Household Socioeconomic Status and Parental Investments: Direct and Indirect Relations With School Readiness in Ghana

Abstract

This study examines how parent socioeconomic status (SES) directly and indirectly predicts children's school readiness through pathways of parental investment. Data come from direct assessments with preschool children and surveys with their primary caregivers in Ghana at the start of the 2015-2016 school year (N = 2,137; M = 5.2 years). Results revealed SES-related gaps in all parental investment characteristics and child school readiness skills. Preschool involvement served as the primary mediating mechanism in the path from SES to most school readiness skills, though it did not predict executive function. The number of books in the household was marginally positively predictive of early literacy, whereas at-home stimulation was negatively related to motor, literacy, and numeracy skills.

Early executive functioning in a global context: Developmental continuity and family protective factors

“…In a relatively more advantaged sample of urban Argentinian preschoolers, exposure to literacy activities and computer resources in the home mediated the effect of more distal family socioeconomic factors (Lipina et al, 2013;Segretin et al, 2014). In contrast, Wolf and McCoy (2017) did not find a significant association between caregivers' stimulation practices and EFs of Ghanaian 5year-olds. Moreover, Patel et al (2013) found that after accounting for the schooling exposure of 7-to 9-year-olds in Nepal, the quality of home stimulation was not related to children's performance on an EF task, highlighting the need to test the unique contribution of family processes before school entry.…”

“…In a relatively more advantaged sample of urban Argentinian preschoolers, exposure to literacy activities and computer resources in the home mediated the effect of more distal family socioeconomic factors (Lipina et al., ; Segretin et al., ). In contrast, Wolf and McCoy () did not find a significant association between caregivers’ stimulation practices and EFs of Ghanaian 5‐year‐olds. Moreover, Patel et al.…”

“…Until recently, developmental researchers studying young children in LMIC have primarily focused on measuring general cognitive skills (Aboud & Yousafzai, ). Given the growing interest in directly assessing children's EFs in LMIC (Obradović, Yousafzai, et al., 2016; Oluwole, Noll, Winger, Akinyanju, & Novelli, ; Pitchford & Outhwaite, ; Wolf & McCoy, ), it is important to understand how antecedent cognitive skills relate to emergent EFs. Using the widely employed Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, we found that direct assessments of general cognitive skills at 24 months were significantly related to children's performance on EF tasks at 48 months.…”

“…For example, financial difficulties and chronic poverty have been linked to EF deficits in 4-yearolds, over and above other family characteristics (Raver, Blair, & Willoughby, 2013). Similarly, family wealth and maternal education have been linked to EFs and related cognitive skills in preschoolers from Ecuador (Schady, 2011), Madagascar (Fernald et al, 2011), Indonesia (Prado et al, 2010) and Ghana (Wolf & McCoy, 2017). Less is known about how proximal early life experiences uniquely relate to the development of emergent EFs in rural LMIC settings, where young children and their parents lack basic resources, have limited access to health services and education opportunities, and face extreme levels of chronic adversity.…”

Longitudinal causal impacts of preschool teacher training on Ghanaian children’s school readiness: Evidence for persistence and fade‐out

“…Levels of at‐home cognitive stimulation in Ghana are relatively low, with only one‐third of preschool‐aged children having been read to in the three days immediately prior to data collection (vs. an average of 54.1% in all developing countries) (McCoy et al, ). At the same time, Ghanaian parents have been shown to value early education and demand academically focused, rigorous instruction from teachers (Bidwell et al, ; Kabay, Wolf, & Yoshikawa, ), and school involvement has been shown to partially mediate the positive associations between socioeconomic status and Ghanaian children's school readiness skills (Wolf & McCoy, ). Aligning parents’ and schools’ expectations for ECE and supporting parents to engage in their children's education may be critical for sustainably changing teacher practice and children's development.…”