Abstract
High quality and culturally responsive early childhood education and care (ECEC) for young children before kindergarten is seen as a way to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn. ECEC is even more crucial in the context of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the disproportionate burden of trauma and stress borne by families of color in disinvested neighborhoods. Remote learning and repeated disruptions to in-person instruction as protocols shifted during waves of the pandemic placed an extra strain on families, and may have increased educational disparities in the U.S. Taken together, these challenges have implications for children’s school readiness due to their impact on opportunities for learning at home and in the classroom. This paper explores how ECEC programs can be strengthened to better meet children’s needs, and ways in which future research can shed light on these important issues.
Introduction
School readiness is generally considered a multidimensional set of foundational skills, including social-emotional health, executive functioning, learning approaches, and cognitive skills that enable children to achieve academic success and eventually thrive in the workforce and beyond.1,2 In fact, a large and robust body of literature demonstrates that having strong school readiness skills prior to kindergarten entry has long-term academic, social-emotional, and socio-economic implications for children.3-5
Children of color are often described as being more likely to enter school with fewer of the language, literacy, social, relational and other skills needed to ensure school success, compared to other children.5-7 This is, at least in part, influenced by school readiness assessments, which mostly use white culture as the dominant norm against which to measure the extent to which children are perceived as meeting the social and behavioral demands of the classroom/setting.8,9 Such assessments are particularly problematic for first or second generation (immigrant-origin) children, who make up approximately 25% of all children age five or younger in the U.S.10,11 As current tools used for assessing and screening are primarily developed for monolingual, English-speaking children, these tools often fail to capture the cultural and linguistic assets that immigrant-origin children bring to the early childhood programs they attend, which can perpetuate false deficit narratives. In general, the cultural and linguistic assets of families of color may positively impact children’s readiness for school and future academic success in ways that are under-studied. 12
High quality and culturally responsive early childhood education and care (ECEC) 1 for young children has been seen as a way to ensure that all children enter Kindergarten ready to learn. However, social determinants limit the availability and accessibility of high quality programs for children of color. 13 ECEC programs within disinvested neighborhoods of color are often rated as providing low-quality care (as defined by practices shown to be important for all children), and rarely provide care that is culturally responsive or linguistically appropriate for children from immigrant-origin families. As a result, most ECEC programs in these neighborhoods do not adequately engage families and promote children’s learning and development. 14 To address this, there has been a recent focus on increasing the quality of ECEC, building upon the unique strengths and needs of children and their communities, and acknowledging the value of educators and staff being in racial and linguistic affinity with families,15,16 although the implementation of such improvements is variable.
High quality ECEC is even more crucial in the context of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the disproportionate burden of trauma and stress borne by families of color in disinvested neighborhoods.17,18 To ensure that all children are healthy and ready to learn when entering Kindergarten, we must revisit what is high-quality ECEC and explore what modifications are necessary to support families of color. In this paper, we describe the unique experiences of children from disinvested neighborhoods during the COVID-19 crisis, and the implications for ECEC programs as they seek to support school readiness. Our goal is to motivate a new research agenda for the field following this global pandemic.
The Unique Experiences of Children and Families from Disinvested Neighborhoods During the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 Impact on the Stress and Health of Caregivers
Although most children do not experience severe physical illness from COVID-19 infection, they are at high risk for negative outcomes due to the widespread economic and societal disruption resulting from the pandemic. 19 These risks, however, are not equally distributed throughout the population – they are concentrated in communities of color. Early in the pandemic, communities of color had the highest incidence rates of COVID,17,18 which led to grief, loss and fear of loss in these settings. These communities also faced a widespread set of factors that disproportionately and systematically disadvantaged them during the pandemic, including employment in low-wage jobs in the service industry. 20 In March and April, 2020, studies found that between 40% and 50% of low-income workers stated that they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a pay cut due to COVID-19, with rates of job or wage loss higher among Hispanic adults.21,22 Further, people of color were over-represented in jobs that were considered essential during the height of the pandemic, such as grocery clerks,23,24 which led to concern about being infected with COVID-19.17,24 This was particularly true for intergenerational households, 23 where the risk of infecting an older relative loomed large.
