Early Childhood Research for Educational Equity

Christine M. McWayne, Professor, in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, is an applied developmental psychologist and a community-based educational researcher whose work has centered on fostering better understandings of the early social and learning successes of young children growing up in urban poverty, as well as on understanding how to better support and connect the adult contributors to children's early development—their parents and teachers. Underpinning her research with these adults are attempts to "flip the script," so to speak, and create the space for practitioners and family members supporting children's development to tell us what they know, what they do, and how they do it, so that their experiential knowledge can inform our scientific knowledge base. Dr. McWayne has served as Principal Investigator (PI) on several grants, including from the National Institutes of Health, the Administration for Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the Brady Education Foundation. She has served as a consultant on numerous local, state, and federal working groups and expert convenings on topics such as: dual language learners' school readiness, assessment, family engagement, parenting, and Head Start programming. Dr. McWayne has also served on the editorial boards of Early Childhood Research Quarterly, the National Head Start Association’s Dialog, and as Associate Editor for the Educational Researcher, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, and Journal of School Psychology. She received her Ph.D. in School, Community and Clinical-Child Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Jason T. Downer, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at the University of Virginia's Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning in Charlottesville. He is a clinical–community psychologist whose work focuses on the identification and understanding of contextual and relational contributors to young at-risk children's early achievement and social competence. Specifically, Dr. Downer is interested in the role of fathers in children's early learning, as well as the development of observational methods to capture valid, reliable estimates of teacher–child interactions in prekindergarten through elementary classrooms. Dr. Downer also has a keen interest in translating research-to-practice through school-based, classroom-focused interventions.

I. Foreword: Christine M. McWayne (Tufts University) & Vivian L. Gadsden (University
of Pennsylvania)
Table of Contents
I. Foreword
Christine M. McWayne (Tufts University) & Vivian L. Gadsden (University of Pennsylvania)
II. Introduction: Honoring the Whole Child and Whole Family in Early Childhood Assessment, Intervention, and Policy.
John W. Fantuzzo (Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania)
III. Section I: Social Connections for Children’s Well-being
1. Leveraging the Powerful Influence of Peers to Promote Academic Skills in Early Childhood through the Elementary Years
Authors: Marika Ginsburg-Block (University of Delaware), Cynthia Rohrbeck (George Washington University), and Kristen Coe (University of Pennsylvania)
This chapter brings together our understanding of how peers set the stage for academic learning prior to school entry through the elementary years. The rich theoretical and empirical literature concerning the academic influence of peers is unequivocal. Peer influences may be even greater than the most basic factors associated with achievement, such as teacher education (Coe, 2020) and quality of instruction. Descriptive, population-based, and controlled studies that manipulate the influence of peers on learning suggest that careful consideration of how best to
harness this powerful natural resource is needed. Given compelling findings from the peer influence and peer-assisted learning literatures (Ginsburg-Block, Rohrbeck & Fantuzzo, 2006; Rohrbeck, Ginsburg-Block & Fantuzzo, 2003), peers may be a critical link for reducing the persistent achievement gaps found in learning across diverse student groups. This chapter will use a developmental-ecological lens to synthesize the research literature on peer influence and peer-assisted learning strategies and will propose forward-thinking recommendations for the development of integrated approaches for tapping into the potential of peers.
2. Validation of Early Childhood Measures of Social-emotional Competence for Spanish-speaking Children, Teachers and Families
Authors: Lisa Lopez (University of Florida), Julia Mendez (UNC Greensboro), & Rebecca Bulotsky-Shearer (University of Miami)
Social-emotional competence is a critical developmental competency, for all children. This chapter will focus from a strengths-based perspective on the use of a culturally relevant approach to the development, translation, and validation of preschool measures of interactive peer play and classroom social-emotional adjustment for Head Start children, teachers, and parents from diverse linguistic and ethnic backgrounds. Validation of the Spanish form of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (parent and teacher versions) will be discussed, as it relates to use of the measure to identify the social strengths of Hispanic children in Head Start. In addition, the mixed method, multi-step process for developing and adapting the Spanish form of the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention for use with Spanish-speaking teachers in community settings will be shared, as well as lessons learned from the process.

3. Capturing Socialization Experiences among Culturally Diverse Preschool Children: Measurement of Parent Beliefs about Play Across Cultures
Authors: Julia Mendez (UNC Greensboro), Dore LaForett (Child Trends), Sunah Hyun (Harvard Medical School), & Jhonelle Bailey (University of Miami)
Developmentally appropriate and culturally meaningful assessment of children’s social competencies is crucial for guiding early intervention and support for children’s learning. In addition, socialization practices play an important role in encouraging, facilitating, and scaffolding children’s development. Adults play a critical role in shaping the acquisition of children’s prosocial skills and the development of social competence. This chapter will focus on the development of a measure of parent beliefs about children’s play called the Parent Play Belief Scales (PPBS; Mendez & Fogle, 2002). Scale development and validation studies involving culturally, regionally, and globally diverse populations of preschool children and their parents will be presented and analyzed. Lessons learned about the use of the PPBS measure, and next steps toward continuing to build tools to capture the strengths of culturally underrepresented children will be discussed.
