Socioeconomic Disparities in Chinese Children’s Academic Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Early Learning Experiences. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development Conference, Salt Lake City, USA, March 23 - 25, 2023

Abstract

<p>Socioeconomic (SES) disparities in student achievement, often considered an indicator of social inequality, are evident before formal schooling. Over the past decades, a global effort has been made to increase commitment to and investment in early childhood to prevent SES gaps from emerging. Educational reforms, initiated in 2010, have prioritized promoting early childhood education in China. The percentage of children who completed three years of preschool education increased from 56.6% in 2010 to 85.2% in 2020 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2021). However, the effectiveness of these policies in reducing educational inequality has been less discussed. This paper considers relations among the home learning environment (HLE), preschool experience and SES-based disparities in student achievement. It also examines the moderating effect of cohort on the SES-achievement relation to explore the association between national policy and educational inequality in China.<br>We leveraged data from the China Family Panel Studies, a biennial nationally representative longitudinal survey, to examine relations among family SES, HLE, the length of preschool experience, and child academic outcomes at age 7. The learning experience and outcomes of children born in 2007, 2009, and 2011 were reported by caregivers when participants were 3, 5, and 7 years. The numbers of participants at age 3 for three distinct cohorts were as follows: Cohort 1 - 303 (46.86 % girls; M=36.73, SD=3.81 months); Cohort 2 - 273 (48.35% girls; M=39.08, SD= 3.12 months); Cohort 3 - 304 (52.30% girls; M=38.57, SD= 3.87 months).<br>Results indicated that the length of children’s preschool experience and the number of home learning activities increased across cohort. Path analysis considered the indirect and total effect of family SES on student achievement at age 7 through HLE and preschool experience (see Figure 1). There was a moderate relation between SES and student achievement. For Cohort 1, children with higher SES were more likely to have longer preschool experience, which was linked to better academic performance at age 7. In Cohorts 2 and 3, HLE played a more critical role in mediating SES-outcomes relation than preschool experience. Children with higher SES experienced more home stimulation, which in turn, was associated with better academic performance at age 7. The indirect effects of family SES on child academic outcome through preschool experience were not significant in Cohorts 2 and 3. The three cohort samples were amalgamated into one cross-sectional sample to investigate cohort difference. The estimates of OLS linear regression showed that the strength of the relation decreased significantly across cohorts (see Figure 2).<br>These findings suggest that national early childhood policy has reduced educational inequality in China. At the same time, continuous policy support and guidance are needed in promoting preschool quality and family education.<br></p>