Toward policies that promote access and equity in early education: A conversation with Shantel Meek

Shantel Meek of the Children’s Equity Project talks with Kappan about the challenges facing early childhood education. These include the splintered nature of the system, a lack of funding, and the low status and pay afforded to the early childhood workforce. Although early care programs, such as Head Start, have helped children in poverty, disparities in access and program quality in early childcare persist for young children of color, children with disabilities, and young dual-language learners.

Child Care Policy as an Anti-Poverty Strategy: The Need to Address Neurophysiological Self-Regulation

High-quality early care and education can mitigate the short- and long-term effects of poverty on young children’s development. Therefore, policies that expand access to high-quality early care and education can be an effective anti-poverty strategy. A number of programs demonstrably foster volitional processes of self-regulation—the capacity to control emotions, thoughts, and behaviors—among young children in poverty. However, relatively little is known about how the activity of the neurophysiological systems that form the interface between brain and body supports these processes of self-regulation in early care and education settings. Maximizing the efficacy of early care and education as an anti-poverty strategy requires adopting policies to advance three interrelated goals: understanding, accommodating, and reconfiguring young children’s neurophysiological function in the early care and education environment.

Determinants of child resilience in poverty: findings from the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study

Background Poverty has adverse effects on child health. While children in poverty face greater health challenges, some still achieve positive health outcomes. This is in part due to their resilience when facing adversity. Identifying the factors that foster child resilience can aid in developing strategies to promote child resilience and reduce the harmful effects of child poverty. This study aims to identify the biological and social factors of resilience among children in poverty from birth to age 12. Methods Data for the analysis came from the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study, a nationally representative sample of 17,354 children who completed six waves of interview surveys between 2005 and 2017. Our sample included 4,570 children who experienced poverty from birth to age 12. The primary outcome variable was child resilience, defined as impoverished children who maintained good health outcomes over the 12-year survey period. Multiple logistic regression was used to examine the factors of child resilience. Results Of the 4,570 children, 36.1% always had good health despite experiencing poverty before the age of 12. An easy temperament (OR = 2.5, 95% CI: 1.9-3.0), female (OR = 1.1, 95% CI: 1.0-1.3), a birth weight greater than 2,500 grams (OR = 1.6, 95% CI: 1.2-2.1), having a foreign-born mother (OR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.2-1.7), receiving breast milk after birth (OR = 1.3, 95% CI: 1.1-1.5), and good parent-child interaction at 3 years of age (OR = 1.4, 95% CI: 1.2-1.7) were associated with child resilience. Early parent-child interactions can moderate the effect of children's birth weight on later resilience. Conclusions Our findings indicated the factors associated with child resilience in the context of poverty, suggesting that supporting breastfeeding and nurturing parent-child relationships are effective public health actions to foster child resilience. Future research is needed to unravel the underlying mechanisms of biological factors associated with child resilience. Key messages Breastfeeding after birth and high-quality parent-child interaction can lead to positive adaptations to child poverty. Children with difficult temperaments, boys and those born at low birthweight are more vulnerable to poverty and should be targeted for building resilience against poverty.

What is an adaptive pattern of brain network coupling for a child? It depends on their environment

Prior research indicates that lower resting-state functional coupling between two brain networks, lateral frontoparietal network (LFPN) and default mode network (DMN), relates to better cognitive test performance. However, most study samples skew towards wealthier individuals---and what is adaptive for one population may not be for another. In a pre-registered study, we analyzed resting-state fMRI from 6839 children ages 9-10 years. For children above poverty, we replicated the prior finding: better cognitive performance correlated with weaker LFPN-DMN coupling. For children in poverty, the slope of the relation was instead positive. This significant interaction related to several features of a child's environment. Future research should investigate the possibility that leveraging internally guided cognition is a mechanism of resilience for children in poverty. In sum, "optimal" brain function depends in part on the external pressures children face, highlighting the need for more diverse samples in research on the human brain and behavior.

Developing University-School Partnerships to Support Students and Teachers in Rural Schools

This chapter examines the potential for positive impact from partnerships between rural school districts and universities, currently underexplored and overlooked. The challenges facing rural schools offer opportunities for school districts and university partners to develop, organize, and implement strategies for productive collaboration. Examining the rural, educational landscape through the lens of children in poverty, this chapter offers a view of urgency for educational reform. This chapter examines the challenges of high-poverty, rural schools; the rationale for building university-school partnerships with rural schools; insight into building trust with rural school leaders and teachers; and suggestions for developing practical programs which benefit children in rural poverty. Practical suggestions for improving the quality of the educational experiences of children in poverty are included in this chapter.

Summary and conclusions

Key themes coming out from the book are that there still seems to be a role for the academic as the expert on a topic over their role as producer of specific pieces or, even, programmes of research, both normative and technical. However, the most successful impact case studies in terms of submitting units are mainly from established universities and academics, frequently submitted by (male) lone scholars and void of national and international or interdisciplinary collaborations in the case studies. Finally, it is important to distinguish between impact agents and impact beneficiaries when assessing 2014 REF impact Case Studies in terms of their contribution to society. Impact agents are those able to make changes be it policy-makers or professionals. Impact beneficiaries are those whose lives are improved as a result of the changes, e.g. children in poverty, the elderly in need of care, prospective pensioners and voters. Therefore, it is not an overstatement to say that the contribution of academics as captured by the impact submissions analysed here has improved the lives of many people in the UK and around the world.