School readiness among children of Hispanic ...

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Early Childhood Research Quarterly

School readiness among children of Hispanic immigrants and their peers: The role of parental cognitive stimulation and early care and education夽 Christina M. Padilla ∗ , Rebecca M. Ryan Georgetown University, United States

a r t i c l e

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Article history: Received 1 June 2017 Received in revised form 10 April 2018 Accepted 14 April 2018 Available online xxx Keywords: Immigrant Parenting Early education School readiness

a b s t r a c t The present study estimated the independent and joint influence of early home and education contexts on three school readiness outcomes for children with Hispanic immigrant parents. These associations were compared to those for children whose parents differed by ethnicity and immigration status − children of non-Hispanic immigrants and children of Hispanic native-born parents − to determine if associations were distinct for children of Hispanic immigrants. Data were drawn from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011 (ECLS-K: 2011) (N ≈ 3480). Outcome measures at kindergarten entry included direct assessments of math and reading skills, as well as teacher reports of approaches to learning (ATL). Results indicated that parental provision of cognitive stimulation and center-based ECE both predicted outcomes among children of Hispanic immigrants and their peers, with some variation in patterns by developmental domain and subgroup. Specifically, participation in center-based care predicted math and reading scores for children of Hispanic immigrant and Hispanic native-born parents, but not children of non-Hispanic immigrants. Furthermore, center-based care participation predicted ATL scores more strongly for children of Hispanic immigrants than their peers. Some trend-level evidence of moderation of early home and education environments emerged, again with patterns varying by outcome and subgroup. Findings highlight the importance of policies that seek to enhance both the home and ECE environments for young children with Hispanic immigrant parents and their peers. © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Over the past four decades, the number of children of immigrants in the United States has been steadily increasing, such that today, one in four children in the U.S. are foreign born or reside with at least one foreign-born parent (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2016). The majority of these children of immigrants are Hispanic; as of 2015, 26.8% of immigrants in the United States were from Mexico, 7.9% were from Central America, and another 6.7% were from South America, making immigrants of Hispanic descent the largest immigrant group. Children of immigrants, and children of Hispanic immigrants specifically, on average score lower on

夽 The authors thank Dr. Adam Thomas, who supervised the thesis project that became this publication, and Dr. Anna Johnson for her thoughtful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this manuscript. ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (C.M. Padilla).

academic measures at school entry than do children with nativeborn parents (Crosnoe, 2007; Han, 2008). This gap is problematic because research indicates that children who begin kindergarten behind their peers often remain behind their peers in terms of academic achievement through the school years (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Given that children of Hispanic immigrant parents will continue to make up a large portion of the school-aged population and the future work force, research is needed for us to understand how best to support their educational success. Prior research has begun to do so by examining associations between early home and early care and education (ECE) contexts and academic and behavioral proficiencies at the beginning of kindergarten—often referred to as “school readiness”—among children of immigrants. However, prior studies have not directly compared these associations among children of Hispanic immigrants to those of the two peer groups—children from other immigrant groups and children of Hispanic native-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.04.008 0885-2006/© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Padilla, C. M., & Ryan, R.M. School readiness among children of Hispanic immigrants and their peers: The role of parental cognitive stimulation and early care and education. Early Childhood Research Quarterly (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.04.008

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born parents—who share either their immigrant or ethnicity status. These particular contrasts are important to make in order to determine if the most common contexts for promoting early learning—the home environment and ECE—are as beneficial for this group as they are for their peers. Indeed, we posit that there are theoretical and empirical reasons related to language and acculturation to hypothesize that center-based ECE, as well as the combination of center-based ECE with a stimulating home learning environment, may be more beneficial for children of Hispanic immigrants than for both children from other immigrant groups and children of Hispanic native-born parents. If this hypothesis is supported, it would highlight the need to target both parenting and center-based ECE services to this group, who, on average, receive lower levels of parental cognitive stimulation and center-based ECE than children of native-born Hispanic parents and children of other immigrant groups (Koury & Votruba-Drzal, 2014; Matthews & Ewen, 2006; Miller, Votruba-Drzal, & Coley, 2013). 1.1. Hispanic immigrants and their peers Compared to their peers, children of Hispanic immigrants enter school with a unique set of risks and strengths. On the one hand, their parents tend to arrive in the United States with fewer financial and educational resources than other immigrant groups (Lopez & Velasco, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2015) and than their nativeborn peers. Hispanic immigrants are also less likely to be fluent in English than both other immigrants and Hispanic native-born adults (Flores, 2017; Gambino, Acosta, & Grieco, 2014), which could hinder communication with teachers and navigation of the U.S. educational system more broadly. Furthermore, compared to their Hispanic native-born peers, Hispanic immigrant parents are less acculturated—meaning that they have had less time and fewer opportunities to engage with and adapt to customs surrounding education in the United States––and, therefore, may be less likely to engage in the parenting behaviors and practices associated with academic success in the U.S. On the other hand, children of Hispanic immigrants also enjoy unique strengths relative to their peers. For instance, Hispanic parents tend to emphasize the importance of education (Crosnoe, 2010; Goldenberg, Gallimore, Reese, & Garnier, 2001) and family cohesion (Leidy, Guerra, & Toro, 2010). They also often express a strong desire to secure better economic and educational futures for their children than they experienced themselves (Perreira, Chapman, & Stein, 2006). Furthermore, there is an emphasis in Hispanic culture on raising respectful and obedient children who are cooperative and care for their peers (Galindo & Fuller, 2010). This emphasis could be stronger for Hispanic immigrant parents, who have closer ties to their home countries and cultures than Hispanic native-born parents. This pattern of relative risks and strengths could explain, at least in part, a pattern of outcomes at school entry whereby children of Hispanic immigrants display weaker academic but not necessarily behavioral skills when compared to children of both Hispanic native-born and other immigrant parents. More specifically, prior research has found that children from Hispanic immigrant families perform worse on average than children from other immigrant groups on tests of mathematics and reading at school entry (Sullivan, Houri, & Sadeh, 2016). The analogous findings for children of Hispanic immigrant compared to Hispanic native-born parents are more mixed, however. Some research finds that children of Hispanic immigrants also enter school behind children of Hispanic native-born parents (Koury & Votruba-Drzal, 2014). Other research on the “immigrant paradox” has shown that in some contexts children of immigrants actually perform better on health and educational outcomes than children of native-born Hispanic parents (Hirschman, 2001; Palacios, 2012; Ryabov & Van Hook, 2007). With regard to behavior outcomes, Hispanic children—of both foreign-

