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Not Just Any Child Care Center? Social and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Early Education Institutions with a Beneficial Learning Environment

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Title: Not Just Any Child Care Center? Social and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Early Education Institutions with a Beneficial Learning Environment
Language: English
Authors: Becker, Birgit, Schober, Pia Sophia
Source: Early Education and Development. 2017 28(8):1011-1034.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 24
Publication Date: 2017
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Descriptors: Early Childhood Education, Child Care Centers, Educational Environment, Social Influences, Ethnic Groups, Racial Differences, Statistical Analysis, Educational Attainment, Parent Background, Language Usage, German, Foreign Countries, Environmental Influences, Family Environment, Hypothesis Testing, Educational Quality, Learning Activities, Interviews, Questionnaires, Class Size, Multivariate Analysis
Geographic Terms: Germany
DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2017.1320900
ISSN: 1040-9289
Abstract: This study investigates social and ethnic differences in the use of early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers with different learning environments in an ECEC system with universal state-subsidized provision and low fees. Based on the German National Educational Panel Study-Kindergarten Cohort from 2011, we matched data on 587 groups in 253 ECEC centers with information on about 1,700 children and their parents and applied stepwise multivariate regression models. Research Findings: The results showed that social and ethnic differences tended to be small and were mostly not significant in terms of structural quality, activities, and materials in ECEC centers. In contrast, large disparities emerged regarding the use of ECEC centers with different compositions of children: Children of low educated parents and those with a non-German family language attended institutions with higher proportions of children from families with low educated parents and from families with a non-German family language, respectively. Practice or Policy: To counteract and compensate for the large disparities in the social and ethnic composition of children in ECEC centers, state funding rules and structural quality standards should take the composition more strongly into account.
Abstractor: As Provided
Number of References: 68
Entry Date: 2017
Accession Number: EJ1154488
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0125435787;h4j01nov.17;2019Feb27.13:36;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0125435787-1">Not Just Any Child Care Center? Social and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Early Education Institutions With a Beneficial Learning Environment. </title> <p>This study investigates social and ethnic differences in the use of early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers with different learning environments in an ECEC system with universal state-subsidized provision and low fees. Based on the German National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort from 2011, we matched data on 587 groups in 253 ECEC centers with information on about 1,700 children and their parents and applied stepwise multivariate regression models. Research Findings: The results showed that social and ethnic differences tended to be small and were mostly not significant in terms of structural quality, activities, and materials in ECEC centers. In contrast, large disparities emerged regarding the use of ECEC centers with different compositions of children: Children of low educated parents and those with a non-German family language attended institutions with higher proportions of children from families with low educated parents and from families with a non-German family language, respectively. Practice or Policy: To counteract and compensate for the large disparities in the social and ethnic composition of children in ECEC centers, state funding rules and structural quality standards should take the composition more strongly into account.</p> <p>Children start school with different levels of skills and knowledge and therefore have different chances for educational success right from the start. Two especially disadvantaged groups in this regard are children of parents with a low socioeconomic status (SES) and children of immigrants, who on average tend to show lower levels of school readiness (e.g., De Feyter & Winsler, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref1">22</reflink>]; West, Denton, & Germino-Hausken, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref2">68</reflink>]; various possible reasons for this disadvantage were discussed by Bradley & Corwyn, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref3">11</reflink>]). These early social and ethnic differences in children's skills point to the relevance of early education. It is therefore not surprising that the political debate about educational inequality puts a strong focus on early education and conveys the hope that early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions might compensate for differing skill levels and therefore especially serve disadvantaged children.</p> <p>Studies on the impact of ECEC tend to support the expectation that attending such institutions yields positive effects for children's development, although this influence varies by age and developmental domain (Gormley, Phillips, & Gayer, 2008). The strongest positive impact has usually been found in the domain of cognitive competencies (Burger, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref4">16</reflink>]; Camilli, Vargas, Ryan, & Barnett, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref5">17</reflink>]), which supports the claim that ECEC centers are important for promoting children's academic skills. However, two points need to be considered in this regard. First, research has shown that the effect of ECEC centers depends on specific characteristics of these institutions, like their quality (Dearing, McCartney, & Taylor, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref6">21</reflink>]; Keys et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref7">34</reflink>]) and the composition of children in these centers (Melhuish et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref8">41</reflink>]; Reid & Ready, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref9">55</reflink>]). The most advantageous measure is therefore attendance at not just <emph>any</emph> ECEC institution but one that offers a beneficial learning environment. Second, the use of ECEC institutions is selective, especially at younger ages. It is not at random which children attend early education institutions (Bainbridge, Meyers, Tanaka, & Waldfogel, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref10">3</reflink>]). However, although a lot of research has addressed the selectivity of attending an ECEC center <emph>at all</emph> (at different ages), much less research has dealt with the selectivity of attending ECEC centers with <emph>certain characteristics.</emph></p> <p>In this article, we analyze social and ethnic disparities in the use of early education institutions with a beneficial learning environment among families with 4- and 5-year-old children in Germany. We use the term <emph>beneficial learning environment</emph> to refer to a context that on average contributes positively to children's development. We consider different dimensions of the ECEC centers' learning environment by including indicators of the ECEC centers' structural quality, learning activities, and the composition of children in the centers. Our research question is whether children of low educated parents and children with a non-German family language are less likely to attend ECEC centers with a beneficial learning environment compared to children of parents with higher education levels and children of parents who speak German at home when we take into account several family characteristics (like parents' employment status and family income) and residential characteristics (like ECEC quality at the regional level and residential segregation). We are therefore interested in social and ethnic differences in parents' ECEC use while controlling for different access possibilities (e.g., due to regional variation). The empirical analyses are based on data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS)—Starting Cohort 2 (Kindergarten).</p> <p>Germany provides an interesting case for our research questions for two reasons. The first reason relates to the very high rate of ECEC attendance in Germany. In 2015, 96% of all 4-year-old children and 98% of all 5-year-old children attended an ECEC center (<emph>Kindergarten</emph>; Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref11">2</reflink>], p. 245). Therefore, the question of whether or not to attend an ECEC center has been replaced by the question of <emph>which</emph> ECEC institution is selected. The second reason is that considerable variations in the quality (Tietze et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref12">63</reflink>]) and in the composition (Statistisches Bundesamt, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref13">62</reflink>]) of German ECEC centers have been found across institutions. At the same time, the ECEC system in Germany has been rather homogeneous in terms of access and costs due to universal state-subsidized provision and low fees for parents (Immervoll & Barber, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref14">30</reflink>]). This provides us with the opportunity of performing a rather conservative test regarding the hypothesis of selectivity in the use of ECEC institutions with a beneficial learning environment.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-2">The German ECEC System</hd> <p>ECEC programs are part of the child and youth welfare system in Germany. Although the federal government has legislative authority, the states (<emph>Länder</emph>) are responsible for implementation. The actual planning and provision of ECEC services takes place at the level of the municipality (<emph>Gemeinde</emph>). Since 1996, all children aged 3 years to school age have been entitled to a half-day slot in an ECEC center (<emph>Kindergarten</emph>). In 2015, 95% of all children in this age group attended an ECEC center (Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref15">2</reflink>], p. 245). ECEC attendance from age 3 has become a strong cultural norm irrespective of economic, social, and ethnic background.</p> <p>The financing costs of ECEC centers (<emph>Kindertageseinrichtungen</emph>) have been largely covered by municipalities (<emph>Gemeinden;</emph> about 47%) and by the states (<emph>Länder;</emph> about 31%). Since 2009, the federal level (<emph>Bund</emph>) has also contributed a small portion. The rest has been split between providers (about 5%) and parents (on average about 14%; Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref16">14</reflink>]; Spieß, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref17">60</reflink>]). Parents' fees are mostly dependent on income (except in Hesse) and are relatively low compared to most other countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Immervoll & Barber, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref18">30</reflink>]). In 2011, they amounted on average to 144 Euros per month (Müller et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref19">46</reflink>]). In most states, fees depend on the number of siblings in ECEC institutions (<emph>Kindertageseinrichtungen</emph>), child age, income, and whether attendance is half day or full day. Parents can generally choose freely between ECEC centers in Germany; there are no designated catchment areas for ECEC centers. Because fees are tightly regulated, parents generally cannot obtain higher quality by paying higher fees. Therefore, our analysis of ECEC use focused on differences by parental education and family language rather than income.</p> <p>Minimum standards for structural quality vary considerably across federal states (<emph>Länder</emph>) and tend to be worse than the levels recommended in the targets of the NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards and Accreditation Criteria (National Association for the Education of Young Children, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref20">47</reflink>]). Maximum child–teacher ratios for children ages 3 to 5 range from 10 to 20 children per educator. The formulation of minimum requirements for most other aspects of structural quality, such as maximum group size, training, and space, ranges from precise to none at all (Bock-Famulla, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref21">9</reflink>]). ECEC centers are required to undergo regular quality inspections by external assessors. Beyond ensuring minimum standards, funding is not linked to these quality assessments in any way.