Discrimination and racism have long impacted communities of color, and been associated with mental health disorders. 25 At the height of the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, along with a number of other high-profile deaths of Black individuals, led to increased racial tensions and a backlash against protestors in some parts of the country.26,27 Further, anti-immigrant rhetoric was heightened during the pandemic and many immigrant-origin individuals, particularly Asian-Americans, experienced a surge of racially motivated hate crimes and discrimination as a result of misinformation, racism and xenophobia, leading to increased fear and anxiety.20,28
Immigrant-origin communities faced additional challenges, including language barriers to accessing information17,29 and limited access to most forms of federal aid or federal public benefits (eg, SNAP). In fact, much of the recovery effort in the U.S. left immigrant-origin families behind, 30 and as a result, these families struggled further to meet basic needs during the pandemic. 31 Moreover, low rates of health insurance, the high cost of medical care, and fear of accessing services because of immigration concerns created challenges for immigrants seeking COVID testing and treatment. 32
Taken together, these challenges led to an increased level of stress among caregivers of color.33,34 This may have had implications on children’s school readiness, given extant research illustrating that caregiver stress directly influences the extent to which they are sensitive and responsive to their children, 35 and the likelihood that they can provide a home environment that is supportive of and conducive to developing children’s school readiness. 36
COVID-19 Impact on Children’s and Families’ Experiences of ECEC
Like many families across the United States, families of color struggled with schooling and educational support during this time. 37 Early in the pandemic, most daycares were shut down; some preschools and Kindergarten classes continued, but most were conducted remotely, from home. Further, many families of color utilize informal care, like Family, Friend and Neighbor (FFN) caregivers, and those arrangements were often halted due to isolation recommendations and stay-at-home mandates. The disruption of the ECEC system was even more challenging for essential workers with children, who were expected to work in-person without access to in-person ECEC programs. 20
Remote learning placed an extra strain on families given it required substantial adult involvement in children’s daily education experiences. 38 Parents were asked to have the knowledge and skills required to support, engage, and focus the learning of students in early elementary education, while the teacher was on the other side of the screen. For low-income parents who worked multiple jobs, daytime was often a time to sleep, yet this was precisely when they were called upon to support their children’s learning. Remote learning was even more challenging for families with multiple children, as creating learning spaces where all children could focus simultaneously in the same home was often extremely difficult. Immigrant families often encountered additional challenges in taking on such roles due to challenges in access to technology and internet, language and technology literacy barriers, and limited knowledge about navigating the U.S. school system. 39 For parents who spoke languages other than English, their inability to understand the teachers’ directions hindered their ability to support their child’s learning.
Remote learning was also challenging for many children, as it reduced access to experiences that are important for school readiness. For example, the lack of in-person ECEC, and potentially more limited access to material goods, may have resulted in children lacking hands-on sensory experiences, interactive play and routines – vital experiences for developing school-readiness skills.40,41 Further, ECEC and kindergarten settings often play an important role in promoting social and emotional development by providing safe, nurturing and predictable environments, and play and play-based learning help children learn about navigating relationships, conflict resolution and acceptance. 40 The lack of these interactions has led some children to struggle with peer relationships and many parents to worry about developmental delays. Moreover, immigrant-origin children who did not speak English when they entered ECEC programs may have been disproportionately affected by the switch to remote learning. Finally, isolation has led to some children feeling bored, lonely and increasingly attached to their parents as the pandemic wore on. 40 Together with fears about caregivers getting sick or dying, this contributed to increases in separation anxiety when children returned to ECEC settings.
While most of the literature focuses on the negative consequences of remote learning on children, for some families there may have been benefits to remote learning. For example, learning at home allowed parents who were able to be more engaged with their children and their school 42 and to develop closer relationships with teachers. 43 For children who lived with extended families, remote learning enabled older relatives to spend time with their grandchildren. For many, time together during quarantine meant deeper attachments between caregivers and children and the development of family rituals and memories.
What Should High-Quality ECEC Look Like Now for Children of Color?
The lingering fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has implications for what ECEC programs must provide to continue to address children’s social-emotional well-being and prepare them for school. First, recovery efforts to support the ECEC system must include not only family- and center-based daycare and school-based care, but also less formal care such as FFNs. FFNs provide culturally responsive care to many children of color, and some families report trusting such caregivers more than formal settings to care for their very young children. FFN providers are often not included in policy discussions, and should be valued alongside other more formal types of care. Critically, FFNs need to be supported financially and with both child-focused resources and professional development in languages other than English.