and native-born parents—on average exhibit the same or greater interpersonal skills and lower externalizing behavior problems than non-Hispanic children (Galindo & Fuller, 2010; Guerrero et al., 2013; Padilla, Cabrera, & West, 2017). It is not known, however, whether this relative advantage for Hispanic versus non-Hispanic children exists or is perhaps even stronger among children of immigrants. Together, these patterns indicate that it is important to examine both academic and behavioral skills when considering the resources with which these children begin their academic trajectories. 1.2. The role of children’s early home and school inputs in promoting early academic and behavior outcomes A large body of research has established that among children generally, higher levels of parental cognitive stimulation (which includes activities like reading, playing, and teaching new concepts) and center-based care participation are both independently associated with better academic outcomes, such as math and reading skills (Bassok, 2010; Crosnoe, Leventhal, Wirth, Pierce, & Pianta, 2010; McCartney, Dearing, Taylor, & Bub, 2007; Melhuish et al., 2008; NICHD ECCRN, 2002; Price, 2010; Song, Spier, & TamisLeMonda, 2014; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2014; Villena-roldán & Ríos-aguilar, 2012). Similar findings have emerged among children of immigrants and Hispanic children. Specifically, cognitive stimulation and other similar measures of parental involvement are positively associated with scores on language, math, and English proficiency among children of immigrants (Han, Lee, & Waldfogel, 2012; Lahaie, 2008) and among Hispanic children of nativeborn parents (Farver, Xu, Eppe, & Lonigan, 2006; Sonnenschein & Galindo, 2015). Center-based ECE participation is similarly associated with math and reading, as well as English proficiency, for children of immigrants and children of Hispanic native-born parents (Ansari & Winsler, 2012; Bumgarner & Brooks-Gunn, 2015; Bumgarner & Lin, 2014; Crosnoe, 2007; Gormley & Gayer, 2005; Gormley, Gayer, Phillips, & Dawson, 2005; Magnuson, Lahaie, & Waldfogel, 2006; Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2013). It is important to appreciate that the types of activities that comprise parental cognitive stimulation—as well as the types of skills typically referred to as “school readiness”—are not inherently necessary to promote children’s success in all contexts. Rather, these activities are promotive of school readiness as is typically conceptualized in the U.S. and other western nations (e.g., readiness to learn how to read and do mathematics), and therefore are valued by U.S. teachers and often practiced by U.S. White middle-class parents (Ansari & Crosnoe, 2015). That Hispanic and Hispanic immigrant parents do less of these activities on average despite valuing schooling and educational success as much as native-born parents (Crosnoe & Turley, 2011) therefore reflects variation in socialized norms surrounding parenting and the definition of “school readiness” within distinct cultures rather than parenting quality. Links between center-based care and children’s skills at school entry likely exist because center-based ECE is on average higher in quality than less formal, home-based alternatives such as family child care or kith and kin care (Bassok, Fitzpatrick, Greenberg, & Loeb, 2016; Dowsett, Huston, Imes, & Gennetian, 2008; Coley, Li-Grinning, & Chase-Lansdale, 2006; Rigby, Ryan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2007). High-quality ECE has, in turn, been linked to enhanced child cognitive and socioemotional outcomes (Loeb, Fuller, Kagan, & Carrol, 2004; NICHD ECCRN & Duncan, 2003). When compared to relative and home-based care providers, center-based programs have been shown to provide more activities designed for learning, more planned and organized time periods, and less time watching television (Bassok et al., 2016; Dowsett, Huston, Imes, & Gennetian, 2008). Caregivers in center-based care programs also, on average, have higher levels of education and more training in early


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childhood education and development (Cassidy, Hestenes, Hegde, Hestenes, & Mims, 2005; Dowsett et al., 2008). These patterns indicate center-based ECE can serve as a proxy for higher quality compared to other types of early care. At a minimum, center-based environments may better resemble and thus better prepare children for kindergarten classrooms. Among center-based care arrangements, a distinction is often made between Head Start, the federally-funded ECE program for low-income children in the United States, and other types of centerbased programs due to the different aims of the programs and the different characteristics of parents who select into them (Bassok et al., 2016; Johnson, Padilla, & Votruba-Drzal, 2017; Miller et al., 2013; Votruba-Drzal, Coley, Collins, & Miller, 2015). The evidence on the quality of Head Start programs compared to other centerbased programs is mixed (Bassok et al., 2016; Dowsett et al., 2008; Feller, Grindal, Miratrix, & Page, 2016; Johnson, Ryan, & BrooksGunn, 2012), leaving it unclear whether Head Start can serve as a quality proxy in the same way as other center-based programs. Nonetheless, Head Start has been shown to promote children’s early outcomes when compared to home-based care (Feller et al., 2016), suggesting that Head Start is likely to better prepare children of immigrants for school in the United States relative to homebased alternatives. Links between children’s early home and education inputs and academic skills at school entry have thus been established for children generally and children of immigrants specifically. However, significantly less is known about the link between cognitive stimulation in the home and children’s behavioral “nonacademic” but academically relevant outcomes. One such outcome is approaches to learning (ATL), a measure of attention skills and achievement motivation that encompasses children’s task persistence, attentiveness, eagerness to learn, learning independence, flexibility, and organization (Duncan et al., 2007; Galindo & Fuller, 2010). Given that children’s ATL in kindergarten has consistently been linked with higher reading and mathematics achievement throughout elementary school (DiPerna, Lei, & Reid, 2007; Li-Grining, Votruba˜ & Haas, 2010; McWayne, Fantuzzo, & Drzal, Maldonado-Carreno, McDermott, 2004), it is important to uncover whether parents might be able to promote these skills through engagement in enriching activities. The one study to examine the link between parenting behaviors and ATL found that African American parents who actively promoted a positive learning environment in the home had children with greater ATL outcomes (Fantuzzo, McWayne, Perry, & Childs, 2004). It is not known, however, whether the activities most predictive of children’s academic outcomes—those encompassed in parents’ cognitive stimulation—might also promote children’s ATL outcomes. This link is important to examine among children of Hispanic immigrants—although these children show relative strength when compared to other minority groups in behavior outcomes (Galindo & Fuller, 2010; Guerrero et al., 2013; Padilla et al., 2017), the antecedents of these strengths are not well understood. Research examining the link between ECE and behavior outcomes has largely focused on the domain of behavior problems and suggests that center-based care participation increases behavior problems among children generally (Belsky, 2002, 2006; Belsky et al., 2007; Morrissey, 2009; Votruba-Drzal et al., 2015). This is particularly true when the care quality is low (Belsky, 2006; NICHD ECCRN, 2000, 2006; NICHD ECCRN & Duncan, 2003), the child attends care for long hours (Belsky, 2006), or both (Anders et al., 2012; Votruba-Drzal, Coley, & Chase-Lansdale, 2004). The one study to examine the link between ECE and social skills among children of immigrants found that participation in center-based care was actually associated with more favorable social interaction scores for Hispanic immigrants, whereas it was associated with less selfcontrol for native-born Hispanic children, both compared to white native-born children in parental care (Turney & Kao, 2009b). No

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study, however, has directly compared the ECE––behavior skills association for children of native-born versus foreign-born Hispanic parents.

1.3. Differences in associations between children’s early inputs and outcomes for children of Hispanic immigrants and their peers Despite their cultural and social strengths, children from Hispanic immigrant families on average experience less of both parental cognitive stimulation and center-based care compared to their native- and foreign-born peers (Crosnoe, 2007, 2013; Han et al., 2012; Lahaie, 2008; Magnuson et al., 2006; Votruba-Drzal et al., 2015). However, it is not currently known whether the associations between these early inputs and children’s early academic and behavioral outcomes differ for Hispanic immigrants relative to their peers. Despite documented differences in the amount of cognitive stimulation children of Hispanic immigrants receive, all else equal, the association between stimulating activities and outcomes at kindergarten entry should not differ across these groups. However, there is reason to believe that the association between center-based ECE and school readiness might differ across groups. To the extent that Hispanic immigrant parents are less acculturated and their children typically have lower levels of English proficiency compared to children of Hispanic native-born parents, center-based care (including Head Start) might benefit children of Hispanic immigrants more than children of Hispanic native-born parents by familiarizing children with the culture and language of instruction in the United States prior to entering formal schooling—language and culture to which children of native-born parents are more exposed. The same could be true for Hispanic immigrant compared to other immigrant parents, given that Hispanic immigrants are less likely than other immigrant groups to be fluent English speakers (Gambino et al., 2014). Findings from prior studies that have compared the association between ECE and early school outcomes for children of immigrants versus children of native-born parents are also mixed. Some have found that while center-based care was beneficial for all children, it was more beneficial in terms of both academic and behavioral outcomes for children of immigrants compared to children with native-born parents (Johnson, Han, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2014; Votruba-Drzal et al., 2015). Another found that the association between preschool participation and higher reading and math scores did not differ for children of immigrants versus children of native-born parents (Magnuson et al., 2006). Thus, there is precedent for both hypotheses in the literature. Studies that have focused on differences in associations between ECE and both academic and behavioral measures of school readiness among children of immigrants have either compared subgroups of children of immigrants to all children of native-born parents or children of native-born White parents (Han et al., 2012; Koury & Votruba-Drzal, 2014; Lahaie, 2008; Magnuson et al., 2006; Votruba-Drzal et al., 2015). No study has specifically compared these associations for children of Hispanic immigrants to children of other immigrants or to children of Hispanic native-born children. Explicitly quantifying and comparing the links between ECE arrangements and early school outcomes for children of Hispanic immigrants, children of other immigrants, and children of Hispanic native-born parents is an important step in both motivating and informing policy and programmatic efforts to support this population.