</p> <p>Further variations in the learning environments of ECEC groups may arise from considerable residential segregation (Friedrichs & Triemer, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref22">23</reflink>]), as parents tend to choose an ECEC center in close proximity to their home. In a representative survey in 2013 and 2014 (K<sups>2</sups>ID, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref23">31</reflink>], our own calculations), proximity was by far the most frequently mentioned criterion for parents' ECEC (<emph>Kindergarten</emph>) choice. German parents also appear to prioritize other work–family compatibility aspects of child care centers, such as opening hours and having siblings in the same institution, over aspects related to pedagogic quality, such as child–teacher ratios, group size, or stimulating activities (see Table A-1 in the Appendix). When they had more applications than places, ECEC centers in Germany were most likely to select the oldest children, to select those with a sibling in the same institution, or to prioritize children of single parents or those with two employed parents. Only 7% and 3% of institutions, respectively, reported as one of the top three criteria that children were selected based on a waiting list or based on talks with children and parents (K<sups>2</sups>ID, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref24">31</reflink>], our own calculations).</p> <p>A recent study on ECEC process quality in Germany (the National Study of Child-Care in Early Childhood) showed that out of 146 evaluated ECEC centers for children from the age of 3 (<emph>Kindergarten</emph>), the majority offered a pedagogic quality that can be classified as sufficient but not good as measured by the Kindergarten-Skala (revised) and its complement for specific educational domains, the Kindergarten-Skala Erweiterung (Tietze et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref25">63</reflink>], p. 75). On the one hand, this suggests that quality levels and variations between institutions may well be of concern to parents—at least to certain groups. On the other hand, because the vast majority (more than 80%) of the centers offer mediocre quality, parents possibly do not perceive large differences between centers in terms of quality and therefore may be less concerned about quality aspects. State institutions do not offer parents any information on quality aspects of specific ECEC centers. As in the United States (Mocan, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref26">44</reflink>]), in the German context parents are also likely to lack information for reliably assessing quality aspects of ECEC institutions (see Cryer, Tietze, & Wessels, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref27">20</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-3">Theoretical Background and Previous Studies</hd> <p>We are interested in social and ethnic disparities in using an ECEC center with a beneficial learning environment.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-4">What Constitutes a Beneficial Learning Environment in ECEC Institutions?</hd> <p>We speak of an ECEC center as having a beneficial learning environment when its characteristics positively affect children's cognitive and language development. The effects in other domains are less clear and are not covered here. In particular, we address two dimensions of the ECEC learning environment: the quality of ECEC centers and the composition of children in ECEC centers.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-5">The Quality of ECEC Institutions</hd> <p>Regarding the quality of ECEC institutions, the difference between structural quality and process quality is well established. <emph>Structural quality</emph> refers to "objective aspects of the child care environments" (Helburn & Howes, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref28">27</reflink>], p. 64), like the adult–child ratio, group size, and teacher education/training. <emph>Process quality</emph> refers to "how children experience child care—their interactions with adults who care for them and their exposure to materials and activities that enhance learning" (p. 64). In the empirical part of this study, we were only able to include proxy indicators for this latter aspect of process quality that relate to materials and learning activities. Several studies have shown that attending high-quality ECEC institutions relates positively to children's cognitive and language development, although the effect sizes are usually only small to moderate (e.g., Dearing et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref29">21</reflink>]; Keys et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref30">34</reflink>]). Structural quality indicators often work indirectly by influencing process quality (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD] Early Child Care Research Network, 2002).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-6">The Composition of Children in ECEC Institutions</hd> <p>The composition of children in an ECEC center refers to the proportion of children in that center with certain characteristics (e.g., the proportion of children from high-SES families). The main mechanism through which the composition of children can be expected to influence children's development is peer effects (Reid, Kagan, Hilton, & Potter, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref31">54</reflink>]; Reid & Ready, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref32">55</reflink>]). Children can learn from one another in the daily interactions and play activities in ECEC centers. Such peer interactions can be regarded as "naturally occurring opportunities ... through which early skills in the cognitive domain can be supported, modeled, and extended by peers" (Bulotsky-Shearer, Bell, Romero, & Carter, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref33">13</reflink>], p. 54). Research on peer learning in ECEC institutions has demonstrated positive associations between positive peer play interactions and learning outcomes, including cognitive and language skills (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref34">13</reflink>]; Mendez & Fogle, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref35">42</reflink>]). The presence of more skilled peers might be more advantageous in this regard: "Higher skilled peers who have a larger vocabulary, ability to express themselves, greater familiarity with print materials, and well-developed social skills could stimulate skill development among other children within their preschool environment" (Henry & Rickman, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref36">28</reflink>], p. 101). Because the average ability of children in ECEC centers and the SES composition are quite highly correlated (Melhuish et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref37">41</reflink>], p. 101; Weiland & Yoshikawa, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref38">67</reflink>], p. 428), it is not surprising that empirical studies have found the average ability of peers as well as the SES composition in ECEC centers to be significantly related to children's cognitive and language skills (Henry & Rickman, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref39">28</reflink>]; Melhuish et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref40">41</reflink>]; Reid & Ready, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref41">55</reflink>]; Weiland & Yoshikawa, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref42">67</reflink>]). Peer effects in ECEC centers might be especially beneficial for children with a different family language at home regarding their second-language acquisition, as peer interactions provide natural opportunities for language learning—and in this respect also the composition of children in the ECEC center regarding the proportion of second-language speakers has been shown to be relevant (Klein & Becker, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref43">35</reflink>]; Niklas, Schmiedeler, Pröstler, & Schneider, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref44">51</reflink>]). Besides these direct peer effects, the composition of children may have additional indirect effects (e.g., by affecting the frequency of disruptions in the class or teacher expectancies and motivation; Henry & Rickman, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref45">28</reflink>]).</p> <p>It is important to note that quality measures and social compositions of ECEC centers are often weakly to moderately correlated (Antle et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref46">1</reflink>]; Tietze et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref47">63</reflink>]; Torquati, Raikes, Huddleston-Casas, Bovaird, & Harris, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref48">64</reflink>]), for example because better teachers tend to self-select into high-SES, low-minority ECEC centers (see Reid et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref49">54</reflink>]). However, from a theoretical point of view, we expect both to have independent effects on children's development (i.e., teacher effects <emph>and</emph> peer effects). Results of empirical studies have confirmed this by detecting effects of composition on children's skills even when quality indicators have been considered simultaneously (Henry & Rickman, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref50">28</reflink>]; Reid & Ready, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref51">55</reflink>]; Weiland & Yoshikawa, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref52">67</reflink>]). We conclude that the quality of ECEC centers and the composition of children in ECEC centers are two dimensions of the ECEC learning environment that both affect children's cognitive and language development.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-7">Which Children Attend ECEC Institutions With a Beneficial Learning Environment?</hd> <p>As theoretical framework for this article, we combined an investment perspective based on the family investment model (Becker & Tomes, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref53">7</reflink>]) with the accommodation model (Chaudry, Henly, & Meyers, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref54">18</reflink>]; Meyers & Jordan, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref55">43</reflink>]). The basic idea of the investment perspective is that parents invest in their children's development by providing a beneficial learning environment at home and/or by choosing a beneficial learning environment outside the home for their child (e.g., an ECEC center with characteristics that positively affect children's development). However, parents are also subject to time and budget constraints, and therefore practical considerations of proximity, costs, and opening hours also play an important role (Chaudry et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref56">18</reflink>]). Because proximity is usually a very important criterion, it has to be noted that parents' selection of an ECEC center is already prestructured by the regional supply. Furthermore, the economic investment perspective on child care choices has been especially criticized for the assumptions of perfect information and homogeneous and stable ECEC preferences on part of the parents (Chaudry et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref57">18</reflink>]; Meyers & Jordan, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref58">43</reflink>]). The accommodation model takes these criticisms into account and interprets ECEC decisions as "accommodations—to family and employment demands, social and cultural expectations, available information, and financial, social, and other resources" (Meyers & Jordan, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref59">43</reflink>], p. 53). From this theoretical model, we expected disparities in the use of ECEC centers with a beneficial learning environment because parents' preferences, expectations, and constraints as well as their resources are likely to be unevenly distributed across social groups.