Early Childhood Development in China: A Socioecological Systems Perspective

Dr Dong, Shuyang   (Principal Investigator (PI))

36

2022-06-01

38760

Early Childhood Development in China: A Socioecological Systems Perspective

China, contextual factors, Early Childhood Development, public health system, regional differences, socioecological system

Education: Theory and Applications

PDFS2223-7H04

RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme

2022

On-going

The reason for undertaking the research is to understand what and how contextual factors are predictive of early childhood development (ECD) in China. There are three specific objectives. Each of them examines factors and mechanisms in one layer of a child’s socioecological system. 1. The first objective is to examine relations among national and provincial policy, access equity, and quality of early childhood education (ECE) over time. Since 2010 the Chinese government has given priority to ECE and implemented national policies to promote ECD. Nonetheless, regional disparities in ECE persist (Hong, Luo, & Cui, 2013; Su, Lau, & Rao, 2020). For example, significant differences are observed between the Western region and the Eastern region for the access rates to preschool education (Su et al., 2020). Parents from the Central region are less satisfied with local ECE programmes compared with parents from the Western and Eastern regions (Hong, Zhu, Wu, & Li, 2020). Such evidence suggests that regional differences in ECE, which usually emerge and accumulate across decades of time and are determined by national and provincial policies, are a key point for understanding how contextual factors at the macrosystem impact ECD in China. To achieve the first objective, this project will focus on revealing (a) regional differences in the access rates to preschool education and in the quality of preschool education (e.g., teacher qualifications, preschool facilities), and (b) cross-temporal changes in these indicators of ECE as a consequence of the implementation of particular national and provincial policies that target ECD and/or ECE. 2. The second objective is to examine how community socioecological environments and public health systems impact ECD. Child development is directly and indirectly impacted by social, ecological, and political community characteristics that influence practices and resources in support of ECD. One such elements at the community level is urbanicity. Despite more and more young children being enrolled in ECE, there are widening gaps between urban and rural areas in both the number of children and the number of preschools, the teacher-child ratios, and the quality of preschool facilities (Hong, Liu, Ma, & Luo, 2015; Qi & Melhuish, 2017). This ECE opportunity gap between urban and rural areas has engendered group variations in ECD indicators including language, academic competence, and social cognition (Li et al., 2016). In addition to urbanicity, communities also vary in access to childcare services, medical health services, and health care facilities as well as physical space for exercise and community hygiene, all of which have been proposed to be connected with ECD (Maggi, Irwin, Siddiqi, & Hertzman, 2010; Ngure et al., 2014; Qi & Melhuish, 2017). These contextual factors in the exosystem of a child may directly impact ECD, whilst at the same time indirectly impacting ECD through affecting the socioecological context of the family (e.g., home physical and learning environment, family socioeconomic status) (Maggi et al., 2010). To achieve the second objective, this project will focus on examining (a) how urbanicity is related to cross-temporal trends of specific ECD indicators, (b) how contextual factors related to community socioecological environments and public health system predict specific ECD indicators, and (c) how contextual factors at the community level influence ECD through impacting contextual factors at the family level. 3. The third objective is to examine which contextual factors in family and/or school predict ECD indicators most strongly and through which mechanisms contextual factors impact ECD. Home and preschool constitute the most important social environments in the microsystem with which young children interact on a daily basis. For instance, preschool experience (e.g., the teacher-child ratio, Li et al., 2016), home environments (e.g., variety of play materials, Wang, Luo, Yue, Tang, & Shi, 2020), and parental cognitions and behaviours (e.g., stimulating behaviours, Luo et al., 2019) have been shown to directly predict children’s differences in ECD indicators. The strengths of these associations, however, may change with child age as contextual factors impact ECD more strongly during the sensitive period (e.g., McFarland, 2017). It is important to use longitudinal data to reveal the possible changes of such associations so as to facilitate an in-depth understanding of how contextual factors are most effective for promoting ECD. Moreover, as children differ in dispositional characteristics and thus have different needs for external support, the same contextual factor may be associated with ECD indicators differentially for different children. The match or mismatch between contextual factors and child characteristics is therefore crucial for understanding individual differences in ECD and this can be studied by testing the interaction effect between a specific contextual factor and a certain child characteristic. To achieve the third objective, this project will focus on investigating (a) mean-level changes of various ECD indicators over time, (b) associations between contextual factors in family and/or school and ECD indicators across early childhood, and (c) interaction effects between contextual factors and child characteristics on ECD indicators.