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1.4. The interaction between home and school contexts in promoting early academic and behavior outcomes It has thus been established that children’s two primary early learning contexts—home and ECE—independently predict children’s outcomes at school entry. It is also possible that these two early contexts interact to influence early outcomes for children, generally, and for children of Hispanic immigrants, specifically. There are two competing hypotheses for how this interaction might operate. The accumulated advantages hypothesis posits that children may be better able to take advantage of the benefits of center-based care when their home environments are also high quality (meaning that they are highly stimulating) (Coleman, 1990). The bioecological model of development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) supports this hypothesis and would predict that when parents and providers share caregiving goals, like providing educational activities, the system of relationships that surround the child − called in ecological theory the mesosystem − would be strengthened. Alternatively, the compensatory hypothesis suggests that center-based care serves, at least in part, to compensate for disadvantages in the home such that center-based care is most effective for children who receive low levels of cognitive stimulation at home (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975). This hypothesis is consistent with the goals of many programs that serve children at risk for low academic achievement, such as Head Start’s goal of serving low-income and special needs children (Miller, Farkas, Vandell, & Duncan, 2014; Zigler & Styfco, 2010). There is evidence for both of these hypotheses in the literature among nonimmigrant children. Specifically, some studies have shown that children experience the greatest cognitive (Adi-Japha & Klein, 2009; Anders et al., 2012; Bryant, Burchinal, Lau, & Sparling, 1994; Votruba-Drzal & Chase-Lansdale, 2004) and socioemotional (Watamura, Phillips, Morrissey, McCartney, & Bub, 2011) benefits when both the home and ECE environment were high quality, compared to when one or both were low quality. And, in some cases children only experienced the benefits of high-quality ECE when the home environment was also highly stimulating (Crosnoe et al., 2010; Votruba-Drzal & Chase-Lansdale, 2004). Other studies, however, have shown that children growing up in poverty benefit most from high-quality ECE settings (McCartney et al., 2007; VotrubaDrzal & Chase-Lansdale, 2004; Watamura et al., 2011), suggesting environmental disadvantages enhance the effect of high-quality ECE on development. For children of Hispanic immigrants, who are less likely to be fluent in English than both children from other immigrant groups and children of native-born Hispanic parents, the accumulated advantages hypothesis seems more likely to apply. In theory, when comparing two children—both of whom speak a non-English language at home—the one who has been highly stimulated and engaged in learning activities at home will be better poised to benefit from center-based care in English than a child who has not been primed for learning at home in this way. Thus, it may be the case that center-based care is more effective in the context of highly stimulating home environments for children of Hispanic immigrants compared to their peers who are more likely to be fluent in English. 1.5. Importance of using more recent data Prior estimates of the amount of cognitive stimulation and center-based ECE enrollment as well as associations between them and academic and behavioral outcomes at school entry are primarily based on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort of 2001 (ECLS-B) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort of 1998-99 (ECLS-K)—data that were collected almost two decades ago. The immigration and ECE landscape has changed

significantly since that time in ways relevant to the association between children’s early learning contexts and their readiness for school. Specifically, although Hispanic immigrants continue to make up the largest share of immigrants in the United States, the share of newly arriving immigrants from Central and South America dropped relative to immigrants arriving from Asia (Pew Research Center, 2015). Given that Asian immigrants tend to be more socioeconomically advantaged than both Hispanic and other non-Hispanic immigrants (Pew Research Center, 2015), the more recent cohort of Hispanic immigrants may be even more disadvantaged relative to other immigrant groups than previous cohorts. At the same time, all immigrants have become slightly less disadvantaged compared to native-born peers, stemming largely from income decreases for native-born adults after the Great Recession (Pew Research Center, 2015). If this trend extends to Hispanic native- versus foreign-born adults specifically, then children of Hispanic immigrants may also be less disadvantaged compared to children of Hispanic native-born parents than in the past. Finally, the center-based ECE use by children of immigrants may have shifted during this time period as the availability of state and local public pre-k programs and other low- and no-cost center-based ECE has expanded (Jiang, Ekono, & Skinner, 2015; Johnson et al., 2017). It is thus necessary for us to update our understanding of these associations in a newer cohort of children. 1.6. The present study The present study adds to the knowledge base surrounding the predictors of children’s skills at school entry for children of Hispanic immigrants by attempting to answer the following questions: First, how do children of Hispanic immigrants’ early home and education contexts today compare to those of their peers—children with parents from other immigrant groups and children with native-born Hispanic parents? Second, to what extent, if at all, do parental provision of cognitive stimulation and children’s ECE arrangements independently predict children of Hispanic immigrants’ academic (math and reading) and behavior (ATL) outcomes at kindergarten entry? Do these associations for children of Hispanic immigrants differ from those for children of other immigrant groups and for children of Hispanic native-born parents? Finally, is the joint impact of high levels of parental cognitive stimulation and centerbased ECE participation for children’s early outcomes larger than the association for either one of these contexts alone, and is that association larger for children of Hispanic immigrants than other groups? To answer these questions, we draw data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011 (ECLS-K: 2011), which includes a nationally representative sample of children who entered kindergarten in the fall of 2010. 2. Method 2.1. Sample Children in the ECLS-K: 2011 were followed from the fall of kindergarten until they completed fifth grade. All data from the present study were taken from the first wave, when children were first entering kindergarten in the fall, in order to capture indicators of children’s skills prior to school entry (rather than abilities resulting from formal schooling). The overall sample was restricted to children of immigrants and children of Hispanic native-born parents (N ≈ 5880; all Ns are rounded to the nearest 10 per National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] restricted data security requirements). Multiple analytic samples were created for each dependent variable being examined (math, reading, and ATL), in order to retain the highest possible number of cases in each anal-




ysis. All samples were restricted to children who did not repeat kindergarten (N ≈ 5640) and children who had one clear primary early education experience (N ≈ 5560). Finally, each sample was restricted to cases in which there was valid data on the dependent variable, the appropriate weight variables, and key independent and language variables. This yielded 3480 cases for the math sample, 3470 for reading, and 3490 for ATL. 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. School readiness Three indicators of children’s skills at kindergarten entry were examined: direct assessments of math and reading, and teacherreported ATL scores. In the ECLS-K: 2011, math and reading scale scores were calculated using IRT-based procedures, making it possible to compare children’s scores to one another in each domain regardless of which specific items a child was administered (children answered different questions based on their ability levels as determined by an initial screener) (Tourangeau et al., 2012). Kindergarten teachers reported on children’s ATL in the fall of the kindergarten year. ATL measures behaviors influencing a child’s ability to benefit from the learning environment. The scale includes six items, including the child’s attentiveness, task persistence, eagerness to learn, learning independence, flexibility, and organization. The final score capturing ATL is an NCES-created average of these items. These items were developed specifically for the ECLS-K and were adapted from the Social Skills Rating System (Tourangeau et al., 2012). Internal consistency for the ATL scale was high (Cronbach alpha = .91). 2.2.2. Parental provision of cognitive stimulation Parental cognitive stimulation was measured as a composite of eight items reflecting how often parents read books, told stories, sang songs, played games, did arts and crafts, talked about nature or science, built things, and practiced reading, writing, or working with numbers with or to the study’s focal child. The composite was an average these items, which were converted to represent the number of days per week parents reported doing each activity and ranged from 0 to 7 as follows: 0 (not at all), 1.5 (once or twice a week), 4.5 (3–6 times a week), and 7 (every day). These items were chosen due to their inclusion in other studies of the role of parenting in school readiness (e.g. Koury & Votruba-Drzal, 2014; Lahaie, 2008). Cronbach’s alpha for items was .71, indicating good internal consistency (Schmitt, 1996). After creating this average composite, the variable was mean centered. 2.2.3. Early care and education experiences Parents were asked whether their child had attended various types of ECE during the year prior to entering kindergarten, whether the type of care children experienced was Head Start, and how many hours per week children attended each type. NCES staff then created a composite variable indicating each child’s primary, nonparental arrangement in which the child spent the most hours per week (children were coded as “parental care only” if they never experienced nonparental care). NCES defined a child as having two or more primary early education experiences if the child spent time in “two or more types of care with equal number of hours” (Tourangeau et al., 2012). This category was used when a child had at least two arrangements of different types (e.g. one home-based arrangement and one center-based care arrangement), and the parent reported that the child spent the same number of hours in each arrangement on a weekly basis in the year before kindergarten. Children with two or more primary arrangements were excluded from our analyses (N ≈ 80). Four mutually exclusive categories were created using this composite variable to indicate children’s primary care type in the