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-8">Selectivity in ECEC Use by Parental Education</hd> <p>We expected that more highly educated parents would be more likely to select ECEC centers with a beneficial learning environment than less educated parents because they usually have more cultural and social resources that are helpful in this regard. Knowledge about the ECEC system in general (e.g., application and registration procedures) and information about ECEC quality in particular (e.g., about quality indicators) is likely to be unevenly distributed by parental education. In addition, more highly educated parents might more strongly oppose ECEC centers with a high proportion of low-SES children or immigrant children because they tend to associate such compositions of children with poorer learning conditions (Morris-Lange, Wendt, & Wohlfarth, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref60">45</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-9">Selectivity in ECEC Use by Family Language</hd> <p>Informational resources regarding ECEC centers are probably also unevenly distributed by families' migration status. Knowledge about the preschool system and ECEC centers is very society specific, and immigrant parents may therefore often lack such knowledge. In addition, language barriers may also hamper further information seeking (Brandon, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref61">12</reflink>]). This is also the reason why we focus on family language in particular. It could also be argued that families with a foreign family language prefer ECEC centers with a culturally and linguistically familiar setting (this argument was made by Neild, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref62">50</reflink>], regarding Hispanics' school choices) and therefore have different preferences regarding the composition of children in an ECEC center.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-10">Studies on the Choice of High-Quality ECEC Centers</hd> <p>In the United States, McCartney, Dearing, Taylor, and Bub ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref63">40</reflink>]) as well as Pianta, Paro, Payne, Cox, and Bradley ([<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref64">52</reflink>]) reported a bivariate positive association between mothers' education and the process quality of the ECEC center that their children attended using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, whereas the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network ([<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref65">48</reflink>]) did not find a significant association between maternal education and the process quality of the child care center in multivariate analyses with these data. Also, results based on regional data have yielded inconsistent results. For example, Bolger and Scarr ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref66">10</reflink>]) reported a significant positive relation between parental education and ECEC quality, whereas Karoly, Ghosh-Dastidar, Zellman, Perlman, and Fernyhough ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref67">32</reflink>]) did not find such an association. Also, a study in New Zealand showed only weak evidence regarding the association between parental education and ECEC quality (Barraclough & Smith, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref68">4</reflink>]). Regarding differences by migration background, Karoly and Gonzalez ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref69">33</reflink>]) found that children of immigrants in the United States attended center-based programs of lower average process quality than children of native-born parents, whereas Mathers et al. ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref70">39</reflink>]) found that children in the United Kingdom of Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin received a higher quality curricular provision than children from White British families (differentiation by family language was not done in these studies). Lehrl, Kuger, and Anders ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref71">37</reflink>]) did not find any significant association between mother's education and choice of a high-quality ECEC institution (<emph>Kindergarten</emph>) in a regional sample in two German federal states. However, they detected that children with a non-German family language were less likely to attend a high-quality ECEC center than children with German as a family language, even when the social background of the family was taken into account. But this difference was only found for one out of two process quality indicators and was only significant at <emph>p </emph>< .1.</p> <p>To sum up, the empirical evidence for selectivity in using high-quality ECEC centers by parental education is rather weak and inconsistent. This may be because different regional contexts and covariates were taken into account in these studies. In our study, we tried to take regional characteristics, particularly the local supply of high-quality ECEC centers, into account and controlled for a large set of covariates. Because the quality of ECEC centers is very difficult for parents to evaluate at all (Cryer et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref72">20</reflink>]), it could also be the case that disparities only appear with regard to quality indicators that are relatively easy for parents to observe (e.g., group size). Our study also makes a contribution in this regard by analyzing various quality indicators that differ in ease of observability for parents. Hardly any research exists regarding selectivity in using high-quality ECEC centers by family language. Our study therefore substantively broadens the research literature in this respect.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-11">Studies on the Choice of ECEC Centers With Specific Social and Ethnic Compositions</hd> <p>The choice of educational institutions with specific compositions of children has been mainly addressed in the school choice literature in the context of the ethnic and socioeconomic segregation of schools. It has been observed that White middle-class parents avoid schools with high proportions of students from ethnic minorities and from poor families (which often means that they completely avoid schools in poor communities; e.g., Roda & Wells, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref73">56</reflink>]; Saporito, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref74">58</reflink>]). One may speculate that similar mechanisms are at work with regard to the choice of ECEC centers with different compositions of children. Using data on prekindergarten and Head Start enrollment in the United States, Reid et al. ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref75">54</reflink>]) reported that most children attend preschools that are segregated by SES and often also by ethnicity. In Germany, Becker ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref76">6</reflink>]) analyzed the selection of ECEC centers (<emph>Kindergärten</emph>) with a high share of children of immigrants in two federal states. Controlling for residential segregation, she showed that parents with a high education level and native-born parents were less likely to select an ECEC center with a high proportion of immigrant children than less educated parents and parents with a migrant background.</p> <p>Regarding the selection of ECEC centers with specific compositions of children it is important to note that such choices are also strongly structured by the residential area. Because most parents prefer ECEC centers near their homes, social and ethnic residential segregation is mirrored in the composition of children in ECEC centers (Reid et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref77">54</reflink>], p. 8). It is therefore important to take residential segregation into account in such studies.</p> <p>To sum up, it is evident that hardly any empirical evidence exists regarding selectivity in using ECEC centers with specific social and ethnic compositions of children. Most of the current knowledge in this area stems from the school choice literature. Our study therefore provides new insights in this area.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-12">Hypotheses</hd> <p>To sum up, we are interested in the selectivity of using an ECEC institution with a beneficial learning environment and consider ECEC quality and the composition of children important dimensions in this regard. We expect that parents differ in their preferences and possibilities in this selection process and hypothesize disparities in the selection of ECEC institutions by parental education and family language:</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-13">H1:</hd> <p>Children of low educated parents are more likely to attend ECEC centers with lower levels of structural quality and learning activities and with a smaller share of children from high-SES families and a larger share of children with a non-German family language compared to children of more highly educated parents.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-14">H2:</hd> <p>Children of families with a non-German family language are more likely to attend ECEC centers with lower levels of structural quality and learning activities and with a smaller share of children from high-SES families and a larger share of children with a non-German family language compared to children with German as a family language.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-15">Data and Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0125435787-16">Participants</hd> <p>To test these hypotheses, we used data from Wave 1 of the Starting Cohort 2 (Kindergarten) of the NEPS in Germany (Blossfeld, Roßbach, & von Maurice, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref78">8</reflink>]). This is a nationwide, representative sample of 279 ECEC institutions (<emph>Kindergärten</emph>) and within them a subsample of 2,741 children in the year 2010–2011 who attended these facilities 2 years prior to regular school enrollment in Germany. The sample was drawn in a multistage approach. Institutions were drawn in the first step and children in the second. Most children were 4 or 5 years old at the time of data collection (mean age = 4.99 years). To get relevant information on the institutional and familial contexts of the children, the NEPS surveyed ECEC educators, directors of the ECEC institutions, as well as parents of the children. A total of 2,340 parents—mostly mothers as the main caregivers of the children—were interviewed via telephone. From the ECEC institutions, the NEPS obtained information using paper-based questionnaires from 831 educators and 237 principals on the education and care context in these institutions and specific classes attended by the children.</p> <p>To explore social and ethnic differences in ECEC use, we matched data on characteristics of the respective ECEC class or the whole ECEC center attended by the children with information on their parents. In addition, we added regional characteristics to our data. To account for regional variation in ECEC quality, we supplemented the data with administrative records on the average structural quality of ECEC institutions for 3- to 6-year-old children (<emph>Kindertageseinrichtungen</emph>) at the county level (<emph>Kreise</emph>) compiled by the German Youth Institute. To capture social and ethnic variation in residential context, we added administrative records on the county unemployment rate (Regionaldatenbank Deutschland, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref79">53</reflink>]) and small-scale neighborhood information from the Microm data set (Goebel, Spieß, Witte, & Gerstenberg, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref80">24</reflink>]). In total there are 402 counties (<emph>Kreise</emph> and <emph>kreisfreie Städte</emph>) in Germany. In 2011 these counties covered on average about 4,805 children aged 3 to 6 years who attended an ECEC institution (<emph>Kindertageseinrichtung</emph>). Neighborhood was the lowest level of regional analysis capturing aggregated information from households at the residential block level (<emph>Häuserblock</emph>).</p> <p>We restricted the analysis to children for whom we had information on their ECEC center context at the group and institution level and whose main caregiver completed an interview. Nonresponse analyses revealed that ECEC institutions in East Germany were underrepresented. Parents were more likely not to fill in the questionnaire among ECEC groups whose educators attended less further training, whose educators performed fewer activities, and for which a larger percentage of children had low educated parents (results are available on request). We applied combined cross-sectional weights to account for the selective survey participation of ECEC teachers as well as of children and their parents. Item nonresponse for most items was well below 10%. Of the independent household-level variables only the variable for household income had a significant number of missing values. We reran the models imputing these missing values using multiple imputations with chained equations based on 10 imputation cycles (Rubin, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref81">57</reflink>]). The imputed results did not differ qualitatively from the results based on the complete sample, and therefore only the latter are presented. The largest amount of item nonresponse for the dependent variables was found for the materials index (14%). Also in this case, results from models with imputed missing values for the materials index did not change our results.