questions about the causal relationships through which early childhood programs produce their long-term effects, the characteristics of effective early childhood programs, how nations respond to the global social and economic trends that are changing the lives of children and their families everywhere, child care's effects on maternal labor force participation, the potential and perils of welfare reform, and the implications of national economic and political structures for early care and education policies.

A unique feature of the book is its attention to the practical problems of conducting research to support public policy development, translating research results into public policy, and improving communication between researchers and policy makers. The research presented in this important volume clearly establishes that early care and education can permanently improve the lives of children in poverty, provides research-based recommendations for achieving that goal through public policy, and sets an agenda for future research on early care and education's long-term outcomes.

At Rutgers University's Graduate School of Education, W. Steven Barnett is Professor of Economics and Policy. Barnett has written and collaborated on several books, including Lives in the Balance: Age-27 Benefit-Cost Analysis of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program. Sarane Spence Boocock is Professor of Sociology. Boocock has published many other works, including An Introduction to the Sociology of Learning and Turning Points: Historical and Sociological Essays on the Family.

Reviews

"I am impressed by several features of this book. First and foremost is the impeccable scholarship. Barnett and Boocock have brought together the work of a number of first-class scholars from a variety of disciplines who have thought deeply about the problem of educating disadvantaged young children. " -- Barry M. Franklin, University of Michigan-Flint