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Early Child Development and Care

Vol. 175, No. 5, July 2005, pp. 395405

ISSN 0300-4430 (print)/ISSN 1476-8275 (online)/05/05039511

2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/0300443042000270768

The effects of socioeconomic diversity

on the language, cognitive and social

emotional development of children

from low-income backgrounds

Janet H. Bagby*, Loretta C. Rudd and Majka Woods

Baylor University, Texas, USATaylorandFrancisLtdGECD41064.sgm

(Received 4 July 2004)10.1080/0300443042000270768EarlyChildhoodDevelopmentandCare0000-0000(print) /0000-0000(onli ne)OriginalArticle2005Taylor&FrancisGroupLtd000000002005JanetH.BagbyP.O.Box 97301WacoTX76 [email protected]

Previous studies on the influence of mixed groupings within preschool classrooms have indicated

positive effects on childrens development. This study extended earlier findings to determine the

effects of socioeconomic diversity within the classroom on the language, cognitive and social

emotional development of preschool children of low-income backgrounds. Twenty-sevenpreschool children were enrolled in two classrooms in a private universitys child development

center. Twenty of the 27 enrolled were from low-income backgrounds. The children were tested

to determine a baseline measure of their language, cognitive and socialemotional skills. Class-

room observations of the childrens language behavior were coded. Post-testing was done at the

conclusion of the school year to determine growth in language, cognitive and socialemotional

skills. Differences in language usage and socialemotional development were observed. These

results suggest that mixed income grouping as well as teacher interactions influence language and

socialemotional development of children from low-income backgrounds.

Keywords: Development; Diversity; Interaction; Preschool; Socioeconomic

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of socioeconomic diversity

within a preschool classroom on the language, cognitive and socialemotional

development of children from low-income backgrounds. The USA has a greater

incidence of children living in poverty than do other Western nations. According to

*Corresponding author. Department of Educational Psychology, Baylor University, P.O. Box

97301, Waco, TX 767987301, USA. Email: [email protected]

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396 J. H. Bagby et al.

the latest census, there were 13.4 million children in the United States (19.2% of

all children) living in poverty (US Bureau of the Census, 1999).

Since the 1960s, a number of programs have been implemented to ameliorate the

effects of childhood poverty. The goal has been to give economically disadvantaged

children the academic tools and social skills necessary to be successful in school andin life in an attempt to break the cycle of poverty. Research findings from these inter-

ventions consistently showed that intensive, high-quality programs that began in

infancy have a positive effect on language and cognitive development for economi-

cally disadvantaged children (Barnett, 1995; Feagans et al., 1995; Burchinal et al.,

1996).

One well-known program is the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project (Schweinhart

et al., 1993), a comprehensive, longitudinal study that has continued for 30 years to

evaluate the effects of intervention on low-income three-year-old and four-year-old

children. The results have shown that high-quality, active learning preschool

programs can help young children in poverty achieve at high academic levels and

significantly reduce the negative effects of childhood poverty. Reports of other early

intervention programs such as the Carolina Abecedarian Project (Campbell &

Ramey, 1994) also have shown positive, long-term effects in achievement by children

from low-income families.

However, Lee et al. (1998) recognized that most previous studies of preschool

programs for children of low-income families have tended to compare the cognitive

and social development of children attending the programs with children who had

not attended preschool programs. Participation in the program served as the treat-

ment with little consideration for the different experiences within the classroomenvironment.

Studies have examined the environmental and social context of learning (for exam-

ple, Tudge, 1986; Baker, 1994; Bronson et al., 1995; Kermani & Brenner, 2002).

Katz et al. (1990) summarized research findings on mixed-age grouping in early

childhood education and concluded that Several studies of childrens behavior in

mixed-age groups suggest that such groupings may provide therapeutic or remedial

benefits to children in certain kinds of at risk categories (p. 19). McClellan and

Kinsey (1999) reported more positive social behaviors of children who participated

in mixed-age classrooms than those in same-age classrooms. Research on leadershipbehavior (Stright & French, 1988), social participation (Goldman, 1981) and peer

collaboration (Azmitia, 1988) also has indicated positive outcomes from age and

ability diversity within a learning environment.

