Children's Early Educational Experiences and their Social and Behavioral Development

项目总结 学前班或幼儿园代表着儿童教育事业的开始。这些早期教育 机会被视为关键投资，因为它们为改进提供了巨大的希望 儿童在学校的成功(Phillips等人，2017年)。话虽如此，但这些问题是如何提早出现的 经验塑造社会和行为发展(Huston等人，2015)。到目前为止，许多关于 这些早年关注的是学业成绩，只检查学龄前或幼儿园。这是一个 重大监督，因为学校不仅仅是学术机构(Rimm-Kaufman等人，2002年)和 儿童的学龄前经历可能会塑造他们对幼儿园的适应(Vitiello等人，2020)。给定 早期社会和行为技能在塑造后来的健康和幸福中的关键作用(Jones等人，2015年)， 了解课堂环境是如何塑造它们的是一个关键的公共卫生问题。 有鉴于此，了解学龄前和幼儿园课堂的可塑性方面，以及 协调(或缺乏协调)，促进儿童的发展是确保 对学前教育的投资是最大化的。这一点对于儿童的社会地位尤为重要 行为发展的研究结果表明早期教育经历的长期益处 通过这些领域的变化表现出来(例如，Gray-lobe等人，2021年)。尽管这种新出现的模式 研究发现，我们对早期教育的社会行为益处的了解一直非常有限。 目前的提案旨在加深我们对儿童学前教育和教育的关键方面的理解 幼儿园课堂体验及其与儿童社会和行为的预测性关联 发展。我们计划利用三个大型、多样化和纵向的学龄前儿童数据集和 幼儿园集体允许对儿童的教育进行更全面的评估 经历。我们将使用这些数据来：1)考察幼儿园课堂情境塑造的哪些方面 儿童的社会和行为发展，以及这些模式对有或没有这样做的儿童有何不同 上学前班；2)确定学前班和幼儿园之间的一致性程度 课堂塑造孩子的社交和行为发展；以及3)评估 来自不同亚群的儿童因课堂环境的不同而有不同的塑造。 这项拟议的工作将跨多个数据源生成急需的证据，以深入了解 儿童早期教育经历如何有助于他们发展关键的社会性和 为长期发展奠定基础的行为技能(Heckman，2006)。这样的理解是 鉴于美国对早期教育机会的投资不断增加，

PROJECT SUMMARY Preschool or kindergarten represents the start of children’s educational careers. These early educational opportunities are viewed as critical investments because they offer a great deal of promise for improving children’s school success (Phillips et al., 2017). With that said, there remain questions about how these early experiences shape social and behavioral development (Huston et al., 2015). To date, much of the research on these early years has focused on academic outcomes and examines only preschool or kindergarten. This is a significant oversight given that schools are more than academic institutions (Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2002) and children’s preschool experiences may shape their adaptation to kindergarten (Vitiello et al., 2020). Given the key role early social and behavioral skills have in shaping later health and well-being (Jones et al., 2015), understanding the ways in which they are shaped by classroom environments is a key public health question. Given the above, understanding how malleable aspects of the preschool and kindergarten classroom, and the alignment across them (or lack thereof), contribute to children’s development is key to ensuring that investments in preschool are maximized. This is particularly important with regards to children’s social behavioral development given findings that suggest the long-term benefits of early educational experiences manifest through changes in these domains (e.g., Gray-Lobe et al., 2021). Despite this emerging pattern of findings, our knowledge of the social behavioral benefits of early education has been greatly limited. The current proposal seeks to further our understanding regarding the key aspects of children’s preschool and kindergarten classroom experiences and their predictive associations with children’s social and behavioral development. We plan to leverage three large, diverse, and longitudinal datasets of preschoolers and kindergarteners that collectively allow for a more comprehensive assessment of children’s educational experiences. We will use these data to: 1) examine what aspects of the kindergarten classroom context shape children’s social and behavioral development, and how these patterns vary for children who did or did not attend preschool; 2) determine the extent to which the alignment between preschool and kindergarten classrooms shape children’s social and behavioral development; and 3) assess whether the development of children from different subgroups is differentially shaped by aspects of the classroom environment. This proposed work will generate much needed evidence across multiple data sources to provide insight into the ways in which children’s early educational experiences contribute to their development of key social and behavioral skills that lay the foundation for long-term development (Heckman, 2006). Such an understanding is of increasing importance given the growing investments in early educational opportunities in the U.S.