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year prior to entering kindergarten: parental care, center-based ECE (which included mostly children attending preschool, but also nursery school and day care), Head Start, and relative or other home-based care. Because center-based care is conceptually and qualitatively distinct from other types of care (e.g. Bassok et al., 2016), only children attending center-based care that was Head Start—and not children attending home-based care that was Head Start––were coded in the “Head Start” category. It was not possible to distinguish state-funded pre-k from other non-Head Start pre-k. 2.2.4. Immigrant status Parent respondents (95.74% biological mothers) reported on their country of birth and, when there was a second parent, the country of birth of the child’s second caregiver (91.57% biological fathers) in the spring of their children’s kindergarten and first grade years. A child was defined as a child of an immigrant if either one of their parents reported being born outside of the United States. 2.2.5. Covariates All regression models controlled for two important language characteristics of the child: whether the child was considered proficient in English and whether the child’s home language was English. Children’s English proficiency was determined by a language screener, which consisted of two tasks from the Preschool Language Assessment Scale (Duncan & DeAvila, 1998). Children had to receive a score of 16 or higher on this screener to be considered proficient in English (Tourangeau et al., 2012). Spanish-speaking children who did not pass the language screener completed the reading and math assessments in Spanish. Children who did not pass the language screener and who spoke a language other than Spanish were not given the reading or math assessments (there were only about 60 of these children in total, and none of them were retained in our analytic samples once other restrictions were made). Children’s home language was determined by parent report. All models also controlled for child and family characteristics, collected via parent report in the fall of kindergarten unless otherwise stated. Child characteristics included gender, low birth weight, and under- and overweight (child weight and height were measured during child assessments, and a body mass index score was calculated for each child to determine underweight and overweight). Family characteristics included income-to-needs ratio, highest level of parental education, household size, family structure at birth and at kindergarten entry, maternal work status, and receipt of WIC. Models for non-Hispanic immigrant groups also controlled for region of origin (Asian, White/European, or other). Information on one or more covariates was missing for some children (e.g., N ≈ 790 children in our math sample), ranging from 0.14 to 11.54% of cases per covariate. To address missing data for covariates only (Graham, 2009; White & Carlin, 2010), data were multiply imputed using the ICE command in Stata 14.0, which is based on a regression switching protocol using chained equations. Ten imputed datasets were generated, and coefficients and standard errors were combined across imputed datasets using the MI ESTIMATE command. 2.3. Analytic strategy We estimated multiple OLS regression models predicting each outcome from parental cognitive stimulation, immigrant children’s ECE experiences, and covariates. We then estimated models in which parental cognitive stimulation and children’s ECE experiences were interacted to examine their potential interplay. Analyses were performed separately for our three comparison groups: children of Hispanic immigrants, children with parents from other immigrant groups, and children of Hispanic native-born parents. We then computed post hoc Wald tests to assess whether




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differences in coefficients of interest across groups were statistically significant (Wald, 1943). Because multiple comparisons were made, a Bonferroni adjustment was performed in order to reduce the likelihood of Type 1 error. The alpha was thus established at .01 (adjusted for three comparisons per outcome), and we consider and discuss findings that were significant at alpha=.05 as marginally significant. All analyses were weighted using NCES-constructed weights to account for the study’s complex sampling design; the application of weights permits generalization to all children of each group attending kindergarten for the first time in the 2010–2011 school year. 3. Results 3.1. Descriptive results Descriptive statistics are displayed separately for children of Hispanic immigrant, non-Hispanic immigrant, and Hispanic nativeborn parents in Table 1. Children of Hispanic immigrants received the lowest levels of cognitive stimulation at home, had the lowest math, reading, and approaches to learning scores, had the lowest enrollment in center-based ECE, the highest enrollment in Head Start, and the highest proportion of children who were in parental care only. These child care differences may partially reflect differences in socioeconomic status (SES), as Hispanic immigrants had by far the lowest income-to-needs ratios, the highest percentage of parents with only a high school degree and the lowest percentage of parents with more than a high school degree, the lowest proportion of mothers who worked full time and the highest proportion of mothers out of work, and the highest proportion of families who received WIC (the Women, Infants, and Children supplemental nutrition program). Compared to other immigrants, Hispanic immigrant parents were also less likely to be married at both kindergarten entry and at the time of the child’s birth. With regard to language characteristics, children of Hispanic immigrants were the least likely of all three groups to have English as their home language. Compared to children with Hispanic native-born parents, they were also more likely to be considered not proficient in English due to not passing the NCES language screener.1 3.2. Regression results Regression results are shown in Tables 2–4 for models predicting math, reading, and ATL scores, respectively, separately for children of Hispanic immigrants, children of non-Hispanic immigrants, and children of native-born Hispanic parents, and a figure summarizing our primary results of interest is shown in Fig. 1. In each set of results, Model 1 estimates the relationship between parental cognitive stimulation and the outcome, including all language, child, and family covariates. This model serves to explore the association between cognitive stimulation and each outcome for each group, and to compare those associations across groups. Model 2 estimates this relationship and adds indicator variables for the type of ECE arrangement that the child experienced in the year before kindergarten, with parental care as the reference group, in order to explore the association between ECE and school readiness for each group, and to compare those associations across groups. Model 3 adds interactions between parental cognitive stimulation and ECE setting. These interactions test whether the potential benefit of high cognitive stimulation in the home is stronger in the context of various ECE types, particularly center-based care.

1 There were no children in our analytic samples who did not pass the NCES language screener and spoke a language other than Spanish, hence the empty cells for this variable for the non-Hispanic immigrant group in Tables 1–4.

3.2.1. Math All models in Table 2 show that net of a rich set of language, child, and family characteristics, parental cognitive stimulation was not significantly associated with children’s early math scores for any of the examined groups. By contrast, attending center-based care was associated with significantly higher math scores compared to being in parental care for children of both Hispanic immigrant and Hispanic native-born parents. These differences were equivalent to about 28% and 22% of a standard deviation for Hispanic immigrant and Hispanic native-born groups, respectively. No significant association emerged between center-based care and math scores for children of non-Hispanic immigrants. Post hoc Wald tests did not detect significant differences in the center-care coefficients across models. Head Start participation was not associated with math scores for any group when compared to parental care. Attending home-based care relative to parental care was associated with lower math scores by about 21% of a standard deviation for children of non-Hispanic immigrants, though this result was only marginally significant given our corrected alpha level (p = .026). Home-based care was not associated with either higher or lower math scores for the other groups compared to parental care. However, post hoc Wald tests revealed marginally significant differences across models for children of Hispanic immigrants versus children of Hispanic native-born parents in the home-based care coefficients (2 = 5.72, p = .017), meaning that neither of these coefficients was significantly different from zero, but they were significantly different from each other. Model 3 indicates that across groups the only interaction to emerge between cognitive stimulation and ECE arrangements was a negative interaction between cognitive stimulation and Head Start for children of non-Hispanic immigrants, though this interaction was only marginally significant (p = .047). This interaction indicates that for children of non-Hispanic immigrants whose parents were more stimulating than average, attending Head Start was associated with lower math scores than parental care. 3.2.2. Reading Models 1 and 2 in Table 3 indicate that higher parental cognitive stimulation was associated with significantly higher reading scores for both Hispanic and non-Hispanic immigrant groups. Each additional day of cognitive stimulation per week corresponded to about 5% of a standard deviation in higher reading scores for both children of Hispanic and non-Hispanic immigrants. This finding only reached marginal significance for non-Hispanic immigrants (p = .041). There was no association between cognitive stimulation and reading scores for children of Hispanic native-born parents. The associations between ECE and reading scores were similar to those for ECE and math scores. Specifically, attending centerbased care relative to parental care was associated with greater reading scores for children of both Hispanic immigrant (marginally; p = .013) and Hispanic native-born parents by about 18% and 24% of a standard deviation, respectively, while center-based care participation was not associated with reading scores for children of non-Hispanic immigrant parents. Post hoc Wald tests suggested, however, that we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no difference in coefficients across subgroup models. Neither Head Start nor home-based care was associated with reading scores compared to parental care for any of the three examined groups. Model 3 shows that for the Hispanic native-born group only, a marginally significant positive interaction between parental cognitive stimulation and center-based care emerged (p = .031). This interaction indicates that the positive association between centerbased care relative to parental care and this group’s reading outcomes was even stronger in the context of high parental cognitive stimulation. Specifically, for children of Hispanic native-born parents who attended center-based ECE relative to parental care,


