The Effects of Family, Neighborhood, and Child Care Contexts on Preschool Children's School Readiness

The purpose of this study was to examine how family socioeconomic risk, neighborhood disadvantage, and child-care quality are associated with children's school readiness. A sample of 420 children from 48 early child-care programs yielded multi-informants' data from an evaluation study of a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) that was linked with the 2006 -- 2010 American Community Survey. Multilevel structural equation modeling tested (a) the direct and indirect effects of family socioeconomic risk and neighborhood disadvantage on children's cognitive and social-emotional development through the home learning environment and parental depression; (2) the direct effects of child-care quality (i.e., QRIS status) on child outcomes; and (3) the moderating effects of child-care quality on the relationship between family/neighborhoods contexts and children's cognitive and social-emotional skills.;The results revealed that children with a greater number of family socioeconomic risks and a higher level of neighborhood disadvantage demonstrated lower scores on cognitive skills. In addition, the degree of family socioeconomic risk indirectly predicted children's cognitive ability through parents' cognitive stimulation at home. Parents who had more family socioeconomic risks and neighborhood disadvantage reported more depressive symptoms, which in turn, predicted children's greater probability of having social-emotional problems. The results also indicated that children in the highest QRIS rated child-care programs attained better scores on cognitive skills after controlling for family and neighborhood effects. Further, there was a buffering effect of child-care quality on the relationship between family socioeconomic risk and cognitive skills.;Acknowledging the importance of children's school readiness in later life, this study investigated the contextual indicators in family, neighborhood, and child-care in relation to children's cognitive and social-emotional development. Results of this study suggest that the home learning environment explains the mechanism of how socioeconomic disadvantage at home predicts children's cognitive skills, while parental depression explains the mechanism of how family/neighborhoods disadvantages are associated with children's social-emotional problems. Intervention or prevention strategies for parents to improve cognitive stimulation at home and to reduce depressive symptoms were suggested in the current study. The results also suggest that policymakers may expect positive returns on QRIS investments in terms of children's cognitive achievement.