Equality of Opportunity
Poverty and poor child outcomes are closely correlated. Disparities
(or gaps) in both socioeconomic status and children’s development
(e.g., health, behavior, cognitive skills) emerge early in a child’s life,
widen during the early school years, and remain constant after age 8.
Studies show that schooling and school quality account for only a
small portion of the gaps in children’s development and the widen-
ing or narrowing of disparities over time. An important finding is
that parenting behavior and socioeconomic conditions are both asso-
ciated with school readiness (Rock and Stenner 2005).
In fact, a family’s socioeconomic status is a proxy for many underlying
factors affecting school readiness—parents at a lower socioeconomic
status are less likely to talk to or read with their children than are par-
ents at a higher socioeconomic status.When researchers control for variables pertaining to children’s
early family environment, the gaps and disparities between children
narrow greatly (Rock and Stenner 2005). An assessment of the out-
comes of early child development should thus include, or at least cor-
relate with, socioeconomic factors known to relate to early child de-
velopment. Communities and countries could use this assessment to
improve their understanding of children’s experience early in life, to
identify groups of children at particular risk, and to underpin initia-
tion of ECD policies and programs that could profoundly affect chil-
dren’s later achievement.
State of Research and Application
The development and application of population-based tools for mea-
suring the outcomes of early child development, on entry into kinder-
garten, have begun. Canadian researchers are leading the way. In
parallel, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has launched
a multicountry initiative to identify a set of standards of early learning
and development.
272 J. Fraser Mustard and Mary Eming Young