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Table 1 Descriptive statistics. Children of Hispanic immigrants (N ≈ 1250)

Children of non-Hispanic immigrants (N ≈ 1100)

Children of Hispanic native-borns (N ≈ 1100)

M/%

SD

M/%

SD

M/%

SD

Cognitive stimulation (CS)

3.71

1.37

4.16***

1.28

4.21***

1.27

School readiness measures Math Reading Approaches to learning

23.73 32.65 2.98

9.44 7.64 0.51

33.95*** 41.56*** 3.19***

11.28 12.17 0.49

28.34*** 36.01*** 3.21***

10.12 8.43 0.49

Child care arrangement before kindergarten Parental care Center care Head Start Home based care

36.85% 24.93% 19.59% 18.62%

24.02%*** 52.35%*** 8.59%*** 15.05%*

Immigrant specific characteristics Immigrant group European/White Asian Other

21.10%*** 36.85%*** 13.89%*** 28.16***

32.00% 47.21% 20.79%

Language characteristics Child is not considered proficient in English Home language is English

15.29% 18.48%

– 60.27%***

1.48%*** 88.24%***

Child characteristics Male Low birth weight Underweight Normal weight Overweight

50.97% 10.37% 2.82% 57.40% 39.78%

48.89% 11.04% 7.68%*** 65.00%*** 27.32%***

52.33% 8.45% 2.75% 61.83%* 35.42%*

Family characteristics Income-to-needs ratio Highest level of parental education Less than high school High school/GED More than high school Household size Parents married at child’s kindergarten entry Parents married at time of child’s birth Maternal work status Mother works full time Mother works part time Mother out of work Family receives WIC

1.36 31.44% 45.68% 22.89% 5.02 62.33% 54.23%

1.74

1.53

26.50% 18.33% 55.17% 80.97%

3.88*** 2.56%*** 23.21%*** 74.23%*** 4.55*** 86.35%*** 86.12%*** 39.47%*** 19.65% 40.88%*** 29.75%***

3.07

1.43

2.38*** 5.53%*** 39.81%** 54.67%*** 4.81*** 61.78% 54.52%

2.38

1.51

44.23%*** 16.34% 39.42%*** 63.73%***

Note: Descriptive statistics for cognitive stimulation, math, child care arrangements, and all controls are based on the math analytic sample. Reading and approaches to learning scores are based on the corresponding analytic sample. All Ns rounded to the nearest 10 per NCES data security requirements. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 for comparison of mean differences; all comparisons are made to the Hispanic immigrant group.

one extra day per week of parental cognitive stimulation was associated with an additional one point in reading scores (equivalent to about 13% of a standard deviation). This point was in addition to the two-points associated with attending center-based ECE alone, when parental cognitive stimulation was average. 3.2.3. ATL Table 4 shows that across models, parental cognitive stimulation was strongly associated with ATL scores for children from all examined groups. Specifically, one additional day of cognitive stimulation per week was associated with higher ATL scores that represented 24%, 22%, and 24% of a standard deviation for children of Hispanic immigrant, other immigrant, and Hispanic native-born children, respectively. For children of Hispanic immigrants only, center-based care was associated with higher ATL scores of about 18% of a standard deviation relative to parental care. Post hoc Wald tests indicated that this coefficient for children of Hispanic immigrants was larger than those for both children of non-Hispanic immigrants (2 = 6.57, p = .010) and children of Hispanic native-born parents (2 = 5.55, p = .019). Head Start participation was not associated with ATL

scores for any group when compared to parental care. Children of non-Hispanic immigrant (p = .031) and Hispanic native-born parents (p = .016) in home-based care had marginally lower ATL scores by about 21% of a standard deviation (for both groups) compared to peers in parental care. Home-based care was not associated with ATL scores for children of Hispanic immigrants. No significant interactions emerged between parental cognitive stimulation and ECE in predicting ATL scores. 3.2.4. Supplementary analyses rotating ECE reference group In our primary analyses, parental care served as the reference group for our four ECE arrangements. In a set of supplementary analyses, we rotated the ECE reference group in all analyses in order to determine associations for each ECE type relative to every other type (Table A1). Results showed a general pattern whereby centerbased care, in addition to being associated with greater scores when compared to parental care, was also associated with greater scores for most groups relative to other arrangements. Specifically, for children of Hispanic immigrants, center-based ECE was associated with higher math scores relative to Head Start and with greater math, reading and ATL scores relative to home-based care.


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Table 2 Regression results for math school readiness scores by group. Hispanic immigrants


Non-Hispanic immigrants

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

0.335 (0.187)

0.284 (0.185)

0.260 (0.288)

0.354 (0.250)

0.341 (0.250)

0.566 (0.492)

0.327 (0.222)

0.324 (0.222)

−0.253 (0.451)

2.623** (0.656) 0.588 (0.702) −1.144a (0.747)

2.704** (0.697) 0.575 (0.744) −1.173a (0.833)

0.855 (0.825) −2.071 (1.259) −2.395+ (1.076)

0.889 (0.825) −2.340 (1.263) −2.159+ (1.086)

2.151* (0.807) 0.754 (0.980) 1.437b (0.861)

2.201* (0.807) 0.830 (0.981) 1.498b (0.865)

Child care arrangement before kindergarten (Reference group = parental care) Center care Head Start Home-based care Interactions CS*Center care

−0.278 (0.599) −1.872+ (0.942) 0.431 (0.756)

0.181 (0.481) −0.0377 (0.503) −0.0380 (0.509)

CS*Head Start CS*Home-based care Immigrant-specific characteristics Immigrant group (Reference group = White/European) Asian

3.493** (0.732) −0.485 (0.965)

Other Language characteristics Child is not considered proficient in English Home language is English

Hispanic native-borns

(1)

−4.888** (0.722) 2.552** (0.698) N ≈ 1250

−4.811** (0.720) 2.272* (0.694)

−4.810** (0.721) 2.264* −0.697

0.524 (0.692) N ≈ 1110

3.632** (0.731) −0.378 (0.962)

0.508 (0.690)

1.046 (0.584) 0.268 (0.761) 0.621 (0.601)

3.603** (0.732) −0.350 (0.965)

0.539 (0.691)

−6.126+ (2.449) 1.486 (0.948) N ≈ 1110

−5.955+ (2.447) 1.561 (0.946)

−5.816+ (2.457) 1.675 (0.948)

Standard errors in parentheses. Note: Controls include child characteristics (child gender, low birth weight status, whether the child was underweight or overweight) and family characteristics (income-toneeds ratio, highest level of parental education, household size, parents’ marital status at child’s birth and kindergarten entry, maternal work status, and receipt of WIC). **p < .001, *p < .01, + p < .05. Subscripts (a,b) indicate where coefficients for children of Hispanic immigrants are significantly different from those for children from the other groups, as indicated by a significant 2 statistic (p < .05) from Wald tests of differences in coefficients.