</p> <p>A small number of counties did not provide the register data on child–teacher ratios, the education of teachers, or unemployment rate. Dummy variables indicating missing information on these indicators were included in all models and were not significantly related to measures of ECEC quality and learning environment once household and provider characteristics were controlled. The final sample consisted of about 1,700 children who were cared for in 587 groups in 253 ECEC institutions (<emph>Kindergärten</emph>) across 162 German counties (<emph>Kreise</emph> and <emph>kreisfreie Städte</emph>). The exact sample sizes in the models varied slightly by dependent variable (between 1,535 and 1,801 children; see Tables 3–5).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-17">Dependent Variables: Aspects of the ECEC Learning Environment</hd> <p>We used nine dependent variables to capture different dimensions of the ECEC learning environment. Descriptive statistics for all variables are presented in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1. Descriptive statistics for all variables.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td><italic>Variable</italic></td><td><italic>%</italic></td><td>M</td><td>SD</td><td><italic>Min</italic></td><td><italic>Max</italic></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Characteristics of the ECEC center (dependent variables)</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Child–teacher ratio</td><td /><td>12.76</td><td>6.39</td><td>2.99</td><td>35.72</td></tr><tr><td> Group size</td><td /><td>20.1</td><td>5.03</td><td>5.00</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td> Days of training</td><td /><td>4.52</td><td>12.25</td><td>0</td><td>66.38</td></tr><tr><td> Excursion index</td><td /><td>2.22</td><td>0.47</td><td>1.00</td><td>3.73</td></tr><tr><td> Activities index</td><td /><td>7.12</td><td>0.62</td><td>4.80</td><td>8.00</td></tr><tr><td> Materials index</td><td /><td>1.62</td><td>0.42</td><td>0.71</td><td>3.00</td></tr><tr><td> Share of children with parents with low education (%)</td><td /><td>8.72</td><td>14.99</td><td>0</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td> Share of children with college-educated parents (%)</td><td /><td>23.07</td><td>22.85</td><td>0</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td> Share of children with a non-German family language (%)</td><td /><td>8.80</td><td>14.53</td><td>0</td><td>83.33</td></tr><tr><td>Family characteristics (main independent variables)</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Low parental education</td><td>9.07</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Medium parental education (A-levels or vocational training)</td><td>68.57</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> High parental education (university degree)</td><td>22.36</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Family language not German</td><td>8.61</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Regional, ECEC institution, and household-level controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County unemployment rate</td><td /><td>7.63</td><td>3.44</td><td>1.40</td><td>16.70</td></tr><tr><td> Foreign citizens in residential block</td><td /><td>5.17</td><td>2.49</td><td>1.00</td><td>9.00</td></tr><tr><td> Socioeconomic status in residential block</td><td /><td>4.86</td><td>2.64</td><td>1.00</td><td>9.00</td></tr><tr><td> Municipality >100,000 inhabitants</td><td>33.24</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Municipality 20,000–100,000 inhabitants</td><td>30.65</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Municipality <20,000 inhabitants</td><td>28.32</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County child–teacher ratio</td><td /><td>7.73</td><td>0.99</td><td>5.73</td><td>10.35</td></tr><tr><td> County group size</td><td /><td>22.05</td><td>3.46</td><td>13.00</td><td>25.50</td></tr><tr><td> County percentage of educators with a vocational degree</td><td /><td>75.10</td><td>10.44</td><td>49.34</td><td>96.30</td></tr><tr><td> East Germany</td><td>20.11</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> ECEC provider: state</td><td>37.77</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> ECEC provider: church related</td><td>44.56</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> ECEC provider: other nonprofit</td><td>13.22</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> ECEC provider: parent initiative or for-profit or other</td><td>4.45</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> ECEC focus on foreign language</td><td>10.76</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> One sibling</td><td>47.53</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> More than one sibling</td><td>24.58</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Single parent</td><td>16.47</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Net household income</td><td /><td>3,073.62</td><td>2,619.47</td><td>220</td><td>10,000</td></tr><tr><td> Mother employed full time</td><td>21.79</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother employed long part time</td><td>38.06</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother employed short part time</td><td>7.61</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother not employed</td><td>32.54</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>9 <emph>Note. N </emph>= 1,800. From National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort, 2011. ECEC = early childhood education and care.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-18">Structural Quality</hd> <p>We considered the group size, child–teacher ratio, and frequency of further training for pedagogic staff as three measures of structural quality. Many studies have found that lower child–staff ratios are associated with higher process quality, whereas a smaller number of studies have found associations with a smaller group size and more frequent further training (for a review, see Kuger, Kluczniok, Kaplan, & Rossbach, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref82">36</reflink>]). The group size was based on the number of children registered in the respective group. To calculate the child–teacher ratio, we divided the group size by the number of pedagogic staff responsible for the group measured in full-time equivalents. The final indicator measured the average number of days the pedagogic staff had attended training courses in the past year. The topics of these courses could range from quality assurance to management, subject knowledge, or working with parents or specific groups of children. As shown in Table 1, groups on average consisted of 20 children with a child–teacher ratio of about 13:1. Teachers on average had taken part in 4.5 days of further training in the past year.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-19">Learning Activities and Materials (Subdimension of Process Quality)</hd> <p>Several studies have shown that attending ECEC institutions of high process quality positively affects children's development, although the effect sizes vary (e.g., Dearing et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref83">21</reflink>]; Keys et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref84">34</reflink>]). Process quality, however, is difficult to measure quantitatively via survey questions. As possible proxies for the level of stimulation in the specific group environment and the richness of the child's experience with the social and material environment, the NEPS asked group teachers about the frequency with which various activities and excursions were performed by the children in the group and about the availability of materials and toys. These questions were developed based on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale–Revised (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref85">26</reflink>]). We constructed a summed index of the frequency of day trips or excursions based on 11 different items relating to, for instance, theater, museum, forest or park, library, farms, and sports fields. Frequency was measured on a 6-point scale ranging from <emph>never</emph> to <emph>about daily</emph>. ECEC groups performed such excursions on average once a year. Another index summed the frequency of activities performed by children in the respective group based on 10 items, such as reading books, games with numbers, puzzles, role play, sports, dancing or singing, and gardening. For each item the frequency was measured on an 8-point scale ranging from <emph>never</emph> to <emph>several times a day</emph>. On average, children performed most of the listed activities once a day. To capture the availability of various materials for children's play, we created a summed index of 14 items that referred, for instance, to books of different levels of reading difficulty, dolls, building blocks, and musical instruments. Teachers indicated the availability based on four categories: (a) not available, (b) sufficient for a couple of children to play with simultaneously, (c) sufficient for simultaneous use by about half the children, and (d) sufficient for all of the children. On average, the availability of most items in ECEC groups was sufficient that about half of the children could play with the same items simultaneously. All three indices were divided by the number of items to make the value range more similar to the original scales. Cronbach's alphas for the three indices of excursions, activities, and materials were.63,.78, and.86, respectively, indicating adequate to high levels of internal consistency.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-20">Composition of Children</hd> <p>As another dimension of the ECEC learning environment we considered the composition of children in ECEC centers based on their parents' education level and on their family language. To capture educational composition, we calculated for each institution (a) the share of children whose parent completed a college degree; (b) the share of children with a low educated parent, which we operationalized as not having completed vocational training or A-levels; and (c) the share of children who mainly spoke a language other than German at home. Although it seems unlikely that the association between the share of children with certain background characteristics and children's cognitive and language development is linear, there are no established thresholds in the literature, and these composition variables are usually used as continuous variables (e.g., van Ewijk & Sleegers, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref86">65</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref87">66</reflink>]). We therefore also used them as continuous variables but later discuss possible implications of this. In our sample, the average share of children with low educated parents was 9%, the share of children with college-educated parents was 23%, and the share of children with a non-German family language was 9% at the ECEC institution level.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-21">Independent Variables</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0125435787-22">Parental Education and Family Language</hd> <p>The key explanatory variables in this study related to educational qualifications of parents and the families' home language. In line with the definition applied for the dependent variables, we distinguished among three frequently applied categories for the parent's highest educational attainment: (a) college degree, (b) vocational or A-level degree, and (c) less than a vocational or A-level degree (Schober & Spieß, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref88">59</reflink>]). A non-German family language was operationalized as speaking mostly or only a language other than German at home (see also Lehrl et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref89">37</reflink>]). We chose to use family language as a measure of migration background because it best captured possible language barriers that might be an additional disadvantage for families with a migration background even when SES and other characteristics were controlled. As only 9% of parents fell into the group with a low level of education and 9% of children lived in a family in which mainly a foreign language was spoken, these measures can be considered to capture relatively high levels of disadvantage in terms of educational qualifications and migration background (e.g., Schober & Spieß, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref90">59</reflink>]). We also tested alternative specifications in sensitivity tests (see below).