Segregation, peer effects and skill development in early childhood

德国教育政策中最紧迫的问题之一是移民背景儿童的教育成就低，每个群体中有很大一部分（约15%）没有毕业证书就离开了学校。在学校表现不佳会对劳动力市场和非经济结果产生长期影响，比如政治参与、犯罪率或健康。根据最近关于儿童早期发展重要性的文献，我们认为在早期教育阶段进行干预和解决异质性问题可能比积极的劳动力市场政策更具成本效益。德国第二代或第三代移民的教育成就低，部分原因是移民中普遍存在的经济和社会劣势背景。移民的社会流动性较低。此外，移民家庭的居住隔离通常会导致学前班和学校的种族隔离。如果隔离被证明对移民学龄前儿童的认知发展和教育成就有不利的因果影响，这对教育政策（早期干预计划、学校选择或中学能力跟踪）和社会政策（反贫困计划）都有重要的影响。本研究旨在了解德国幼儿园种族隔离的决定因素和程度，以及种族隔离通过幼儿园的社会互动对幼儿技能发展的影响。我们计划使用来自学校入学体检（SEM）的个人层面的行政数据来解决种族隔离的测量问题，并估计同伴或成分对德国学龄前儿童认知和非认知技能的影响。SEM是所有学龄前儿童的强制性和标准化考试。进行这项调查是为了评估学龄儿童的健康状况，并证明他们在生理和心理上已做好入学准备。我们用城市街区级别的行政数据来补充这些数据，以描述儿童的邻里关系。城市街区数据提供了按种族、收入、就业和福利接受情况分列的人口的详细信息。我们的分析将明确考虑非线性同伴效应的可能性，以便更好地理解具有移民背景的学龄前儿童的“临界比例”，超过这个比例，溢出效应可能变得显著。这项研究有助于越来越多的文献关于早期儿童条件和早期儿童干预在人力资本发展中的重要性。它可以帮助我们更好地理解早期儿童教育项目的有效性，这些项目可能会带来巨大的私人和社会回报。

One of the most pressing issues in German education policy is the low educational achievement of children with migration background, as exemplified by a large proportion (about 15 percen) of each cohort leaving school without a leaving certificate. The weak performance in school has long-lasting effects on labor market and non-economic outcomes, such as political participation, crime rates, or health. In light of the recent literature on the importance of early child development, we believe that conducting interventions and addressing issues of heterogeneity at an early stage of education might be superior in terms of cost-efficiency than e.g. active labor market policies. Part of the explanation for the low educational achievement of immigrants even in the second or third generation in Germany, is the economically and socially disadvantaged background that prevails among immigrants. Social mobility among immigrants is lower. Additionally, residential segregation of immigrant families typically leads to ethnic segregation in preschool and school. If segregation turns out to have a detrimental causal effect on the cognitive development and educational attainment of immigrant preschool children, this has important implications for education policy (early intervention programs, school choice, or secondary school ability tracking) and social policy as well (antipoverty programs). This proposal aims at understanding the determinants and the extent of ethnic segregation in German preschools and the effect of segregation on early childhood skill development via social interaction in preschools. We plan to address the measurement of ethnic segregation and to estimate peer or composition effects on cognitive and non-cognitive skills in German preschools using individual-level administrative data from the school entrance medical examination (SEM). The SEM is a compulsory and standardized examination of all preschoolers. It is conducted to assess the health status of school age children and to attest physical and mental school readiness. We supplement this data with administrative data on the city block level to describe the children´s neighborhood. The city block data provide detailed information on the population by ethnicity, income, employment, and welfare recipiency. Our analysis will explicitly take into account the possibility of non-linear peer effects to get a better understanding of a ´critical proportion´ of preschoolers with immigration background beyond which spillovers might become significant. The research contributes to the growing literature on the importance of early childhood conditions and early childhood interventions in the development of human capital. It can help to better understand the effectiveness of early childhood education programs that may have large private and social returns.