Center-based care was also associated with greater math scores when compared to home-based care for children of non-Hispanic immigrants. No other ECE arrangements were significantly different from one another, with the notable exception that Head Start was associated with greater math, reading, and ATL scores when compared to home-based care for children of Hispanic immigrants. Each of these three associations was only marginally significant, but the consistency across outcomes suggests that they were not due solely to chance. 4. Discussion The present study examined associations between early home and education contexts, as well as their interaction, and three child outcomes at kindergarten entry (math, reading, and ATL) for children of Hispanic immigrants. This study is unique in that it compares these associations for children of Hispanic immigrants to peers whose parents differ across both ethnicity and immigration status—children with parents from other immigrant groups and children with Hispanic native-born parents. We also use a more recent nationally representative cohort of children than has been used in prior studies, making our results applicable to children of Hispanic immigrants living in the U.S. today. With regard to how children of Hispanic immigrants’ early home and education contexts compare to those of their peers, our results generally comport with prior findings suggesting that children of Hispanic immigrants are disadvantaged relative to their peers. Hispanic immigrant parents, on average, engaged in stimulating

activities with their children significantly less frequently than both other immigrant parents and Hispanic native-born parents. Children of Hispanic immigrants were also less likely to be enrolled in center-based care. However, they were the most likely to enroll in Head Start, suggesting that Hispanic immigrant parents might enroll their children in center-based care more often if it were more affordable or if they had the means to do so. It also indicates that Hispanic immigrant parents were able to successfully navigate the ECE enrollment process and access services for which their children were eligible. Children of Hispanic immigrants were also the least likely to be fluent English speakers. While bilingualism has been shown to be advantageous with regard to certain behavioral and cognitive skills like self-control and executive function, lack of English proficiency could make it harder for parents to communicate with ECE providers and with the K-12 educational system. 4.1. Parental provision of cognitive stimulation Net of a rich set of language, child, and family characteristics, parental provision of cognitive stimulation was associated with reading scores for children of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic immigrants, and with ATL scores for all groups of children. These findings add to our understanding of children of immigrants’ early learning by showing that when immigrant parents do more educationally stimulating activities in the home (i.e., reading books, telling stories, playing games, talking about math concepts, etc.), children enter formal schooling with greater skills in multiple domains than when parents do fewer of these activities—a find-


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Table 3 Regression results for reading school readiness scores by group. Hispanic immigrants




(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

0.443* (0.153)

0.407* (0.153)

0.380 (0.239)

0.584+ (0.275)

0.565+ (0.276)

0.418 (0.543)

0.146 (0.188)

0.132 (0.187)

−0.325 (0.377)

1.342+ (0.539) 0.343a (0.574) −1.092 (0.609)

1.403+ (0.573) 0.324a (0.609) −1.054 (0.682)

0.214 (0.910) −2.177b (1.389) −2.230 (1.191)

0.234 (0.910) −2.386b (1.395) −2.090 (1.202)

1.994* (0.678) 0.853 (0.826) 0.563 (0.723)

2.015* (0.678) 0.923 (0.825) 0.577 (0.725)


0.312 (0.661) −1.206 (1.039) 0.563 (0.833)

0.131 (0.399) −0.0537 (0.413) 0.0519 (0.419)

CS*Head Start CS*Home-based care

1.056+ (0.489) −0.0353 (0.641) 0.336 (0.505)

Immigrant-specific characteristics Immigrant group (Reference group = White/European) 3.490** (0.804) 1.045 (1.064)

Asian Other Language characteristics Child is not considered proficient in English Home language is English

−4.639** (0.611) 1.717* (0.574) N ≈ 1240

−4.581** (0.612) 1.554* (0.574)

−4.578** (0.613) 1.540* (0.576)

0.238 (0.761) N ≈ 1110

3.615** (0.806) 1.122 (1.063)

0.241 (0.762)

3.553** (0.808) 1.079 (1.068)

0.298 (0.764)

−5.825* (2.093) 1.217 (0.800) N ≈ 1110

−5.531* (2.089) 1.250 (0.797)

−5.504* (2.096) 1.351 (0.799)

Standard errors in parentheses. Note: Controls include child characteristics (child gender, low birth weight status, whether the child was underweight or overweight) and family characteristics (income-toneeds ratio, highest level of parental education, household size, parents’ marital status at child’s birth and kindergarten entry, maternal work status, and receipt of WIC). **p < .001, *p < .01, + p < .05. Subscripts (a, b) indicate where coefficients for children of Hispanic immigrants are significantly different from those for children from the other groups, as indicated by a significant 2 statistic (p < .05) from Wald tests of differences in coefficients.

ing consistent with other studies on children of immigrants (Han et al., 2012; Lahaie, 2008). It is notable that parental cognitive stimulation was associated with reading but not math scores for both immigrant groups. This difference could arise because more of the items that made up the cognitive stimulation composite promoted literacy rather than math skills. Indeed, a recent report of the early math achievement of Hispanic children using the ECLSK: 2011 found that when parents did more activities specifically related to math such as playing games or doing puzzles with children or practicing reading, writing, or working with numbers (two of the eight items that made up our cognitive stimulation composite), Hispanic children had higher math scores at the beginning of kindergarten (Murphey, Madill, & Guzman, 2017). Taken together, these findings suggest that while a more global measure of cognitive stimulation in the home is consistently associated with reading scores for children of immigrants, activities that more closely target math activities are likely better able to promote math scores among these children. It is not clear why parental cognitive stimulation was associated with reading scores for both groups of immigrants, but not for Hispanic native-born children. One possibility is that cognitive stimulation, as it is measured in the present study, enhances reading scores by exposing children to language (Burgess, Hecht, & Lonigan, 2002; Hurtado, Marchman, & Fernald, 2008; Zimmerman et al., 2009), which in turn promotes reading skills. In the ECLSK, it was possible for children to pass the English screener and thus be tested in English, yet be more comfortable speaking Spanish (or another language) if their home language was not English.

This scenario was more likely to occur for children from immigrant families, who were less likely than children of Hispanic native-born parents to have English as their home language. Thus, it is possible that the cognitive stimulation that children of Hispanic immigrants received did less to enhance their reading skills than the cognitive stimulation other children received, who more often heard English in the home. Parental cognitive stimulation was consistently and strongly associated with ATL scores across all examined groups. The link between parental cognitive stimulation and ATL has not yet been established, but is consistent with studies linking other parenting behaviors—such as parental sensitivity and autonomy support—with related behavior outcomes such as executive functioning (Bernier, Carlson, & Whipple, 2010; Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000). These important findings have implications for interventions. While the reading assessment measured children’s academic skills, ATL is a measure of a child’s behavioral disposition toward learning and thus may be more reflective of parents’ attitudes toward learning than the academic lessons that they impart. Thus, perhaps even more than teaching concrete academic skills, engaging in cognitively stimulating activities with children may provide them with a positive attitude toward learning and the behavioral skills necessary to do so. More specifically, the consistent links found between cognitive stimulation and ATL in the current study suggest that promoting cognitively stimulating activities in the home may be a fruitful way to help Hispanic and immigrant parents further promote this area of strength in their children, which could promote future academic success.