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-23">Regional Controls</hd> <p>As residential segregation might be an important driver of inequalities, particularly with respect to the composition of children in ECEC centers, we controlled for the unemployment rate at the county level, for the percentage of foreign citizens living within the same residential block in a 7-point index, and for the average SES of the block in a 7-point index. The latter represents a combined measure of the educational degrees and occupational status of residents in the area. Both measures of the residential area were constructed from the geographical Microm database (Goebel et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref91">24</reflink>]). To differentiate between rural and urban areas, we considered the number of inhabitants of the municipality. To capture variations in the level of structural quality offered in the neighborhood in which parents lived due to variations between state and municipality regulations, we controlled for the county means in child–teacher ratios for this age group, in the group size, and in the percentage of pedagogic staff with a vocational degree. These were the only regional indicators of ECEC quality available based on administrative records. As they correlated strongly, we included in the regression models only the most significant predictor of the respective dependent variable. In addition, we also considered whether the family lived in East or West Germany, as structural quality has been shown to differ significantly because of regulatory differences.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-24">ECEC Center Controls</hd> <p>We also took further characteristics of the chosen ECEC institution into account. We considered whether the institution had a focus on foreign languages and included a variable for the type of ECEC provider. The latter differentiated between (a) state or municipal providers, (b) church-related providers, (c) other nonprofit providers, and (d) less common types (such as parent initiatives, for-profit providers, and other forms). Just over 10% of institutions had a bilingual focus. A large majority of more than 80% of ECEC centers were run by state institutions or religious providers. Other provider types played a negligible role in most regions.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-25">Family Controls</hd> <p>Finally, we controlled for a number of other characteristics of the main caregiver and of the household that may influence parents' selection of an ECEC institution and therefore partly account for social and ethnic disparities. First of all, we considered the number of siblings and whether the main caregiver was a single parent, which was true in 16% of the cases. Second, we controlled for the employment status of the responding parent—mostly the mother—differentiating among not employed, working short part-time hours up to 15 hr per week, working longer part-time hours, or working full time and for the natural log of household income. Although about one third of mothers were not employed, the majority worked part time.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-26">Data Analytic Plan</hd> <p>We ran multivariate ordinary least squares regression models to investigate whether children with low educated parents or a non-German family language attended ECEC centers that differed with respect to several aspects of the ECEC learning environment (<emph>q<subs>i</subs></emph>; see Equation 1). We first estimated baseline models in which we included only parental educational attainment (<emph>e<subs>h</subs></emph>) and family language (<emph>l<subs>h</subs></emph>). In several steps, we added indicators of regional segregation in the neighborhood and structural quality at the county level (<emph>x<subs>r</subs></emph>), characteristics of the ECEC institution (<emph>y<subs>i</subs></emph>), and household-level control variables (<emph>z<subs>h</subs></emph>) to see whether including these variables reduced any differences by parental education and family language. As the differences were hardly affected, we show only the last modeling step including all control variables. We accounted for the clustering of children within institutions and counties by computing robust standard errors clustered at the county level:</p> <p>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref92">1</reflink>)</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>The intraclass correlations in a recent study (Stahl, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref93">61</reflink>]) based on the same data suggested that most of the variation in ECEC group quality characteristics was located at the institution and group level. For group size and teacher–child ratio, about 18% of the variation was located at the county level, about 30% at the institution level, and about 50% at the group level. For other quality aspects, like further training, activities, materials, and social composition, the variation was even smaller at the county level, and the majority of the variation was located at the institution or group level. Some additional tests of stepwise regression models of social composition pointed to family characteristics accounting for a larger share of the variation than county and neighborhood indicators.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-27">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0125435787-28">Descriptive Means by Parental Education and Family Language</hd> <p>Table 2 shows the means for the nine indicators of the ECEC learning environment (our dependent variables) for subgroups of children by parental education and family language (for an overview of bivariate correlations between all dependent variables and independent variables, see Tables A-2 and A-3 in the Appendix). Structural quality indicators, such as the average group size, child–teacher ratio in ECEC groups, and average days of further training for educators, did not differ by the education level of children's parents or by family language.</p> <p>Table 2. Means for ECEC characteristics by parental education and family language.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td /><td><italic>Parental Education</italic></td><td /><td><italic>Family Language</italic></td><td /></tr><tr><td><italic>ECEC Center Characteristic</italic></td><td><italic>All Families</italic></td><td><italic>Low</italic></td><td><italic>Medium</italic></td><td><italic>High</italic></td><td>p</td><td><italic>Non-German</italic></td><td><italic>German</italic></td><td>p</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Child–teacher ratio</td><td>12.76</td><td>12.66</td><td>12.96</td><td>12.18</td><td /><td>12.51</td><td>12.79</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Group size</td><td>20.1</td><td>19.94</td><td>20.12</td><td>20.10</td><td /><td>20.77</td><td>20.05</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Days of further training</td><td>4.52</td><td>4.52</td><td>4.46</td><td>4.74</td><td /><td>3.41</td><td>4.63</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Excursion index</td><td>2.22</td><td>2.07</td><td>2.21</td><td>2.22</td><td>a*, b<sup>†</sup></td><td>2.09</td><td>2.21</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td>Activities index</td><td>7.12</td><td>6.96</td><td>7.07</td><td>7.10</td><td /><td>6.90</td><td>7.10</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td>Materials index</td><td>1.62</td><td>1.62</td><td>1.64</td><td>1.62</td><td /><td>1.51</td><td>1.64</td><td>**</td></tr><tr><td>Share of children with low educated parents (%)</td><td>8.72</td><td>34.23</td><td>7.12</td><td>3.30</td><td>a***, b***, c***</td><td>20.20</td><td>7.64</td><td>***</td></tr><tr><td>Share of children with college-educated parents (%)</td><td>23.07</td><td>9.52</td><td>17.35</td><td>46.09</td><td>a***, b***, c***</td><td>13.80</td><td>23.94</td><td>**</td></tr><tr><td>Share of children with a non-German family language (%)</td><td>8.80</td><td>20.35</td><td>8.40</td><td>5.59</td><td>a**, b***, c**</td><td>32.43</td><td>6.62</td><td>***</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>10 <emph>Note</emph>. From National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref94">8</reflink>]. Significance levels are based on ordinary least squares regressions with robust standard errors clustering at the ECEC institution level. The letters <emph>a, b</emph>, and <emph>c</emph> refer to the two education groups that were compared: (a) low vs. medium, (b) low vs. high, (c) medium vs. high. ECEC = early childhood education and care. <sups>†</sups><emph>p</emph> < .1. *<emph>p</emph> < .05. **<emph>p</emph> < .01. ***<emph>p </emph>< .001.</p> <p>Children with low educated parents or a non-German family language attended ECEC groups that undertook slightly fewer excursions. Also, in terms of the frequency of activities and the availability of toys and materials, we observed slightly higher values for children with German family language. The size of all of these differences, however, ranged from one sixth to one third of a standard deviation and can be considered modest.</p> <p>More substantial differences emerged with respect to center composition. Children whose parents had low educational qualifications attended centers with an average percentage of children with low educated parents of 34% in contrast to an average of only 3% for children whose parents had a college degree. Children with a non-German family language attended centers with a proportion of 20% of children with low educated parents, whereas this average share was only 8% for children who spoke German at home. For the share of children with college-educated parents, the picture was reversed. The share of children who did not speak mostly German at home was on average 20% in ECEC institutions attended by children of low educated parents compared to 6% in centers attended by children of highly educated parents. Children who themselves mostly did not speak German at home attended institutions in which on average 32% of the children in the center had a non-German family language, whereas this share was only 7% for children from German-speaking families.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-29">Multivariate Analyses</hd> <p>Tables 3–5 show the main results for ordinary least squares regression models of structural quality, learning activities and play materials, and center composition, respectively.</p> <p>Table 3. Ordinary least squares regression models of structural ECEC quality.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td><italic>Child–Teacher Ratio</italic></td><td><italic>Group Size</italic></td><td><italic>Educator Further Training</italic></td></tr><tr><td><italic>Variable</italic></td><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Parental education and family language</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Medium parental education</td><td>0.35</td><td>0.72</td><td /><td>0.78</td><td>0.53</td><td /><td>0.03</td><td>0.96</td><td /></tr><tr><td> High parental education</td><td>0.39</td><td>1.05</td><td /><td>1.00</td><td>0.72</td><td /><td>0.65</td><td>1.20</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Family language not German</td><td>−0.30</td><td>0.78</td><td /><td>0.37</td><td>0.60</td><td /><td>−0.71</td><td>0.84</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Regional controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County unemployment rate</td><td>0.32</td><td>0.14</td><td>*</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.13</td><td /><td>0.26</td><td>0.17</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Foreign citizens in block</td><td>−0.03</td><td>0.10</td><td /><td>0.00</td><td>0.07</td><td /><td>0.11</td><td>0.10</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Socioeconomic status in residential block</td><td>−0.01</td><td>0.10</td><td /><td>0.09</td><td>0.08</td><td /><td>−0.11</td><td>0.10</td><td /></tr><tr><td> >100,000 inhabitants</td><td>−2.27</td><td>1.01</td><td>*</td><td>−0.89</td><td>1.00</td><td /><td>−1.09</td><td>1.52</td><td /></tr><tr><td> 20,000–100,000 inhabitants</td><td>−0.70</td><td>0.84</td><td /><td>0.08</td><td>0.65</td><td /><td>0.24</td><td>0.96</td><td /></tr><tr><td> County child–teacher ratio</td><td>0.80</td><td>0.40</td><td>*</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County group size</td><td /><td /><td /><td>0.51</td><td>0.21</td><td>*</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County percentage of educators with a vocational degree</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td>−0.08</td><td>0.07</td><td /></tr><tr><td> East Germany</td><td>1.03</td><td>1.22</td><td /><td>−0.83</td><td>2.26</td><td /><td>1.28</td><td>1.37</td><td /></tr><tr><td>ECEC center controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Religious