We consider long-term impacts of establishing school psychology offices in Norway, which introduced 'maturity testing' to advice parents and school boards on school starting age. In the early reform period, children born close to the normative age cut-off who reached school-starting age after...

On September 1st 1997, a new early childhood care and education policy was initiated by the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada. Providers of childcare services licensed by the Department of the Family began offering daycare spaces at the reduced...

A recent and compelling study entitled Neurons to Neighborhoods, conducted by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine, calls attention to the importance of early emotional development in young children.1 Based on a careful review of neuroscience and developmental...

This Social Policy Report considers the importance of young children’s emotional development for their school readiness, suggesting that social scientists can provide policy makers with concrete ways to conceptualize, measure and target young children’s emotional adjustment in early...

One of the concerns behind parental educational sorting is its potential to widen disparities in the ability of families to invest in their children’s development. Using data from the Fragile Families and Children Wellbeing Study, this paper investigates the association between parental...

This study examined the developmental pathways from children’s family environment to school readiness within an at-risk sample (N = 1,701). Measures of the family environment (maternal parenting behaviors and maternal mental health) across early childhood were related to children’s observed...

Although preschool has been shown to improve children's school readiness in many developing countries, preschool attendance in poor rural areas of China is still low. The high cost of preschool is often regarded as a major barrier to attendance. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a...