head start and urban children’s school readiness a birth cohort study in 18 cities.pdfVIP

NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Dev Psychol . Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 March 8. N Published in final edited form as: I H Dev Psychol . 2011 January ; 47(1): 134–152. doi:10.1037/a0020784. - P A A u Head Start and Urban Children’s School Readiness: A Birth t h o r Cohort Study in 18 Cities M a n u Fuhua Zhai, s c School of Social Welfare, Stony Brook University r i p Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and t Pediatrics Department, Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University Jane Waldfogel School of Social Work, Columbia University N Abstract I H- We used longitudinal data from a birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing P Study, to investigate the links between Head Start and school readiness in a large and diverse A A sample of urban children at age 5 (N = 2,803; 18 cities). We found that Head Start attendance was u associated with enhanced cognitive ability and social competence and reduced attention problems t h but not reduced internalizing or externalizing behavior problems. These findings were robust to o r model specifications (including models with city-fixed effects and propensity-scoring matching). M Furthermore, the effects of Head Start varied by the reference group. Head Start was associated a n with improved cognitive development when compared with parental care or other nonparental u s care, as well as improved social competence (compared with parental care) and reduced attention c r problem