provider</td><td>−1.26</td><td>0.70</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>0.56</td><td>0.73</td><td /><td>1.56</td><td>1.50</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Other nonprofit</td><td>−1.66</td><td>1.28</td><td /><td>−1.10</td><td>0.87</td><td /><td>0.47</td><td>1.17</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Parent initiative, for profit, or other</td><td>−5.24</td><td>1.15</td><td>***</td><td>−2.62</td><td>1.30</td><td>*</td><td>1.24</td><td>1.49</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Foreign language focus</td><td>2.47</td><td>1.39</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>1.36</td><td>0.82</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>−1.29</td><td>0.99</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Family controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> One sibling</td><td>−0.08</td><td>0.50</td><td /><td>0.21</td><td>0.37</td><td /><td>−0.74</td><td>0.59</td><td /></tr><tr><td> More than one sibling</td><td>0.46</td><td>0.50</td><td /><td>0.30</td><td>0.44</td><td /><td>−0.81</td><td>0.71</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Single parent</td><td>−0.93</td><td>0.59</td><td /><td>0.30</td><td>0.38</td><td /><td>−1.36</td><td>0.63</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td> Ln net household income</td><td>−0.38</td><td>0.38</td><td /><td>−0.34</td><td>0.33</td><td /><td>0.56</td><td>0.84</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother full time</td><td>0.61</td><td>0.51</td><td /><td>0.45</td><td>0.61</td><td /><td>−0.63</td><td>0.92</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother long part time</td><td>0.96</td><td>0.44</td><td>*</td><td>0.25</td><td>0.41</td><td /><td>−1.33</td><td>0.65</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td> Mother short part time</td><td>1.00</td><td>0.83</td><td /><td>−0.83</td><td>0.74</td><td /><td>−0.77</td><td>1.25</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>7.76</td><td>4.00</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>10.60</td><td>5.80</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>4.58</td><td>9.09</td><td /></tr><tr><td><italic>N</italic> children</td><td>1,651</td><td /><td /><td>1,712</td><td /><td /><td>1,800</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Adjusted <italic>R</italic><sup>2</sup></td><td>0.11</td><td /><td /><td>0.28</td><td /><td /><td>0.06</td><td /><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>11 <emph>Note</emph>. From National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref95">8</reflink>]. Reference categories are low parental education, German family language, <20,000 inhabitants, West Germany, municipality provider, no foreign language focus in ECEC center, no siblings, two-parent family, mother not employed. ECEC = early childhood education and care; <emph>RSE</emph> = robust standard error.</item> <item>12 <sups>†</sups><emph>p</emph> < .1. *<emph>p</emph> < .05. ***<emph>p </emph>< .001.</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0125435787-30">Structural Quality</hd> <p>There were no statistically significant differences by family language or education level of parents in using an ECEC center with high structural quality (see Table 3). Among the control variables, county-level averages of the respective quality indicators, the unemployment rate, town size, and ECEC provider type showed significant associations with some of the structural quality characteristics of ECEC centers. The adjusted <emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> of the models was greater for group size (.28) than for child–teacher ratio and further training (.11 and.06, respectively).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-31">Excursions, Activities, and Play Materials</hd> <p>As shown in Table 4, even after we included control variables, children with low educated parents or a non-German family language attended ECEC groups that took fewer excursions. The differences were of medium size, about one third and one fourth of a standard deviation, respectively.</p> <p>Table 4. Ordinary least squares regression models of excursions, activities, and play materials in ECEC center groups.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td><italic>Excursion Index</italic></td><td><italic>Activities Index</italic></td><td><italic>Materials Index</italic></td></tr><tr><td><italic>Variable</italic></td><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Parental education and family language</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Medium parental education</td><td>0.16</td><td>0.05</td><td>**</td><td>0.04</td><td>0.11</td><td /><td>−0.07</td><td>0.06</td><td /></tr><tr><td> High parental education</td><td>0.14</td><td>0.07</td><td>*</td><td>0.05</td><td>0.13</td><td /><td>−0.10</td><td>0.07</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Family language not German</td><td>−0.11</td><td>0.07</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>−0.14</td><td>0.12</td><td /><td>−0.14</td><td>0.06</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td>Regional controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County unemployment rate</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.01</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>−0.01</td><td>0.02</td><td /><td>0.01</td><td>0.01</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Foreign citizens in residential block</td><td>0.01</td><td>0.01</td><td /><td>0.01</td><td>0.01</td><td /><td>0.01</td><td>0.01</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Socioeconomic status in residential block</td><td>0.01</td><td>0.01</td><td /><td>0.02</td><td>0.01</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>0.02</td><td>0.01</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td> >100,000 inhabitants</td><td>0.04</td><td>0.09</td><td /><td>0.17</td><td>0.12</td><td /><td>−0.09</td><td>0.06</td><td /></tr><tr><td> 20,000–100,000 inhabitants</td><td>0.01</td><td>0.08</td><td /><td>−0.07</td><td>0.09</td><td /><td>0.01</td><td>0.05</td><td /></tr><tr><td> County child–teacher ratio</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.04</td><td /><td>0.05</td><td>0.05</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County group size</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td>0.01</td><td>0.01</td><td /></tr><tr><td> East Germany</td><td>−0.01</td><td>0.13</td><td /><td>0.14</td><td>0.20</td><td /><td>0.26</td><td>0.14</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td>ECEC center controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Religious provider</td><td>−0.11</td><td>0.08</td><td /><td>0.01</td><td>0.09</td><td /><td>0.07</td><td>0.06</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Other nonprofit</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.09</td><td /><td>−0.04</td><td>0.12</td><td /><td>0.09</td><td>0.08</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Parent initiative, for profit, or other provider</td><td>0.22</td><td>0.15</td><td /><td>0.15</td><td>0.19</td><td /><td>0.21</td><td>0.12</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td> Foreign language focus</td><td>−0.15</td><td>0.11</td><td /><td>−0.34</td><td>0.14</td><td>*</td><td>0.04</td><td>0.06</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Family controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> One sibling</td><td>−0.03</td><td>0.03</td><td /><td>−0.04</td><td>0.06</td><td /><td>−0.02</td><td>0.03</td><td /></tr><tr><td> More than one sibling</td><td>−0.02</td><td>0.04</td><td /><td>−0.03</td><td>0.07</td><td /><td>−0.05</td><td>0.04</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Single parent</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.04</td><td /><td>0.05</td><td>0.06</td><td /><td>−0.02</td><td>0.04</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Ln net household income</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.03</td><td /><td>−0.02</td><td>0.05</td><td /><td>−0.01</td><td>0.03</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother full time</td><td>0.01</td><td>0.04</td><td /><td>0.02</td><td>0.06</td><td /><td>0.02</td><td>0.04</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother long part time</td><td>0.00</td><td>0.04</td><td /><td>−0.01</td><td>0.04</td><td /><td>0.04</td><td>0.03</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother short part time</td><td>0.07</td><td>0.06</td><td /><td>0.04</td><td>0.09</td><td /><td>0.15</td><td>0.06</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>1.58</td><td>0.43</td><td>***</td><td>6.76</td><td>0.51</td><td>***</td><td>1.29</td><td>0.41</td><td>**</td></tr><tr><td><italic>N</italic> children</td><td>1,733</td><td /><td /><td>1,712</td><td /><td /><td>1,535</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Adjusted <italic>R</italic><sup>2</sup></td><td>0.10</td><td /><td /><td>0.09</td><td /><td /><td>0.10</td><td /><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>13 <emph>Note</emph>. From National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref96">8</reflink>]. Reference categories are low parental education, German family language, <20,000 inhabitants, West Germany, municipality provider, no foreign language focus in ECEC center, no siblings, two-parent family, mother not employed. ECEC = early childhood education and care; <emph>RSE</emph> = robust standard error.</item> <item>14 <sups>†</sups><emph>p</emph> < .1. *<emph>p</emph> < .05. **<emph>p</emph> < .01. ***<emph>p </emph>< .001.</item> </ulist> <p>For the activities performed in the ECEC group, we found no significant associations with either parental education or family language after we included regional control variables.</p> <p>Children who mostly did not speak German at home attended ECEC groups with fewer available toys and play materials even after we accounted for household, ECEC center, and regional characteristics. The difference amounted to about one third of a standard deviation. Parents' education level was not significantly associated with the available materials in the ECEC group. Few of the control variables contributed significantly to explaining the variations in excursions, learning activities, and play materials. The relatively low adjusted <emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> of about.10 across all of the models pointed to large unexplained variation in these aspects of child care quality.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-32">ECEC Center Composition</hd> <p>Even after we accounted for residential segregation and regional, institutional, and household characteristics, substantial compositional differences by parental education level and by language spoken at home remained (see Table 5). Compared to children of low educated parents, children whose parent had completed a college degree or vocational training on average attended ECEC centers with 21 and 22 percentage points lower shares of children with a low educated parent, respectively. These differences can be considered large, as they equal about 140% of a standard deviation. Children with a college-educated parent on average attended ECEC centers with a 22 percentage point larger share of children with college-educated parents compared to children whose main caregiver had completed less than vocational training. Again, this difference of about 1 <emph>SD</emph> must be considered substantial. Regarding the percentage of children with a non-German family language, the models showed substantial differences of about 21 percentage points between children with and without German family language. This difference equals 145% of a standard deviation.</p> <p>Table 5. Ordinary least squares regression models of ECEC center composition.