4. Bridging Divides and Making Visible the Invisible: Connecting Parents and Teachers through Cultural Inclusion
Authors: Christine McWayne, Wendy Ochoa, & Lok-Wah Li (Tufts University)
Implicit within mainstream notions of family-school partnership is the assumption that school-based engagement is needed for parents to provide effective support for their children’s learning and development. However, for many low-income, ethnic minority and immigrant families, sociocultural and language differences between families and educators often translate into significant gaps in understanding between home and school settings. Often, educators do not have access to the potentially powerful information about home-based practices and routines, families’ experiential knowledge, and other aspects of children’s out-of-school lives that could form the basis of engaging and meaningful early childhood programming. By framing family-school connections as emphasizing information flowing from the home to the school, we can make shifts in our assumptions about and expectations of families, while building a culturally inclusive and welcoming environment for all in early childhood programs. Specific empirical examples of how alignment with a “home-to-school” perspective in the field of early childhood can inform assessment and intervention efforts will be shared. Recognizing that family-school partnerships are both relationally and culturally situated, this chapter will discuss specific work conducted by the authors and their colleagues that has adopted an emic, mixed methods, partnership-based approach for developing assessment tools and curriculum in Head Start programs. The authors will argue such an approach is necessary for
guiding a strengths-based agenda of the whole child and whole family for young children from ethnoculturally diverse communities. Challenges and potential directions for research to contribute to better understandings of cultural inclusiveness in the family-school space during early childhood will be explored.
5. Commentary: Eugene Garcia, (Emeritus, Arizona State University) & Marilou Hyson (Center for Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes and Former Executive Director, National Association for the Education of Young Children)
IV. Section II: Strengths-based Interventions Across Families and Settings
6. Community-driven Development of Little Talks with Early Head Start Families and
Home Visitors
Authors: Patricia H. Manz (Lehigh University) & Rachel Eisenberg (Devereaux Center for Effective Schools)
Little Talks is an intervention for promoting infant/toddler communication and language development. It is unique along two dimensions. First, it was iteratively developed in partnership with low-income parents of infants and toddlers who were enrolled in home visiting. This partnership process was critical for ensuring that Little Talks was responsive to parents’ culturally-based beliefs about how they nurture young children’s
communication and language skill development. Second, given the successful and expanding outreach of child development-focused home visiting to low-income families, Little Talks was concurrently developed in partnership with Early Head Start home visitors. Subsequent to its development, experimental evaluation of Little Talks has demonstrated its benefits for home visitors, parents, and children, with the greatest
impacts noted for immigrant families whose home language is Spanish, a population that is often overlooked in intervention research. This chapter will detail the partnership contributions to the development and subsequent evaluations of the Little Talks intervention for low-income infants and toddlers from diverse ethnic, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. In doing so, the chapter will illuminate the invaluable contribution of community partners to ensuring interventions are culturally meaningful and genuinely embraced by the families and children that they intend to serve.
7. Developing Interventions that Foster Children’s Social-emotional Development by Making Connections with Teachers, Families and Schools
Authors: Rebecca Bulotsky-Shearer (University of Miami), Jason Downer (University of Virginia), Amanda Williford (University of Virginia), Ginny Vitiello (University of Virginia), & Jill Ehrenreich-May (University of Miami)
This chapter will focus on the development and initial pilot testing of two interventions, developed in collaboration with Head Start teachers and parents, the Learning to Objectively Observe Kids (LOOK) intervention and the Making Connections for Teachers, Parents, and Children (Teaching Pyramid Model with Implementation Supports). Both models were either developed and/or adapted in partnership with teachers and parents, with the goal to leverage and build upon the strengths of natural helpers in the community. The LOOK intervention was developed as a data-driven, web-mediated set of early childhood mental health coaching supports to Head Start teachers, using validated measures of children’s engagement within the preschool classroom context (Downer, Williford, Bulotsky-Shearer, Vitiello, Bouza, et al., 2018). The
development process and initial results will be shared, on the impacts on teachers’ increased use of social-emotional teaching strategies and self-efficacy, as well as children’s positive engagement with teachers, peers, and learning activities in Head Start classrooms. In addition, the development and initial findings from the Making Connections project will be shared, with a focus on the teacher and family supports created to enhance implementation in high poverty schools. The challenges and benefits of a community partnership approach will be described, as it enhances the validity and relevance of the intervention work, as well as the dissemination of appropriate supports through an implementation science perspective to ensure that practices are relevant, accessible, and practical for teachers and families.
8. We’re Better Together: Supporting Children’s Social-emotional Learning Skills by Connecting Home and School through Assessment and Intervention
Authors: Katherine Barghaus & Cassandra Henderson (University of Pennsylvania)
The home and the classroom are the two most important contexts in which children have the opportunity to learn and develop. The connection between the home and the classroom is one of the most important, but often neglected, resources that can foster children's educational well-being. When families and teachers are working in partnership to support shared goals through shared mechanisms, children have a better chance to succeed. This chapter will outline a research-to-practice model created in Philadelphia to bridge this gap by creating an evidence-based, sustainable home-school intervention to support children’s social-emotional learning skill development in partnership with teachers, families, and school district leadership. This chapter will describe the underlying logic of the model created, provide examples of how the model is operationalized in practice, and discuss the planned future extensions of this work.