Lee et al. (1998) focused on demographic, academic and social composition

within preschool classrooms and how these contextual factors influenced cognitive

development over a school year. They concluded, it is social context of the class-

room (i.e. racial composition, average family income, high proportions of special

needs and immigrant children) that affects learning (Lee et al., 1998, p. 488).

These researchers stated that children at risk should be integrated into classrooms

with children unlike themselves. They recommended further study to examine theeffects of the social context of the classroom on childrens social and emotional

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Effects of socioeconomic diversity in low-income backgrounds 397

development. Therefore, this study focused on the following research question:

How does socioeconomic diversity within the classroom influence the language,

cognitive and socialemotional development of children from low-income

backgrounds?

Method

Participants

Twenty-seven children enrolled in two classrooms at a child development center at a

major private university in the southwestern United States were selected to partici-

pate in the study. The two classrooms represented collaboration between the univer-

sity and the local independent school district. There were 11 males and 16 females,

ranging in age from 42 months to 60 months at the outset of the study. Seven were

African-American, 12 were Hispanic, and eight were Caucasian (Table 1).One of the classrooms was homogeneous from a family income perspective (low

income), with all families qualifying for the free or reduced lunch program. The

second class was heterogeneous from an income perspective. One-half of the children

in the class qualified under the family income guidelines (low income), and one-half

of the families (high income) paid the full tuition.

Each classroom had a full-time teacher and teachers aide. Both teachers had an

earned bachelors degree in elementary education with teacher certification from an

accredited university. The teacher in the heterogeneous classroom had completed the

High Scope training while the teacher in the homogeneous classroom had not.

However, both teachers had completed in-service training on the child-centered

pre-kindergarten curriculum developed by the school district to be implemented in

the classrooms.

Table 1. Demographics

Homogeneous class Heterogeneous class Total

Gender

Male 6 5 11

Female 8 8 16

Childs age (months)

Mean 48.53 50.38 49.67

Standard Deviation 6.71 4.05 5.53

Childs ethnicity

African-American 4 3 7

Hispanic 10 2 12

Caucasian 0 8 8

Income status

Low income 14 6 20

High income 0 7 7

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Both classrooms had learning centers with home living, blocks and manipulatives,

science explorations, computers, reading, writing, mathematics concepts and art

areas. The majority of learning experiences were facilitated through child-selected

centers. Both teachers employed whole-group lessons at least twice daily.

Measures

In order to evaluate growth in language abilities, the Test of Early Language Devel-

opment (TELD) (Hresko et al., 1999) was administered at the beginning and end of

the school year. Both the receptive and expressive language sections were given. The

TELD reported that all but one of the 18 reliability coefficients round to or exceed

0.90. Content-description validity and construct-identification validity studies are well

documented. In relation to eight other language measures, the criterion-prediction

validity correlation coefficients ranged from 0.40 to 0.92.

The Developmental Assessment of Young Children (DAYC) (Voress & Maddox,

1998) was administered at the beginning and end of the school year to measure the

change in cognitive and social and emotional development of the participants. The

DAYCcomprised of the three subtests: language, cognitive and socialemotional

employs a checklist format. Only the cognitive and socialemotional subtests were

administered. The checklist consists of 78 items for the cognitive subtest and 58 items

for the socialemotional subtest. The overall reliability of the DAYC is very high with

alpha coefficients ranging from 0.97 to 0.99 across three sources of test error:

content, time and scorer. The DAYC also boasts a high level of validity when refer-

ring to content-description validity, criterion-prediction validity and construct valid-ity. The DAYC reported results of criterion-prediction validity correlation

coefficients ranging from 0.48 for the DAYC and the Revised Gesell to 0.57 for the

DAYC and the Batelle Development Inventory.

In order to control for intelligence, the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children

(K-ABC) (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1983) was administered to all participants at the

beginning of the school year. The following subtests were given: Magic Window, Face

Recognition, Hand Movements, Gestalt Closure, Number Recall, Triangles, Word

Order, Expressive Vocabulary, Faces and Places, Arithmetic, and Riddles. One child

was five at the time of testing; therefore he also was given the Matrix Analogies andReading/Decoding subtests. The testre-test reliability coefficients for the K-ABC

subtests ranged from 0.59 to 0.98 with most in the 0.70s and 0.80s. The internal

consistency reliabilities for the subscales ranged from 0.62 to 0.92 with the majority

in the 0.90s. Validity coefficients were reported between the K-ABC and the Wechsler

and Stanford-Binet IQ tests and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test as well as the

K-ABC and group-administered achievement tests. These coefficients ranged from

0.24 to 0.84 with the majority of the correlations being in the 0.40s and 0.50s.

