Children's early child care and their mothers' later involvement with schools.
Theory and policy highlight the role of child care in preparing children for the transition into school. Approaching this issue in a different way, this study investigated whether children's care experiences before this transition promoted their mothers' school involvement after it, with the hypothesized mechanism for this link being the cultivation of children's social and academic skills. Analyses of 1,352 children (1 month-6 years) and parents in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development revealed that mothers were more involved at their children's schools when children had prior histories of high-quality nonparental care. This pattern, which was fairly stable across levels of maternal education and employment, was mediated by children's academic skills and home environments.
Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1700, Austin, TX 78712-1088, USA. crosnoe@austin.utexas.edu
Robert
R
Crosnoe
Jennifer March
JM
Augustine
Aletha C
AC
Huston
D000124:Achievement; D002648:Child; D002654:Child Care / Q000523:psychology*; D002656:Child Day Care Centers; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009042:Motivation; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D012574:Schools; D012923:Social Class; D012933:Social Identification; D012951:Socialization; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014931:Women, Working / Q000523:psychology