Longitudinal associations between residential mobility and early academic skills among low-income children
Introduction
Residential mobility, also called housing instability or frequent moves, is a relatively common experience for low-income families in the United States (U.S. Census, 2011). Indeed, children from low-income families move nearly twice as often as their more economically advantaged peers (Cohen & Wardrip, 2011). Extant research suggests that residential mobility is negatively related to a variety of child outcomes, including physical and oral health (Busacker & Kasehagen, 2012), self-regulation (Schmitt, Finders, & McClelland, 2015), and academic achievement (Herbers et al., 2012; Voight, Shinn, & Nation, 2012), although children from families of higher socioeconomic status may not be as susceptible to the negative effects of mobility (Ziol-Guest & McKenna, 2014). The majority of this literature linking residential mobility with poor achievement outcomes has been conducted with school-age children and adolescents; few studies have examined the extent to which moving is related to preschool children’s academic readiness and none have quantified the longitudinal associations between moving during the prekindergarten year and subsequent academic outcomes in early elementary school for children from low-income families.
Identifying the extent to which life experiences, such as moving prior to school entry, are linked with achievement problems in elementary school is important for developing efforts to support low-income families and enhance children’s success. If residential mobility represents a key marker of early life disruptions (e.g., change in family structure or parent employment), it could serve as an indicator to help identify families that could benefit from programs aimed to promote resilience. Interventions and other supports for families may be most effective during the formative preschool year(s), when children are developing the critical foundational skills needed for school success in elementary school and beyond. The present study examines the direct and indirect relations between residential mobility during the year prior to kindergarten and academic readiness and achievement (math, letter-word identification, and spelling) in the early elementary years for children from low-income families.
Several developmental models emphasize the importance of proximal contexts, including the home or family environment, for young children’s development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Lerner, 2006). For example, the bioecological framework posits that development in young children may be particularly sensitive to the effects of proximal processes (e.g., instability in the home context) because of their lack of knowledge and experience and heavy reliance on adults in their lives (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Krishnan, 2010). Furthermore, developmental systems theories argue that development does not occur as a result of the context itself, but rather, as a result of person-context interactions (Lerner, 2006). As such, a contextual factor like mobility may operate differently for preschool aged children than for older, adolescent children, due to young children’s limited social-emotional and cognitive capacities. Yet residential mobility has been a relatively understudied developmental context for preschool children.
In addition, Heckman (2008) argues that all cognitive skills are formed on the foundation of cognitive skills developed previously. To use his words, “skills beget skills and capabilities foster future capabilities” (Heckman, 2008). Thus, if residential instability among low-income children is linked with academic difficulties during early childhood, such mobility could also serve as an early marker of a potential cascade effect in which poor academic readiness leads to poor academic functioning in subsequent years. In the current study, we examined whether mobility in prekindergarten was related to difficulties in concurrent academic skills, and whether such difficulties were then associated with poorer academic skills in the early elementary years.
Low-income families experience greater mobility than middle-income families as a result of more frequent changes in employment or job loss, changes in family composition, deteriorating housing or neighborhood quality, and foreclosure and/or eviction (Cohen & Wardrip, 2011). Residential mobility may also represent more of a vulnerability factor among children from low-income families because in this low-income context frequent moving is often coupled with other risk factors, such as low levels of maternal education and unemployment (Murphey, Bandy, & Moore, 2012). Furthermore, whereas middle-class families usually “move up” or into housing or neighborhoods of better quality, low-income families typically move in and out of similar homes and neighborhoods that often carry risks such as neighborhood violence, housing hazards, and crowding (Coulton, Theodos, & Turner, 2012).
As such, programs have been developed that focus on improving neighborhood quality for low-income families. One example that has been empirically evaluated is the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program. Parents who have been a part of this program and have moved from high-poverty neighborhoods to low-poverty neighborhoods report improvements in neighborhood conditions and demonstrate decreases in feelings of distress (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). Similarly, in empirical evaluations of the Yonkers Project, adults who were randomly assigned to move from high-poverty to middle-class neighborhoods were more likely to work, reported less disorder and violence in their new communities and higher housing quality, and were less likely receive welfare (Fauth, Leventhal, & Brooks-Gunn, 2004; Fauth, Leventhal, & Brooks-Gunn, 2008). Although these programs are promising, they do not reach the large majority of low-income families, and results from analyses exploring the effects on children are mixed (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2004; Leventhal, Fauth, & Brooks-Gunn, 2005).