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td><italic>Share of Children With Low Educated Parents</italic></td><td><italic>Share of Children With College-Educated Parents</italic></td><td><italic>Share of Children With a Non-German Family Language</italic></td></tr><tr><td><italic>Variable</italic></td><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /><td>b</td><td>RSE</td><td /></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Parental education and family language</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Medium parental education</td><td>−21.01</td><td>4.89</td><td>***</td><td>2.20</td><td>1.65</td><td /><td>−2.58</td><td>2.65</td><td /></tr><tr><td> High parental education</td><td>−21.61</td><td>4.74</td><td>***</td><td>21.87</td><td>2.76</td><td>***</td><td>−4.04</td><td>2.63</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Family language not German</td><td>0.74</td><td>2.27</td><td /><td>−2.19</td><td>1.90</td><td /><td>21.09</td><td>3.13</td><td>***</td></tr><tr><td>Regional controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> County unemployment rate</td><td>1.02</td><td>0.32</td><td>**</td><td>−1.08</td><td>0.41</td><td>*</td><td>0.44</td><td>0.36</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Foreign citizens in residential block</td><td>0.06</td><td>0.18</td><td /><td>0.29</td><td>0.26</td><td /><td>0.33</td><td>0.21</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td> Socioeconomic status in residential block</td><td>−0.87</td><td>0.34</td><td>*</td><td>2.22</td><td>0.24</td><td>***</td><td>−0.37</td><td>0.23</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td> >100,000 inhabitants</td><td>−0.59</td><td>1.93</td><td /><td>11.25</td><td>3.70</td><td>***</td><td>2.62</td><td>1.85</td><td /></tr><tr><td> 20,000–100,000 inhabitants</td><td>3.06</td><td>1.64</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>2.09</td><td>2.44</td><td /><td>3.62</td><td>1.61</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td> County child–teacher ratio</td><td>0.50</td><td>0.76</td><td /><td>−3.18</td><td>2.12</td><td /><td>0.21</td><td>0.78</td><td /></tr><tr><td> East Germany</td><td>−10.67</td><td>2.17</td><td>***</td><td>9.26</td><td>6.00</td><td /><td>−5.36</td><td>2.16</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td>ECEC center controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Religious provider</td><td>−3.79</td><td>1.86</td><td>*</td><td>1.47</td><td>2.66</td><td /><td>−1.22</td><td>1.66</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Other nonprofit</td><td>−2.66</td><td>2.44</td><td /><td>−2.00</td><td>4.18</td><td /><td>−3.30</td><td>2.01</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td> Parent initiative, for profit, or other provider</td><td>−6.72</td><td>1.66</td><td>***</td><td>14.88</td><td>3.88</td><td>***</td><td>−3.87</td><td>1.93</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><td> Foreign language focus</td><td>1.55</td><td>1.72</td><td /><td>−1.96</td><td>1.85</td><td /><td>2.82</td><td>2.10</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Family controls</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> One sibling</td><td>−0.39</td><td>0.94</td><td /><td>2.37</td><td>1.17</td><td>*</td><td>0.99</td><td>0.78</td><td /></tr><tr><td> More than one sibling</td><td>−0.99</td><td>1.19</td><td /><td>4.81</td><td>1.71</td><td>*</td><td>−1.43</td><td>0.87</td><td><sup>†</sup></td></tr><tr><td> Single parent</td><td>1.85</td><td>1.40</td><td /><td>2.27</td><td>1.69</td><td /><td>0.31</td><td>0.95</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Ln net household income</td><td>−1.15</td><td>0.71</td><td><sup>†</sup></td><td>1.54</td><td>1.13</td><td /><td>−0.46</td><td>0.81</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother full time</td><td>−0.36</td><td>0.93</td><td /><td>−0.06</td><td>2.03</td><td /><td>0.63</td><td>1.04</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother long part time</td><td>−1.03</td><td>0.97</td><td /><td>1.13</td><td>1.95</td><td /><td>0.06</td><td>0.74</td><td /></tr><tr><td> Mother short part time</td><td>−1.26</td><td>1.32</td><td /><td>0.56</td><td>2.35</td><td /><td>−0.56</td><td>1.82</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>32.05</td><td>10.03</td><td>**</td><td>15.77</td><td>20.11</td><td /><td>7.47</td><td>8.55</td><td /></tr><tr><td><italic>N</italic> children</td><td>1,801</td><td /><td /><td>1,801</td><td /><td /><td>1,801</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Adjusted <italic>R</italic><sup>2</sup></td><td>0.42</td><td /><td /><td>0.45</td><td /><td /><td>0.33</td><td /><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>15 <emph>Note</emph>. From National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort, 2011. Reference categories are low parental education, German family language, <20,000 inhabitants, West Germany, municipality provider, no foreign language focus in ECEC center, no siblings, two-parent family, mother not employed. ECEC = early childhood education and care; <emph>RSE</emph> = robust standard error.</item> <item>16 <sups>†</sups><emph>p</emph> < .1. *<emph>p</emph> < .05. **<emph>p</emph> < .01. ***<emph>p </emph>< .001.</item> </ulist> <p>It is not surprising that regional characteristics were very important in explaining compositional differences between ECEC centers: Counties' unemployment rates, the SES of the residential area, the number of inhabitants of the municipality, and the region (East/West) were significantly associated with ECEC center composition. Regarding other ECEC center characteristics, it turned out that parent initiatives, for-profit providers, or other providers showed more favorable child compositions than ECEC centers run by municipality providers. Few other household-level control variables showed significant relationships with the three measures of ECEC center composition. Because of the strong association of parental education and language background and regional characteristics with ECEC center composition, the adjusted <emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups>s of these models were relatively large, ranging from.33 to.45.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-33">Sensitivity Analyses</hd> <p>We tested binary specifications of some of the dependent variables using logistic regression models (available on request). We examined a binary measure of whether pedagogic staff had completed any further training. For each of the indices of excursions, activities, and materials, we examined categorical specifications distinguishing the top 10% or 25% of groups from the rest. The results were similar to those presented previously. We also performed a cluster analysis to see whether parents might have chosen ECEC quality characteristics as a bundle instead of optimizing individual aspects. Again we found hardly any significant differences by parental education level or family language.</p> <p>We also tested less extreme specifications of low education and non-German family language and examined how the results changed if we focused on migration background instead of family language. First, we included parents with A-level degrees but no vocational training. Second, we tested two indicators distinguishing whether (a) the parent's mother tongue was not German or (b) the child's mother tongue was not German. Third, we operationalized migration background as at least one parent having been born abroad. Some of these specifications showed smaller differences in terms of excursions and available materials. The variations in terms of composition were hardly affected.</p> <p>Tests with additional control variables, including the number of children and pedagogic staff in the respective ECEC center, group structure, child age and health, and home learning environment, did not alter substantially the relationships between the dependent variables and parental education level and family language.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-34">Discussion</hd> <p>This study explored social and ethnic differences in the use of early education institutions with varying characteristics by 4- and 5-year-old children in Germany. We extended the literature by comparing several different dimensions of ECEC centers' learning environments and by examining whether differences by parental education level and family language in the use of ECEC institutions are similar across different aspects of the learning environment. We conclude that the extent of social and ethnic disparities in using an ECEC center varies strongly by different dimensions of the ECEC learning environment. Both hypotheses were only partly supported: For structural quality, we did not find any differences by parental education or family language. Regarding activities and materials, we found only moderate differences for some quality aspects by parental education (excursions) and by family language (excursions and materials). In contrast, strong associations could be found between parental education and family language by compositional characteristics of ECEC centers: Children of low educated parents and those with a non-German family language attended institutions with higher proportions of children from families with low educated parents and from families with a non-German family language, respectively.</p> <p>On the whole, our results provide only limited support for the family investment model in terms of ECEC choices of parents, as social and ethnic differences with respect to the most easily observable structural quality indicators such as group size and child–teacher ratio were not significant. The accommodation model fits the results better, particularly with respect to the large differences we found in terms of the composition of ECEC institutions, as stratified social networks, information, and cultural preferences may be possible explanations.</p> <p>Our results of hardly any differences in the use of high-quality ECEC institutions by parental education and family language seem surprising and clearly contradict our hypotheses. However, they are quite in line with similar results from the German BiKS study (Bildungsprozesse, Kompetenzentwicklung und Selektionsentscheidungen im Vor- und Grundschulalter; Lehrl et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref97">37</reflink>]). In contrast, studies from the United States more frequently (although not consistently) have found social and ethnic differences in the use of high-quality ECEC centers (Bolger & Scarr, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref98">10</reflink>]; Karoly & Gonzalez, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref99">33</reflink>]; Torquati et al., [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref100">64</reflink>]). However, the results of our study are hardly comparable to the results from U.S. studies because of the very different ECEC systems. It would be an interesting question for future research whether these differences appear precisely <emph>because</emph> of the different ECEC systems. One may speculate that a system with universal ECEC access, a large share of public ECEC funding, and low parental fees (as in Germany) might reduce inequalities in access to high-quality ECEC centers. At the same time, the German ECEC system offers on average only mediocre quality (Tietze et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref101">63</reflink>]). It would therefore be interesting to systematically evaluate in future research how much these and other characteristics of ECEC systems are related to (a) the average quality of ECEC institutions and (b) equality in access to high-quality ECEC institutions. To test this empirically, one would need an international comparative study that included more countries with varying ECEC systems. With such a study, researchers could analyze how high ECEC quality as well as equal access to high-quality institutions can be ensured simultaneously.</p> <p>In contrast to the small or nonexistent social and ethnic differences in the use of high-quality ECEC centers, our results point to substantial compositional differences by parental education and family language even after we accounted for measures of regional ECEC context and residential segregation. These findings are consonant with those presented by Becker ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref102">6</reflink>]) in her regionally more restricted analysis in two German states. In our study, the quality indicators showed no or only small correlations with the composition indicators (see Table A-2). The two largest correlations were found between the share of children with a non-German family language and group size (<emph>r</emph> = .135) and between the share of children of low educated parents and the frequency of excursions (<emph>r</emph> = .10). Thus, studies that only focus on ECEC quality and do not consider the composition of children might miss an important independent aspect of the ECEC learning environment that seems to be associated with more selectivity on the part of parents than the standard quality indicators.</p> <p>So the question instantly arises why we found more pronounced differences regarding ECEC composition than ECEC quality. Parents in Germany may not be able to assess differences across ECEC centers in terms of quality—but they probably can do so regarding centers' compositions of children. Segregation in preschools and schools is much more visible to parents than quality differences are—and it is also a prominent topic in the German media. The flight of native-born German parents from schools with a high concentration of ethnic minorities has already been demonstrated (Morris-Lange et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref103">45</reflink>])—similar processes may be at work for ECEC center selection.