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Table 4 Regression results for approaches to learning school readiness scores by group. Hispanic immigrants




(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

0.125** (0.010)

0.122** (0.010)

0.127** (0.016)

0.109** (0.011)

0.107** (0.011)

0.088** (0.022)

0.118** (0.011)

0.117** (0.011)

0.121** (0.022)

0.093*a (0.035) 0.066 (0.038) −0.045 (0.040)

0.084+ a (0.037) 0.048 (0.040) −0.020 (0.045)

−0.042b (0.037) −0.035 (0.056) −0.103+ (0.048)

−0.043b (0.037) −0.040 (0.056) −0.101+ (0.048)

−0.039b (0.039) −0.046 (0.048) −0.101+ (0.042)

−0.039b (0.039) −0.044 (0.048) −0.098+ (0.042)


−0.020 (0.026) −0.038 (0.027) 0.034 (0.027)

CS*Head Start CS*Home-based care

−0.005 (0.028) −0.050 (0.038) 0.013 (0.029)

0.032 (0.027) −0.011 (0.042) 0.027 (0.034)

Immigrant-specific characteristics Immigrant group (Reference group = White/European) −0.110** (0.032) 0.044 (0.042)

Asian Other Language characteristics Child is not considered proficient in English Home language is English

−0.064 (0.038) 0.044 (0.038) N ≈ 1270

−0.057 (0.038) 0.035 (0.038)

−0.055 (0.038) 0.030 (0.038)

0.011 (0.030) N ≈ 1110

−0.103* (0.032) 0.041 (0.042)

0.016 (0.031)

−0.107** (0.032) 0.036 (0.043)

0.019 (0.031)

0.221 (0.120) 0.152* (0.047) N ≈ 1100

0.231a (0.120) 0.149* (0.047)

0.241a + (0.121) 0.149* (0.047)

Standard errors in parentheses. Note: Controls include child characteristics (child gender, low birth weight status, whether the child was underweight or overweight) and family characteristics (income-toneeds ratio, highest level of parental education, household size, parents’ marital status at child’s birth and kindergarten entry, maternal work status, and receipt of WIC). **p < .001, *p < .01, + p < .05. Subscripts (a, b) indicate where coefficients for children of Hispanic immigrants are significantly different from those for children from the other groups, as indicated by a significant 2 statistic (p < .05) from Wald tests of differences in coefficients.

4.2. ECE settings Results with regard to ECE settings showed a pattern whereby center-based care participation was consistently and positively associated with children’s academic and behavioral outcomes at school entry when compared to other ECE arrangements. This pattern was consistent for children of Hispanic immigrants across all examined outcomes and for children of non-Hispanic immigrants and Hispanic native-born parents for math and reading outcomes. There were few exceptions to the finding that only center-based care was associated with more favorable outcomes compared to every other type of care. Notably, Head Start was associated with higher math, reading, and ATL scores compared to home-based care for children of Hispanic immigrants. This overall pattern of findings is consistent with the broader literature linking center-based care with better academic skills at school entry for children generally and children of immigrants specifically (Bassok et al., 2016; Crosnoe, 2007; Magnuson et al., 2006; NICHD ECCRN, 2002), likely because it is typically higher quality than other alternatives (Bassok et al., 2016; Coley et al., 2006; Rigby et al., 2007). That Head Start was consistently associated with more optimal outcomes compared to home-based care for children of Hispanic immigrants is noteworthy and consistent with those findings that suggest that Head Start is higher quality than other programs used by low-income families (Dowsett et al., 2008). It also supports the idea that Head Start more closely resembles kindergarten classrooms than home-based programs and thus is better able to prepare children of Hispanic immigrants for kindergarten. It is interesting

that this association emerged only for children of Hispanic immigrants and not for either of the other two groups. It is possible that increased attention in Head Start policy to the specific needs of dual-language learners (Hammer, Jia, & Uchikoshi, 2011) has had a stronger impact on children of Hispanic immigrants’ outcomes than those of other groups because children of Hispanic immigrants in our sample were the least likely to be proficient in English, and the least likely to have English as their home language. Our findings provide some support for efforts to increase the early school outcomes of the substantial population of children of Hispanic immigrants in the United States by continuing to increase their participation in center-based options, including Head Start. It is also notable that center-based care, compared to both parental care and home-based care, was associated with greater ATL scores, but only for children of Hispanic immigrants. Some prior work has linked center-based care with greater child behavior problems (Belsky, 2002; Belsky et al., 2007; Morrissey, 2009; NICHD ECCRN & Duncan, 2003). One prior study diverges from these findings, however, and helps to shed light on our results. Using the older cohort of children from the ECLS-K, Turney & Kao (2009a) found no association between center-based care and multiple behavioral outcomes for children generally. However, when they examined whether the association differed by race and immigrant status, they found that compared to white children in parental care, center-based care was associated with less self-control for children of Hispanic native-born parents, but with more favorable social interaction scores for children of Hispanic immigrant parents, suggesting that center-based care may be more beneficial for the




11

Fig. 1. Summary of results by domain and subgroup. Vertical bars represent the association between the independent variable (cognitive stimulation and each ECE type relative to parental care) and math, reading, and ATL, in standard deviation units. Symbols indicate where effect sizes are significantly different from zero (**p < .001, *p < .01, +p < .05) and where coefficients are significantly different from one another within domain (a,b p < .05).

behavioral outcomes of children of Hispanic immigrants than other groups. Our findings that center-based care was linked with greater ATL scores for children of Hispanic immigrants but not for children of Hispanic native-born parents or children of other immigrants is therefore consistent with these prior findings, with some caveats: Turney and Kao did not directly compare children of Hispanic immigrant versus Hispanic native-born parents, and they did not find significant associations for ATL specifically. The authors argued that these findings are consistent with the idea that center-based care may not be associated with behavior problems for all groups of children (Loeb, Bridges, Bassok, Fuller, & Rumberger, 2007) and may instead provide Hispanic children of immigrants with some of the tools necessary for early academic success by familiarizing them with appropriate classroom rules and allowing them to become comfortable in their roles as students. It is important to keep in mind, however, that our measure of ECE participation prior to kindergarten was relatively blunt compared to the measures used in some prior reports linking center-based care to poor behavioral outcomes, which include aspects of the ECE experience such as hours of care, age at entry into child care, and child care history. It is thus possible that our estimates do not appropriately capture the aspects of center-based care that are associated with worse behavioral outcomes. Interestingly, our hypothesis that center-based care might be more strongly linked with early academic and behavior outcomes for children of Hispanic immigrants than for their peers was only supported with regard to ATL outcomes. This finding stands in con-

trast to Votruba-Drzal et al. (2015) finding that center-based care was more beneficial for children of immigrants compared to children with native-born parents for both academic and behavioral outcomes. Importantly, they found that the benefit of center-based care was reserved for non-English speaking children of immigrants versus all native-born children. Given that children of Hispanic immigrants were the least likely of the groups included in our study to be proficient in English or to have English as their home language, it could be that center-based care’s link with ATL for this group has to do with the benefits that center-based care provides with regard to increasing English proficiency. Perhaps Hispanic children of immigrants, who are more likely to have limited English proficiency, are not more equipped than their English-proficient peers to benefit from center-based instruction in English, but are better able to benefit from opportunities to interact with peers and teachers in the classroom in ways that promote classroom behavior and motivation to learn (Votruba-Drzal et al., 2015). 4.3. Interaction between home and early learning environments Two interesting—albeit weak—findings emerged when we tested for a moderating relationship between home and ECE environments in predicting children’s outcomes. First, for math, a marginally significant interactive relationship emerged between cognitive stimulation and Head Start for children of non-Hispanic immigrants whereby Head Start was less beneficial than staying at home when parents were above average on cognitive stimula-


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tion. This finding supports neither the compensatory hypothesis nor the accumulated advantages hypothesis and instead, if replicated, begins to provide evidence for the idea that for children of non-Hispanic immigrants whose parents frequently engage in the types of activities shown to promote academic measures of school readiness, it may be better for them to stay at home with those stimulating parents rather than go to Head Start, theoretically because these children have more to gain from their parents than Head Start providers. It is not clear, however, why this finding emerged only for non-Hispanic immigrants. Given that many comparisons were tested and that this interaction was only marginally significant after correcting for multiple comparisons, this finding should thus be treated with caution. The other interaction to emerge was between cognitive stimulation and center-based care for children of Hispanic native-born parents for reading scores. This provides some mild support for the accumulated advantages hypothesis. More specifically, this interaction indicated that the positive association between center-based care and reading was even stronger when these children had highly stimulating home environments. This finding is consistent with ecological theory and with prior studies showing that children experience the greatest benefits for academic outcomes when both the home and ECE environment are highly stimulating (Adi-Japha & Klein, 2009; Anders et al., 2012; Bryant et al., 1994; Votruba-Drzal & Chase-Lansdale, 2004; Watamura et al., 2011). Again, though, it is not clear why this interaction emerged only for children of Hispanic native-born parents. It was surprising that no such interactions emerged for children of Hispanic immigrants. This null finding could be linked to the fact that these children were the least likely to have English as their home language. If part of the mechanism by which cognitive stimulation enhances the benefits of center-based care is that highly stimulating parents ask ECE providers what they are doing in the classroom and replicate those activities at home, it is possible that Hispanic immigrant parents’ lack of English skills prevents them from capitalizing on center-based ECE in ways that Hispanic native-born parents were somewhat better able to. Nonetheless, our main findings that both parental cognitive stimulation and ECE environments independently predicted school readiness outcomes for children of Hispanic immigrant and nativeborn parents suggest that increased efforts should be made to support Hispanic families’ early home and early education environments in order to promote their early skill development prior to entering formal schooling in the U.S. Moreover, the benefits to children’s outcomes at school entry that could arise from promoting access to center-based ECE opportunities might be further strengthened by increasing attention to children’s early home environments.