Extant literature documents a negative relation between residential mobility and academic success in elementary and high school students (Obradovic et al., 2009; Pribesh & Downey, 1999; Voight et al., 2012). Even after controlling for characteristics such as free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, ethnicity, English language learner status, and special education eligibility, children and adolescents who move frequently perform worse on math and reading assessments (Cutuli et al., 2013, Herbers et al., 2012), are more likely to be retained (Ingersoll, Scamman, & Eckerling, 1989), and demonstrate lower levels of adaptive functioning in classroom contexts (Masten et al., 1997) than those who experience residential stability. Recent research suggests the link between residential mobility and academic achievement persists even after controlling for socioeconomic status (e.g., income, maternal education; Cutuli et al., 2013). In one study, the achievement gaps associated with being low-income began to narrow by the end of eighth grade; however, children who experienced frequent mobility remained significantly behind academically (Cutuli et al., 2013).
Despite evidence for an association between residential mobility and achievement for school-age children and adolescents, little is known about whether moving during the preschool years is associated with children’s academic readiness for kindergarten or their success in early elementary school. As compared to adolescence, the early childhood stage, and especially the prekindergarten year (approximately ages 4–5), has long been considered a sensitive period for healthy brain development (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000), making preschool children particularly vulnerable to environmental stress. Moreover, the prekindergarten year is when children are typically developing the critical foundations of early academic skills (e.g., in math and literacy) needed for long-term school success (La Paro & Pianta, 2000).
Just three recent studies have begun to investigate the link between residential mobility and young children’s academic outcomes prior to school entry, but findings have been mixed. Ziol-Guest and McKenna (2014) conducted a study using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and conceptualized mobility from birth to age five as three categories (never moved, moved 1–2 times, or moved three or more times). There was a distribution of income levels (poor, near poor, not poor) across all three mobility categories, with higher percentages of children living in or near poverty among the families that moved. In this study, results suggested that children, and particularly children from families considered to be poor, who moved more frequently (i.e., three or more moves) between birth and age five exhibited more attention problems and externalizing behaviors; however, moving was not related to children’s language and literacy achievement at age five after controlling for several child (e.g., gender, age, whether the child was first born), maternal (e.g., race, citizenship, education), household (e.g., children living in the household, receipt of public housing), and economic characteristics (e.g., income, whether or not mother owned a car). Similarly, utilizing data from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, Anderson, Leventhal, and Dupéré (2014) found no link between moving (using a dichotomous variable that represented moved or didn’t move) during the first 4 ½ years of life and preschool literacy or math achievement after controlling for child gender, ethnicity, Hispanic decent, child birth order, maternal age, study site, and a latent SES variable (consisting of income-to-needs ratio, maternal education, and maternal marital status); however, their sample was limited in demographic diversity as most families were of middle to high socioeconomic status.
In contrast to these studies, in a sample of primarily low-income families (73% eligible for Head Start), Schmitt et al. (2015) examined the relation between moving between birth and age 4–5 on preschool inhibitory control, math, and literacy. Findings indicated that after controlling for maternal education, English language learner status, child age, and classroom membership, residential mobility was significantly associated with lower math and literacy skills in the fall, and was also indirectly and negatively related to change in math and literacy in the spring, mediated through children’s inhibitory control and fall academic competence.
The mixed findings across these three studies could be the result of differences in sample characteristics, variables included in statistical models (e.g., math assessment versus none), and conceptualization of mobility. Each study sample included families from varying socioeconomic strata. Ziol-Guest & McKenna (2014) found no links between mobility and language or literacy for the overall sample or the low-income subgroup; however, they did not include a measure of early math. Anderson et al. (2014) did not focus their analyses on children from low-income families. The sample utilized by Schmitt et al. (2015) included primarily at-risk children (73% were eligible for Head Start) and also included a measure of math. The significant findings that were detected in the Schmitt et al. (2015) study could be the result of analyzing residential mobility in a sample in which the overwhelming majority of families were considered low-income. As described earlier, for young children from low-income families, residential mobility may be a marker for more negative factors compared to children from more affluent families, especially during the sensitive prekindergarten year. Finally, all of these studies conceptualized mobility as moving residences between birth and age 4–5. Although this broad conceptualization is useful, narrowing in on the prekindergarten year may be necessary to detect links with early achievement given the critical nature of this time frame for the development of foundational math and literacy skills. The current study will extend this emerging line of work by investigating the longitudinal associations between residential mobility during the year prior to kindergarten and academic readiness and achievement through 1st grade, and by using a larger, national sample of ethnically diverse, low-income families.
