Abstract :
[en] Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been widely recognized as a promising
approach to alleviating educational disparities between children of different backgrounds. By providing disadvantaged children with access to a supportive and stimulating environment during their formative years, independent of their home circumstances, ECEC may foster a more equal playing field in regard to academic achievement. In light of Luxembourg's persistent educational disparities and highly funded yet fragmented and partly privatized ECEC system, this thesis investigated the potential of ECEC attendance in Luxembourg in narrowing achievement gaps between children of different family backgrounds.
For this, the present thesis explored five research interests across four studies, namely
1) ECEC attendance, 2) the association between ECEC attendance and short-term academic achievement, 3) the association between ECEC attendance and long-term academic achievement, 4) the association of home environment influences, i.e., exposure to the language of instruction and media, with academic achievement, and 5) differences in these relationships based on family background characteristics. For this, secondary analysis of full-population data from the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme, including retrospective ECEC information, was conducted.
Multivariate analyses within Study 1 found attendance of ECEC to be generally high
across different types of ECEC, with moderate to high dosage of childcare attendance in line with the affordability of ECEC in Luxembourg. Complex interactions of attendance, dosage, and family background were found, with indications of light attendance disparities based on migration background and home language. Study 1 also indicated that associations between ECEC and academic achievement were stronger for both types of preschool than for childcare, and stronger for Luxembourgish listening comprehension than for early literacy and mathematics, showing the importance of ECEC in regard to language acquisition. In general, associations between ECEC attendance and achievement were positive, but small. Findings on moderation patterns across family background appeared less consistent due to a high number
of subgroups. Based on these inconsistent moderation patterns in Study 1, Study 2 focused on the short-term association between childcare attendance and Luxembourgish listening comprehension, depending on children's use of the languages of instruction, Luxembourgish and/or German, at home. The multilevel analysis underlined that only within the disadvantaged home language group, attendance and a longer duration of childcare were beneficial for Luxembourgish listening comprehension in first grade. Extending findings on the directionality of ECEC dosage, childcare duration was found to be in a nonlinear relationship with Luxembourgish listening comprehension, indicating that after some initial gains with a longer duration, a fourth year was not associated with greater outcomes.
Beyond the short-term associations investigated in Studies 1 and 2, Study 3 aimed to
shed light on the long-term associations between childcare attendance and academic
achievement in the Luxembourgish education system, in particular, mathematics, reading comprehension, and grade retention between Grades 1 and 5. A main focus of this study was to test whether socioeconomic status (SES) and home language moderated the relationships.
Results indicated limited long-term advantages of childcare attendance across the whole sample, more pronounced benefits in some outcomes for children who do not speak Luxembourgish or German at home, and fewer benefits in some outcomes for those from lower-SES backgrounds. Thus, the commonly observed pattern that disadvantaged students benefit more from early interventions was only corroborated for one dimension of disadvantage. In particular, grade retention rates were significantly impacted, with disparities between home language groups being nearly alleviated by childcare attendance, suggesting potential foot-in-the-door processes of childcare. Again, a nonlinear relationship for childcare duration indicated that a fourth year of attendance was not associated with further benefits, which underlines the importance of the extent and content of ECEC.
Lastly, Study 4 investigated both the influences of ECEC and aspects of the home
environment on Luxembourgish listening comprehension and early literacy in Grade 1,
differentiating between three home language groups based on language of instruction use at home. In regard to ECEC, preschool attendance was positively associated with Luxembourgish listening comprehension and early literacy only among children who do not speak Luxembourgish or German at home, further underlining the moderation pattern frequently observed throughout this thesis. The study, however, also emphasized the importance of the home environment: Exposure to the language of instruction in more contexts at home and exposure to books were independently associated with higher Luxembourgish listening comprehension and early literacy, while exposure to other forms of media, video and audio, were unrelated or even negatively related to language and literacy.
Taken together, the findings presented in this thesis constitute the first large-scale
investigation into the relationship between ECEC attendance and academic achievement within the diverse student population in Luxembourg. The thesis highlights the positive role of ECEC in reducing educational disparities between children from different home language backgrounds. However, findings of this thesis also point to its still unrealized potential, as evidenced by relatively small effect sizes and indications of access inequalities. In conclusion, this thesis advocates for a greater focus on assessing and improving ECEC quality in Luxembourg in both research and policy, to set all children, regardless of their family background, (early) on a successful course in the multilingual school context.