4.4. Limitations Despite the inclusion of robust language, child, and family SES characteristics in analyses, the use of observational data does not allow us to draw causal conclusions. It is thus possible that some other characteristic of highly stimulating parents not measured in our study causes them both to select into center-based care and also to have children with greater skills at school entry. However, Dowsett et al. (2008) found that family and child characteristics did not account for the differences in quality across different types of care (home, relative, and center-based ECE). This finding suggests that children do not benefit from parental cognitive stimulation, center-based ECE, and their interaction solely because of unmeasurable advantages that led certain immigrant parents to choose certain types of early care. Nonetheless, the concern regarding omitted variable bias remains a notable limitation.

A further limitation of the present study is that observational measures of ECE quality were not available, so type of care was used as a proxy for quality. Using true measures of quality would have allowed us to make stronger statements about the ecological validity of our findings. Similarly, although the present study was focused on the types of education-related activities that parents do at home, analyses may have been strengthened if we could have used observational ratings of parent sensitivity and self-reported parental expectations and beliefs about education. It would have been preferable to distinguish public state prek from other center-based programs and Head Start, given the notable expansion of state-funded pre-k programs and evaluations finding that they vary substantially in quality and thus impact compared to one another and to privately funded center-based programs (Barnett et al., 2017; Chesnut, 2017). Developers of future national studies thus might consider measuring the funding source of children’s ECE arrangements so that we can better understand these important differences. Finally, given the many hypotheses tested and comparisons made in the present study, it is possible that some of our significant results reflected Type I error rather than real differences. In order to mitigate this concern, we established a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level of .01, and only discussed findings at alpha = .05 as marginally significant. Results that were only significant at this marginal level should thus be treated with caution.

4.5. Conclusions and policy implications If replicated, results of the present study suggest that continued attention should be given to promoting stimulating environments in both the home and school contexts for children of Hispanic immigrants and their peers, as they both predict children’s readiness for school in academic and behavioral domains. These efforts could involve increasing awareness of and access to home-visiting services that employ Spanish-speaking paraprofessionals and promote enriching home environments, encouraging pediatricians to talk to parents about activities they might do with children at home and about local center-based ECE options, and increasing funding opportunities for Hispanic and immigrant families to access highquality center-based care. Efforts to further increase the enrollment of children from Hispanic immigrant families in center-based care and Head Start may be particularly fruitful, as our findings suggest that these children may benefit from center-based care more than their peers with regard to their behavioral outcomes and that they may benefit from Head Start relative to home-based options across all three academic and behavioral measures. Given that Hispanic children have already been shown to have unique behavioral and social strengths (Crosnoe, 2007; Padilla et al., 2017), center-based care and Head Start may be avenues by which children of Hispanic immigrants can develop these strengths even further, which could facilitate improved academic outcomes as they move through formal schooling. However, the prevalent focus on universal preschool programs, while promising, may not optimally serve Hispanic children without complementary attention to the home environment, particularly with regard to behavioral domains. Finally, our findings suggest that those designing policies and interventions with the goal of advancing Hispanic children’s academic and behavioral skills at school entry should understand that the most promising approaches for doing so may differ depending on the nativity status of their parents.

Appendix A. .


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Table A1 Results of supplementary analyses where the ECE reference-group was rotated in order to show all pairwise comparisons among ECE types. Hispanic immigrants



Math Child care arrangement before kindergarten −2.623** – Parental care (0.656) – 2.623** – Center care (0.656) – −2.035* 0.588 Head Start (0.756) (0.702) −3.767** −1.144 Home-based care (0.778) (0.747) Reading Parental care Center care Head Start Home-based care ATL Parental care Center care Head Start Home-based care

−0.588 (0.702) 2.035* (0.756) – – −1.731+ (0.834)

1.144 (0.747) 3.767** (0.778) 1.731+ (0.834) – –

– – 0.855 (0.825) −2.071 (1.259) −2.395+ (1.076)

−0.869 (0.825) – – −2.939+ (1.205) −3.241** (0.950)

2.071 (1.259) 2.926+ (1.206) – – −0.324 (1.366)

2.395+ (1.076) 3.251** (0.950) 0.324 (1.366) – –

– – 2.151* (0.807) 0.754 (0.980) 1.437 (0.861)

−2.151* (0.807) – – −1.397 (0.897) −0.714 (0.716)

−0.754 (0.980) 1.397 (0.897) – – 0.683 (0.914)

−1.437 (0.861) 0.714 (0.716) −0.683 (0.914) – –

– – 1.342+ (0.539) 0.343 (0.574) −1.092 (0.609)

−1.342+ (0.539) – – −1.000 (0.619) −2.435** (0.637)

−0.343 (0.574) 1.000 (0.619) – – −1.435+ (0.680)

1.092 (0.609) 2.435** (0.637) 1.435+ (0.680) – –

– – 0.214 (0.910) −2.177 (1.389) −2.230 (1.191)

−0.214 (0.910) – – −2.391 (1.330) −2.444+ (1.052)

2.177 (1.389) 2.391 (1.330) – – −0.0532 (1.510)

2.230 (1.191) 2.444+ (1.052) 0.0532 (1.510) – –

– – 1.994* (0.678) 0.853 (0.826) 0.563 (0.723)

−1.994* (0.678) – – −1.141 (0.759) −1.431+ (0.606)

−0.853 (0.826) 1.141 (0.759) – – −0.290 (0.772)

−0.563 (0.723) 1.431+ (0.606) 0.290 (0.772) – –

– – 0.093* (0.035) 0.066 (0.038) −0.045 (0.040)

−0.093* (0.035) – – −0.027 (0.041) −0.139** (0.042)

−0.066 (0.038) 0.027 (0.041) – – −0.111+ (0.045)

0.045 (0.040) 0.139** (0.042) 0.111+ (0.045) – –

– – −0.042 (0.037) −0.035 (0.056) −0.103+ (0.048)

0.042 (0.037) – – 0.008 (0.053) −0.060 (0.042)

0.035 (0.056) −0.008 (0.053) – – −0.068 (0.060)

0.103+ (0.048) 0.060 (0.042) 0.068 (0.060) – –

– – −0.039 (0.039) −0.046 (0.048) −0.101+ (0.042)

0.039 (0.039) – – −0.007 (0.044) −0.062 (0.035)

0.046 (0.048) 0.007 (0.044) – – −0.055 (0.045)

0.101+ (0.042) 0.062 (0.035) 0.055 (0.045) – –

Standard errors in parentheses. Note: To simplify, table only shows coefficients for ECE variables, but all models also included parental cognitive stimulation as well as all language, child, and family covariates. **p < .001, *p < .01, + p < .05.

Table A2 Country of origin of parents in the sample of children of Hispanic immigrants. Country

Parent 1 (%)

Parent 2 (%)

Brazil Colombia Cuba Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Peru Puerto Rico Venezuela Other

1.18 1.99 1.90 1.63 1.54 5.25 3.08 1.99 71.29 1.45 3.53 1.00 4.17

1.07 1.07 2.14 0.67 1.74 5.09 4.02 2.01 73.19 0.80 1.07 0.80 6.33

Note: Parental country of origin was measured in the spring of their children’s kindergarten and first grade years. Children were considered a child of a Hispanic immigrant if either one of their parents reported being born outside the United States.

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