The influence of child care and home environment on learning and social functioning in transition to school and early school age

The project "The influence of child care and home environment on learning and social functioning in transition to school and early school age" has been conducted at the Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development, Unirand, University of Oslo, in collaboration with Buskerud and Vestfold University College. The project has been part of the ongoing longitudinal study ?Behavioral outlook Norwegian developmental study? (BONDS). The purpose has been to investigate factors in child care and the home environment contributing to a successful transition to school, and to socially and academically. The project has a quantitative and a qualitative part. BONDS follows 1159 children from 6 months of age, with annual data collections through second grade. As part of the current project, we collected three sets of data: a) Telephone interviews with child care teachers about school preparatory activities prior to school entry, b) parent interviews when the children were in second grade, c) Teacher questionnaires in second grade. We had good response rates in all data collections. From the quantitative part of the project, we have written three empirical articles, and two more are in progress. In the first article, we found that boys have better language skills when they started early in child care, while no such association was found for girls. In the second, we found that group size in center care was unrelated to language development or social competence, while families probably select centers based on group sizes. In the second article, we show that children with externalizing behavior problems achieve better in first grade if they have attended a child care center focusing on school preparatory activities. The third article, in progress, is written in collaboration with a researcher at Boston College. We find that teachers who received information from child care centers about the children prior to school entry, reported the children to have higher levels of social adjustment in first grade, compared to teachers not receiving this information. Preliminary results from the last article are that some of the association between socioeconomic risk and children?s preschool skills are mediated through the quality of parent-child interactions. The qualitative part of the project consisted of two sub projects. The first studied educational practices aiming at improving children?s experiences of the transition from child care to school. A survey was followed by three focus group interviews witch child care- and schoolteachers, and staff from after-school. The second took an ethnographic approach to explore children?s experiences of (dis)continuity in the transitions. Fifteen children from three centers were followed during and after transition to school. This part resulted in four articles. The first shows that after-school is easily forgotten in school preparatory activities, and that all parties should be involved in a dialogue about the transition. The second showed that activities connected to known content were of importance to maintain friendship transfer competence, and for a sense of continuity in the transition. The fourth shows that recognizable objects with which the children have common experiences, can act as transitional objects and thus a sense of continuity. The last one, in process, shows the importance of collaboration among staff in child care and school. Lack of this may be an obstacle for children?s sense of continuity. The articles comprise Hilde Dehnes Hogsne?s PhD-dissertation, accepted for defense primo Feb 2016, supervised by Thomas Moser. We have done comprehensive dissemination. This includes articles in journals for practitioners, knowledge summary book chapters, invited talks in Norway and internationally, and through media exposure. Results and information from the project has been communicated via social media platforms at the NCCBD and the project website. BONDS sends out a newsletter to participants and schools twice a year, disseminating results and project information. In addition, teachers have been invited to an annual seminar day, being informed about the project and results, together with other relevant presentations. Beyond the interest from practitioners, the project has contributed to national and international policy development. Henrik Daae Zachrisson has presented results at meetings at the Directorate for education and training, the Ministry of education, and the Prime minister?s office. Thomas Moser has been member of an expert group at Eurofund, and disseminated results and experiences to national (Stavangerprosjektet; GoBan) and international research (CARE) projects and networks (Barns rom; NESET).

The project aims at investigating the influence of ECEC quality and quantity, including school preparatory activities, and of the home environment, on children's academic and social functioning during adaptation to school and up to second grade. The proje ct is carried out in collaboration between The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development and Vestfold University College. We will use data from the BONDS, an ongoing longitudinal study of 1159 children followed from 6 months; this proposal extends the data collection to 7 years. We include data on 135 child care centers, and will collect data on schools attended by children in the project. The BONDS has a retention rate of 97% up to 4 years (current status of data collection). Data includes multi- informant (parents, center care leaders and preschool teachers, and school teachers), multi-method (questionnaires, interviews, videotaped interactions, tests) measures of social competence, behavior problems, language development, ECEC quality and quanti ty, home environment, and background factors. In addition, qualitative interviews with children will be performed. Analyses will be quantitative, including multiple regression, structural equation-, multi-level-, latent growth curve-, and fixed-effects-mo deling, as well as qualitative, including a multi-method perspective. Critical R&D challenges are to maintain a high participation rate and to account for self-selection into center care. The first of these will be met by maintaining the successful infras tructure of the BONDS, the second by combining recognized statistical and logical techniques for removing selection bias. Being in accordance with the need for population-based longitudinal research on effects of child care, the project is of particular r elevance for UTDANNING 2020. The project applies to areas A, C, and D in the program plan. The findings will contribute to the refinement of initiatives and services based on knowledge of child development in Norway