Self Regulation and Race/Ethnic Disparities in School Readiness

少数群体儿童比非少数群体儿童更有可能经历早期学业失败。学业失败的风险增加与许多家庭因素有关，如家庭贫困，母亲抑郁，母亲教育水平低，以及严厉/惩罚性的父母。在儿童层面上，更大的自我调节与较低水平的问题行为，更好的学术准备，以及更优化的学业调整在早期的学年。尽管最近增长的自我调节的研究，其关系到入学准备，以及迫切的兴趣，在弥补成绩差距的贫困，少数民族儿童，很少有研究已经进行了风险和/或与种族多样化的样本，很少纵向数据自我调节在其快速增长的学龄前几年的高风险样本。此外，很少有研究探讨了母亲和父亲的关系对幼儿的社会情感和自我调节发展的综合影响，以及这些关系对与学业准备有关的能力发展的影响。在这项研究中，我们将跟踪低收入非洲裔美国人和拉丁美洲家庭的360名儿童的样本，从30岁到42个月，反复评估自我调节和入学准备的新兴能力。该项目的具体目标如下：目标1。确定普遍的和文化特定的育儿价值观和做法与发展自我调节和学校准备在高风险的非洲裔美国儿童和拉丁裔儿童谁将主要是墨西哥裔。目标2.确定普遍的和特定文化的父母的价值观和做法与自我调节的变化，并与这些儿童从30至42个月的入学准备的变化。家访将在两个时间点（30个月和42个月）进行，措施将包括儿童自我调节任务，评估学术准备和社会能力，家庭种族/民族社会化的做法和养育价值观，以及母子和父子互动的质量观察评级。分析方法包括多元线性回归、结构方程模型和潜在增长曲线分析。 拟议的项目涉及美国再投资和复苏法案（ARRA）在一些重要的方式。首先，该项目将直接创造15个新的就业机会（6个全职和9个兼职），并间接为德克萨斯州的经济增长贡献超过400万美元。此外，这项研究的结果将对减少早期学业成绩的差距具有重要的科学和政策意义。

Minority children are more likely to experience early academic failure than are non-minority children. Increased risk of academic failure is associated with a host of family factors such as family poverty, maternal depression, low maternal education, and harsh/punitive parenting. At the child level, greater self regulation is associated with lower levels of problem behaviors, greater academic readiness, and more optimal academic adjustment during the early school years. Despite the recent growth of research on self-regulation and its relation to school readiness as well as compelling interests in remedying the achievement gap for poor, minority children, little research has been conducted with at risk and/or with ethnically diverse samples, and very little longitudinal data on self regulation over the period of its rapid growth in the preschool years are available for high risk samples. Further, very few studies have examined the combined impact of both maternal and paternal relationships on socioemotional and selfregulatory development of young children and the impact of these relationships on the development of capacities related to academic readiness. In this study, we will follow a sample of 360 children in low income African American and Latino families from age 30 through 42 months with repeated assessments of emerging capacities for self regulation and school readiness. The specific aims for the project are as follows: Aim 1. To identify universal and culture-specific parenting values and practices associated with the development of self-regulation and school readiness among high risk across African American children and Latino children who will mostly be of Mexican descent. Aim 2. To identify universal and culturespecific parenting values and practices associated with the change of self regulation and with the change in school readiness among these children from 30 to 42 months of age. Home visits will be conducted at two time points (30m and 42m), and measures will include child self regulation tasks, assessments of academic readiness and social competence, family racial/ethnic socialization practices and parenting values, and observational ratings of the quality of mother-child and father-child interactions. Analytic methods will include multiple linear regression, structural equations modeling, and latent growth curve analysis. The proposed project addresses the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) in a number of important ways. First, the project will directly create 15 new jobs (6 full time and 9 part-time), and indirectly contribute over $4M in economic growth for the State of Texas. In addition, the results of this research will have important scientific as well as policy implications for reducing disparities in early academic achievement.