Second, ECEC programs and educators must be prepared to support children’s social-emotional well-being and mental health, especially in communities of color where levels of mental health concerns were high even prior to COVID-19, 44 and have been disproportionately heightened throughout the pandemic. When children returned to school, principals and teachers reported that children were scared to be there, and often hid under desks or asked to eat in the classroom out of fear of the virus. Extra time and patience may be needed to work through heightened separation anxiety, and children who are readjusting or learning for the first time how to interact with other children in a group context may need additional support. ECEC programs and educators might be able to ease some of these challenges by acknowledging how difficult this time might be, and supporting parents and children with transitions by providing tours, meet-ups, 1:1 conversations, or events co-hosted with trusted community leaders/organizations. These practices may enable educators and caregivers to get to know each other and feel more comfortable interacting so that they are more likely to understand and respond to each other’s needs throughout the year. Further, in a recent study by N. M. Rojas and colleagues (unpublished study, 2022) conducted in an immigrant community in New York City, educators expressed a desire for more training and resources to support their ability to address racial equity in the classroom. Developmentally appropriate ways to promote equity in the classroom should be explored and provided, along with support for educators in building racial consciousness and reflective practice so that children and families are seen, heard, believed, and cared for, and children’s unique, inherent value is emphasized and celebrated.
Third, ECEC programs must continue to provide emotional and tangible support for educators and for the families and children they serve. Educators, particularly those of color, have suffered alongside families in the community, and were, in fact, considered essential workers throughout much of the pandemic. They should be provided with mental health supports, and they should be given space to be kind to themselves, as they continue to care for families. During the pandemic, schools often provided basic needs for families, like creating food pantries, supporting access and use of technology, and sending packages of educational materials (eg, books, blocks) to students’ homes. Given the financial hardship experienced in disinvested neighborhoods, families will likely continue to need these supports. Similarly, families will continue to need technological support, both in terms of access to technology and technology literacy. That said, this responsibility should not fall to ECEC programs; children’s health and well-being relies on widespread, sustained government support of educators and families, regardless of immigration status.
Future Research and Conclusions
While much has been written about children’s experiences early in the pandemic, there is still much to understand about the enduring effects of COVID-19, as well as strategies to recover and improve preparedness for future disasters. Research should examine how the pandemic has influenced children’s development, and the transitions from pre-K to Kindergarten and from Kindergarten to first grade, particularly in communities of color. What is the effect of the pandemic on young children’s growth, development and learning? Do first graders come to school looking like Kindergarteners of the past? Does this vary by economic resources, race and ethnicity, and educational status of parents?
Further, we need to understand what types of supports would be most useful to families and educators to best support children’s growth. For example, many families experience chronic stress, even in non-pandemic times. Understanding how to support families in ways that make sense to them is critical to supporting young children’s academic success. This includes a deeper examination of what school readiness means to families of color. Ecocultural theory, 45 which values the contexts in which families live, is an example of a framework that could be used to better understand the strengths that families have and the ways in which they want to be supported. 12 Understanding which types of educational and care settings are preferable to families is essential to providing high quality care. Incorporating practices that uplift and value cultural and linguistic norms within ECEC environments and curricula allows families to have voice and agency over the care that their children receive. As this work progresses, we need to ask, what is the effect of culturally responsive practices on students’ learning and mental health? As students feel included and participate in learning that values their culture, language and beliefs, the benefits for learning and mastery of skills must be monitored and used to dictate future educational policies. Similarly, examining how to best promote racial equity at different developmental periods is critical to enhance children’s experience in school and prepare them for the world outside. Finally, it is imperative to make school readiness assessments linguistically and culturally relevant to not only accurately capture children of color’s knowledge across developmental domains, but also ensure that the domains that are valued by their cultures and that highlight assets are measured. This includes translations into different dialects, to ensure that assessments are truly understood by participants and do not promote false deficit narratives.
Certainly, there are policies that could support families in ways that would decrease stress and thus benefit children. Such policies would be helpful to all under-resourced families, but are particularly critical in light of the recent pandemic. Imagine how much more parents would be able to engage with their children if they didn’t have to worry about hunger or housing. Policies that promote minimum living wages and affordable housing would enable families to do this, as would a broadening of government benefits to all immigrant-origin families. Research should continue to examine how to optimize implementation of such programs in different cultures and communities, and the impact of these policies on young children. Further, universal broadband would not only allow more students to access virtual instruction and on-line learning opportunities, but would also help parents access healthcare and social services, and stay connected with loved-ones. The impact that this would have on young children should also be explored. Overall, expanding our perspective on policies that support families—including policies that address structural barriers to learning and health -- and studying the effects that such policies have on children and their readiness for school are essential components of ensuring that students thrive.