Despite the importance of this work, no longitudinal study has yet explored the longer-term relations between mobility during the year prior to kindergarten and academic outcomes in elementary school for children from low-income families. Early academic skills are well-known precursors to later academic success (La Paro & Pianta, 2000; NICHD ECCRN, 2005; Stevenson & Newman, 1986). As such, if residential mobility is linked with difficulties in young children’s development of early, foundational academic skills during preschool it may in turn predict longer-term achievement problems. Early academic skills are becoming increasingly important with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, which set high expectations for children’s achievement, starting in kindergarten. Identifying even modest longitudinal links between early residential mobility and later academic skills would have important implications for efforts to support low-income children and families during the formative years, when children are developing foundational skills. Although early academic skills are malleable and can be improved through intervention (Clements and Sarama, 2008, Clements and Sarama, 2011, Justice and Pullen, 2003; Lonigan, Purpura, Wilson, Walker, & Clancy-Menchetti, 2013; Siegler & Ramani, 2008), efforts focused on young children must be contextualized within families. Thus, identifying family factors, such as residential mobility, that play a role in children’s early academic development is critical.
The present study investigated the direct and indirect relations between residential mobility during the year prior to kindergarten and the development of academic skills from prekindergarten to the end of 1st grade for low-income children. Recognizing that families move for a variety of reasons, we were interested in examining moving (for any reason) as a potential marker of risk for early academic difficulties. In this way, we chose to avoid a reductionist approach to isolating the cause(s) of the move, and changes affiliated with the move, from the move itself. Specifically, we had two research questions: (1) Does moving during the prekindergarten year predict academic skills (math, letter-identification, and spelling) among low-income children in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and 1st grade? and (2) Is the relation between residential mobility in prekindergarten and academic skills in kindergarten and 1st grade mediated by previous academic competence?
Based on previous evidence suggesting that residential mobility during early childhood is negatively related to math and literacy outcomes during preschool (Schmitt et al., 2015) and that frequent moves are associated with long-term academic achievement for elementary-aged children (Cutuli et al., 2013, Voight et al., 2012), it was hypothesized that residential mobility during the year prior to kindergarten would be negatively related to academic outcomes in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and 1st grade. Based on theory and evidence indicating that early academic competence begets later achievement (Heckman, 2008, NICHD ECCRN, 2005), it was expected that the links between mobility during prekindergarten and academic skills in kindergarten and 1st grade would be indirect, mediated through children’s previous academic competence. Because residential mobility is not directly manipulated but is rather observed in a population, there is potential for selection bias. To help mitigate the potential for selection effects, we included several covariates in our models that have been related to mobility and academic outcomes in past research (e.g., income, maternal education, ethnicity).
Section snippets
Participants
This study utilized data from the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS; U.S. DHHS, 2010a). The HSIS is a national study that randomly assigned two cohorts of 3- and 4-year old children to a Head Start (n = 2,783) or comparison condition (n = 1,884) to evaluate the effectiveness of Head Start on school readiness (U.S. DHHS, 2010a). Because the HSIS is a large (N = 4,442) nationally representative study of Head-Start eligible children attending a variety of ECE programs (60% of children in the control group
Research question 1: does moving during the prekindergarten year predict academic skills (math, letter-word identification, and spelling) in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and 1st grade?
Correlations are presented in Table 2. Overall model fit was good for the three models [math: (χ2 [df = 2764] = 1258.13; RMSEA = .04, 90% C.I. [.02, .07]; CFI = .99); letter-word identification: (χ2 [df = 2777] = 1289.44; RMSEA = .03, 90% C.I. [.01, .06]; CFI = .99); spelling: (χ2 [df = 2780] = 1290.80; RMSEA = .04, 90% C.I. [.01, .07]; CFI = .99;)].
The overall pattern of results (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3 , and Table 3) indicated small significant relations between residential mobility during the prekindergarten year
Discussion
The present study provides new evidence regarding the relation between residential mobility during the year prior to kindergarten and the development of early academic skills for children from low-income families. Results indicate that mobility during the prekindergarten year may only be modestly related to lower academic competence for children from low-income families, but that these associations appear to be consistent across multiple types of academic skills, including math, letter-word
Conclusion
The current study extends existing literature by exploring the direct and indirect associations between residential mobility during the year prior to kindergarten on academic development through 1st grade. Results suggest that children from low-income families who move during the prekindergarten year may have more difficulties with academic functioning compared to children experiencing residential stability, not only during prekindergarten but also through the transition into kindergarten and
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