9. Commentary: Hiro Yoshikawa (New York University) & Samuel Meisels (Buffett Early Childhood Institute, University of Nebraska)
V. Section III: People, Process, and Policy: Data Integration for Systems Change
10. Integrating Data as a Common Language for Advancing Inquiry and Social Change
Authors: Heather L. Rouse, Cassandra J. Dorius, Quentin H. Riser, Jessica Bruning, & Allison Gress (Iowa State University)
Increasingly complex social problems require similarly complex solutions that address barriers among executive leaders, service providers, citizens, and the scientific community. Integrated (data) systems bring together people, processes, and priorities in a disciplined approach to generate relevant evidence about populations of children and family needs, strengths, and service system gaps to inform comprehensive solutions. This is not about technology. It is about centering relevant tensions among stakeholders on sets of mutually beneficial processes that use data as a common language for timely, sustainable, cycles of inquiry. This chapter will detail the development and implementation of one fully functional integrated data system that reflects a state-university partnership built on foundational principles identified by Fantuzzo and Culhane’s (2016) work. Using a partnership-based, strength-based, population-based framework, Iowa’s Integrated Data System for Decision Making (I2D2) provides a sustainable resource for early childhood systems improvement by incorporating partner voices at all phases of the inquiry process, while maintaining scientific rigor and relevance. Integrated processes for shared governance and two-way communications will be discussed as key components. Examples from completed research projects uncovering statewide needs, gaps, and service coordination opportunities will be used to illustrate how people, processes, and priorities are infused throughout the system to affect social change.
11. Partnering for School Readiness: IDEAS Consortium for Children
Authors: Rebecca Bulotsky-Shearer (University of Miami), Lori Hanson (The Children’s Trust), Anabel Espinosa (Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe), Maite Riestra Quintero (Miami-Dade County Head Start/Early Head Start), Marisol Diaz (Miami-Dade County Public Schools), Jhonelle Bailey & Jenna Futterer (University of Miami)
In this chapter, we will share the history, development, and implementation of the Miami-Dade IDEAS Consortium for Children, a county-wide integrated data system (IDS) that emerged through a research-practice partnership focused on the school readiness of children. The partnership was formed between the University of Miami and major providers of public early childhood programs to children in the County: Miami-Dade
County Community Action and Human Services Department Head Start/Early Head Start Program (HS), the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, Inc. (ELC), The Children’s Trust, and Miami-Dade County Public School (M-DCPS). The chapter will describe challenges, successes, and initial findings about the early care and education of a cohort of children entering M-DCPS kindergarten (N=25,000), as well as efforts to sustain cross-sector sharing of administrative data for generating quality evidence to inform public policy and system reform. In such cases, researchers in collaboration with community stakeholders can study in real time, at a population-level, a comprehensive set of factors to determine where policy change and geographical targeting of limited resources are needed.
12. The Integrated Data Systems (IDS) Approach: Making it Work
Authors: Katherine Barghaus (University of Pennsylvania) and Whitney LeBoeuf (University of Denver)
This chapter will briefly review a conceptual framework for generating actionable intelligence for social policy and practice using integrated data and then will provide contemporary examples from IDSs across the nation putting the framework to work. This will involve examples across the life course of data use, from developing initial research questions based on salient policy and practice issues to using evidence to effect change in real-time.
13. Commentary: Daryl Greenfield (University of Miami) & David Patterson (Director, Health and Demographics Division| SC Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office)
VI. Afterword by Jacqueline Jones (President, Foundation for Child Development)

VII. References
Coe, K. (2020). The other kids on the rug: An examination of academic-based peer effects in kindergarten. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation).
Downer, J. T., Williford, A P., Bulotsky-Shearer, R. J., Vitiello, V. E., Bouza, J. et al. (2018). Using data-driven, video-based early childhood consultation with teachers to reduce children’s challenging behaviors and improve engagement in preschool classrooms. School Mental Health: A Multidisciplinary Research and Practice Journal, 10 (3), 226-242.
Gadsden, V.L., Ford, M., Breiner, H. (Eds.) (2016). Parenting matters: Supporting parents of children ages 0-8. Report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Ginsburg-Block, M. D., Rohrbeck, C.A., Fantuzzo, J. W. (2006). A meta-analytic review of social, self concept, and behavioral outcomes of peer-assisted learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98 (4), 732-749.
Le Menestrel, S. & Duncan, G. (2019). A roadmap to reducing child poverty. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Committee on National Statistics; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children in Poverty by Half. Washington, DC.
Mendez, J. L, & Fogle, L. M. (2002). Parental reports of preschool children’s social behavior: Relations among peer play, language competence, and problem behavior. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 20 (4), 370-385.
Rohrbeck, C. A., Ginsburg-Block, M.D. Fantuzzo, J. W. & Miller, T. R. (2003). Peer-assisted learning interventions with elementary school students: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95 (2), 240-257.