Studying the Effects of Early Child Care Experiences on the Development of Children of Color in the United States: Toward a More Inclusive Research Agenda

Abstract

Evidence is presented of the different cultural and ecological contexts affecting early child care for families of color. It is argued that improvements on previous research require a fundamental shift in how race, ethnicity, and culture as psychological variables are examined. Furthermore, to avoid the pitfalls and failures of previous research, new research must incorporate expanded models of child care and development in childhood. The integrative model of development for children of color proposed by Garcia Coll et al. (1996) is presented as a basis for developing more specific ecological models relevant to addressing child care issues in ethnic minority families. Finally, priority areas for future research are recommended to stimulate and enable child care researchers to adopt a more inclusive view of child care and its effects.

Extracurricular involvement among affluent youth: A scapegoat for "ubiquitous achievement pressures"?

“…In terms of implications for developmental theory, the findings underscore the value of heeding Garcia Coll, Ackerman, and Cicchetti's (2000) exhortation that for all little-explored populations, applied developmental scientists must ascertain, through rigorous within-group studies, the relative salience of overlapping indexes processes within that particular context (see also Johnson, Jaeger, Randolph, Cauce, & Ward, 2003). Results showed that counter to widespread beliefs about the destructive overscheduling of wealthy youth, activity involvement generally had mild positive associations if anything; it was aspects of family dynamics that were of much more significance.…”

Teacher Ethnicity and Variation in Context: The Implications for Classroom Quality

“…In response to such findings, Johnson et al (2003) proposed several criticisms of the research that has been conducted on children of color in child care environments. One concern is the extent to which current measures of quality are able to measure constructs such as racial socialization.…”

“…With a need to create "more specific and culturally relevant definitions of quality" (Johnson et al, 2003(Johnson et al, , p. 1239 in child care, current measures of child care quality should be examined in a variety of contexts. However, if teachers utilize methods that are considered to be culturally appropriate but do not meet the dominant culture's ideas of quality, then pressure to conform to Euro-centric standards of quality challenges culturally relevant pedagogy in early childhood classrooms.…”

The Effects of Classroom Environmental Quality on the Early Literacy Outcomes of a Regionally Heterogeneous Population of Latino Children

“…In Southeast Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade County, the Latino population has grown exponentially within the last several decades (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008), a reason why research needs to be more inclusive (Johnson et al, 2003 (Garcia & Jensen, 2009). …”

“…According to Johnson et al (2003), development in Latino children cannot be based on universal notions, instead it should be based on their specific ecological surroundings. For example, literature has suggested that positive school environments will mostly benefit the underprivileged Latin American populations, especially those children coming from Mexico (Han, 2008), which parallels the population of children residing in Southeast Florida.…”