In addition to the quantitative instruments used in this study, weekly observations

were conducted in each classroom to determine the nature of interactions among the

children and between the children and teachers. These observations assessed socialinteractions within the classrooms. The observation form, designed specifically for

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Effects of socioeconomic diversity in low-income backgrounds 399

this study, was divided into five sections. Within each section there was space to

record the area of the classroom, the individuals in the area during the coding time

period and the nature of the interaction (verbal-positive, verbal-negative, physical-

positive or physical-negative). Prior to collecting the observation data, researchers

achieved an inter-observer reliability coefficient of 0.80.

Procedures

At the back-to-school parent information meeting, researchers described the study

and distributed the consent forms. Most parents completed both forms while at the

meeting. Classroom teachers aided in the collection of all other consent forms as well

as the questionnaires.

After a six-week adjustment period, each child was taken by one of the researchers

to a small but comfortable room at the development center for the K-ABC. The

complete test was administered in one setting, usually taking 3045 minutes. On a

separate occasion, the TELD was administered. Both the receptive and expressive

portions of the test were administered in a small quiet room at the child develop-

ment center in a single session lasting from 15 to 30 minutes. Children were given

small reinforcers (i.e. stickers or small candies) for their participation. Following the

testing session the researcher walked each child back to class. Translators were not

available, and all testing was conducted in English. Students were tested in random

order. All testing was done in accordance with the directions provided in the manual

for administration for the K-ABC and the TELD.

The classroom teachers completed the checklist for both the cognitive and socialemotional subtests of the DAYC at the beginning and end of the school year. Both

teachers completed these during a one-week period in the fall and again in the spring.

The researchers collected the forms the following week.

Classroom observations were conducted over a period of five months in both the

heterogeneous and homogeneous classrooms. The researchers were able to observe

the workings of the class from an observation booth with a one-way mirror. In addition

to clear classroom visibility, microphones were placed in the classrooms so conversa-

tions could be tracked and coded. Researchers participated in over 15 practice runs

to ensure inter-observer reliability.The two researchers divided each classroom into five viewing areas. The

researcher would choose an area and do a two-minute observation of the children

and adults within that space. The childrens actions were coded by child and adult

as verbal-positive, verbal-negative, physical-positive or physical-negative. The terms

negative and positive were used as indicators of discontinued (negative) or

continued (positive) actions. Children in the room who were not in the study were

included in the observations; however, they were simply coded as other boy/girl.

The lead teacher, classroom aide, student-teacher and university students were

coded only if they entered the observation area and interacted with the children.

Both the heterogeneous and homogeneous rooms were observed on different days ofthe week and at random times during the day. In addition to recording the actions

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for two minutes, the researcher also wrote a brief anecdotal reference of what was

taking place at that time.

Data analysis

Quantitative measures

TELD and DAYC. The relations between the low-income childrens performance

from the homogeneous class (n= 14) and the low-income childrens performance

from the heterogeneous class (n= 6) on the pre and post measures of the TELD,

the DAYC Achievement and the DAYC SE (SocialEmotional) assessments were

analyzed. One-way analyses of variance revealed no significant differences between

the groups except on the post evaluation of the DAYC SE assessment (F(1,18)

= 5.58, p < .0297). Specifically, on the post assessment of the DAYC SE, the

children in the homogeneous class (Mean = 107.57, Standard deviation [SD]= 12.21) received higher scores from their teacher than the low-income children in

the heterogeneous class (mean = 94.17, SD = 9.99). Even when controlling for

intelligence, a difference in the means between the children in the homogeneous

class and the low-income children in the heterogeneous class (F(1,17) = 4.31,

p< .0533) on the post DAYC SE was revealed when an analysis of covariance was

run controlling for intelligence.

Given these findings, a second set of analyses was conducted on the heterogeneous

class. Examining within the class, there were no significant differences (t(11),p

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