</p> <p>The large selectivity in choosing ECEC centers with specific social and ethnic compositions also highlights the need to better understand the possible consequences of such compositions. Previous research suggested that a higher proportion of high-SES peers and higher average peer skill levels (which are both correlated) positively affect children's cognitive and language skills (Henry & Rickman, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref104">28</reflink>]; Melhuish et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref105">41</reflink>]; Reid & Ready, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref106">55</reflink>]; Weiland & Yoshikawa, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref107">67</reflink>]). In addition, a higher share of peers from immigrant families in the ECEC center is negatively associated with children's language skills—but only for children of immigrants who speak a foreign language at home (Klein & Becker, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref108">35</reflink>]; Niklas et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref109">51</reflink>]). These results show that compositional characteristics of ECEC centers may indeed be consequential for children's future educational careers and clearly suggest that socially and ethnically diverse ECEC classrooms are preferable to segregated classrooms with high proportions of children from low-SES and ethnic minority backgrounds (Reid et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref110">54</reflink>]). However, the exact relationships with respect to possible thresholds or other nonlinear relations have hardly been analyzed so far. This is clearly an important topic for future research. Regarding the consequences of compositional characteristics of ECEC centers, other outcomes should also be regarded in future research that were not the focus of this article: Socially and ethnically diverse ECEC institutions may also be advantageous for children's social skill development and may reduce prejudices and promote cross-cultural relationships (Reid et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref111">54</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-35">Limitations</hd> <p>Our study only aimed to analyze whether social and ethnic disparities in the use of ECEC centers with a beneficial learning environment exist. Because of data limitations, we were not able to further explore the reasons for these disparities (e.g., the role of social networks or parents' knowledge about or trust in ECEC quality). A further limitation is that the available data did not allow us to assess whether the considerable variation in quality at the county level and the federal state level is also reflected in variation at the neighborhood level, which is crucial for assessing the amount of choice parents have between institutions of different quality. Furthermore, we had to rely on rather restricted measures of residential segregation. Future research using other data sets should aim to understand better how residential segregation and regional disparities structure parental ECEC selection (see also Bassok & Galdo, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref112">5</reflink>]; Burchinal, Nelson, Carlson, & Brooks-Gunn, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref113">15</reflink>]; Cloney, Cleveland, Hattie, & Tayler, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref114">19</reflink>]). Furthermore, it is debatable how well our dependent variables represented good indicators of a beneficial learning environment. Structural quality indicators do not always show a clear association with children's development or work only indirectly (e.g., Mashburn et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref115">38</reflink>]; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref116">49</reflink>]). With regard to process quality, we were only able to draw on indicators for one subdimension (materials and learning activities) and could not consider measures based on expert observations, for instance of interactions of teachers with children, which have often been found to be most closely related to child development. The questionnaire items we used will need further validation with respect to their relationship with observed process quality and child development. We used continuous variables of composition of children with different family background characteristics as imperfect proxies for skill level composition. Although the effects of composition are unlikely to be linear, to date there are no established thresholds in this regard in the literature (e.g., which exact shares of high- or low-SES children constitute a beneficial composition). Hence, our results should be interpreted in a broader sense in terms of parents using an ECEC center with a higher or lower share of children with certain background characteristics. Overall our results therefore can only be interpreted as measuring social differences in some contextual conditions in terms of staff, material equipment, and composition that some previous studies have found to relate to process quality in ECEC institutions and child development.</p> <p>Despite these limitations, this study provides an important extension to the existing literature by examining social and ethnic differences in various characteristics of ECEC services received by children for a representative sample of ECEC institutions in Germany. We investigated a larger range of indicators of the ECEC learning environment than previous studies to better understand how parents choose between ECEC institutions and have shown that it is important to differentiate between ECEC quality and compositional characteristics.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-36">Policy Implications</hd> <p>The finding that large social and ethnic inequalities in ECEC use exist regarding the composition of children is also of great relevance to policy, as these compositions are also consequential for children's academic development (see also Reid et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref117">54</reflink>]). One implication may be that state funding rules and structural quality standards (e.g., group sizes) should take the social and ethnic composition of the children in the ECEC centers more strongly into account. So far only half of the German states have regulations that provide more funding for individual children from disadvantaged backgrounds or institutions with a high share of such children. However, the threshold levels at which current regulations allocate more resources to ECEC institutions with disadvantaged children vary and can be as high as 40% (Hogrebe, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref118">29</reflink>], pp. 166–170), which is likely to support only institutions and neighborhoods with a very high prevalence of disadvantage. Moreover, directors and pedagogic staff of ECEC centers with high concentrations of children from families with low educational qualifications and a non-German family language face particular challenges that may require further support. They not only need to develop good pedagogical concepts that take into account the composition of children but also need to communicate these concepts well to (potentially interested) parents to counteract social and ethnic segregation at the ECEC institution level.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-37">Acknowledgment</hd> <p>This paper uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): Starting Cohort 2–Kindergarten (From Kindergarten to Elementary School), doi:10.5157/NEPS:SC2:2.0.0. From 2008 to 2013, the NEPS data was collected as part of the Framework Program for the Promotion of Empirical Educational Research, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. As of 2014, the NEPS is carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories at the University of Bamberg in cooperation with a nationwide network.</p> <hd id="AN0125435787-38">Appendix</hd> <p>Table A-1. Descriptive statistics regarding parents' (most) important criteria for ECEC selection.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td><italic>Mentioned as the Most Important Criterion</italic></td><td><italic>Mentioned as One Out of Five Important Criteria</italic></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><italic>Aggregated Answer Categories</italic></td><td>n</td><td><italic>%</italic></td><td>n</td><td><italic>%</italic></td></tr><tr><td>Criterion related to convenience or work compatibility (proximity, opening hours, sibling)</td><td>366</td><td>64.89</td><td>541</td><td>73.11</td></tr><tr><td>Criterion regarding structural quality, pedagogic concept, or activities</td><td>120</td><td>21.28</td><td>490</td><td>66.22</td></tr><tr><td>Other criterion (recommendation, parental influence)</td><td>18</td><td>3.19</td><td>223</td><td>30.14</td></tr><tr><td>Had no choice</td><td>60</td><td>10.64</td><td>60</td><td>8.11</td></tr><tr><td><italic>N</italic></td><td>564</td><td>100.00</td><td>740</td><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> <emph>Note</emph>. From K<sups>2</sups>ID ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref119">31</reflink>]).</p> <p>Table A-2. Pairwise Pearson correlation coefficients for the dependent variables.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td><italic>Variable</italic></td><td><italic>1</italic></td><td><italic>2</italic></td><td><italic>3</italic></td><td><italic>4</italic></td><td><italic>5</italic></td><td><italic>6</italic></td><td><italic>7</italic></td><td><italic>8</italic></td><td><italic>9</italic></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1. Child–teacher ratio</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>2. Group size</td><td>.253***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>3. Days of further training</td><td>.024</td><td>−.094***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>4. Excursion index</td><td>−.024</td><td>−.065**</td><td>.034</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>5. Activities index</td><td>−.080**</td><td>.132***</td><td>−.029</td><td>.153***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>6. Materials index</td><td>−.0405</td><td>−.165***</td><td>.026</td><td>.246***</td><td>.142***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>7. Share of children with low educated parents</td><td>−.0313</td><td>.038</td><td>.010</td><td>−.104***</td><td>−.019</td><td>−.022</td><td>—</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>8. Share of children with college-educated parents</td><td>−.099***</td><td>−.055*</td><td>.000</td><td>.020</td><td>.060*</td><td>−.017</td><td>−.348***</td><td>—</td><td /></tr><tr><td>9. Share of children with a non-German family language</td><td>−.0271</td><td>.135***</td><td>−.044<sup>†</sup></td><td>−.098***</td><td>−.048*</td><td>−.085***</td><td>.452***</td><td>−.204***</td><td>—</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> <emph>Note</emph>. From National Educational Panel Study—Kindergarten Cohort, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref120">8</reflink>]. <sups>†</sups><emph>p</emph> <.1. *<emph>p</emph> <.05. **<emph>p</emph> <.01. ***<emph>p </emph><.001.</p> <p>Table A-3. Pairwise Pearson correlation coefficients for dependent and independent variables.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td><italic>Variable</italic></td><td><italic>1</italic></td><td><italic>2</italic></td><td><italic>3</italic></td><td><italic>4</italic></td><td><italic>5</italic></td><td><italic>6</italic></td><td><italic>7</italic></td><td><italic>8</italic></td><td><italic>9</italic></td><td><italic>10</italic></td><td><italic>11</italic></td><td><italic>12</italic></td><td><italic>13</italic></td><td><italic>14</italic></td><td><italic>15</italic></td><td><italic>16</italic></td><td><italic>17</italic></td><td><italic>18</italic></td><td><italic>19</italic></td><td><italic>20</italic></td><td><italic>21</italic></td><td><italic>22</italic></td><td><italic>23</italic></td><td><italic>24</italic></td><td><italic>25</italic></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1. Child–teacher ratio</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>2. Group size</td><td>.25 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>3. Further training</td><td>.02</td><td>−.09 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>4. Excursions</td><td>−.02</td><td>−.06 **</td><td>.03</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>5. Activities</td><td>−.08 *</td><td>.13 ***</td><td>−.03</td><td>.15 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>6. Materials</td><td>−.04</td><td>−.16 ***</td><td>.03</td><td>.25 ***</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>7. Share of children with less educated parents</td><td>−.03</td><td>.04</td><td>.01</td><td>−.1 ***</td><td>−.02</td><td>−.02</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>8. Share of children with college-educated parents</td><td>−.10 ***</td><td>−.06 *</td><td>.00</td><td>.02</td><td>.06 *</td><td>−.02</td><td>−.35 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>9. Share of children with a non-German family language</td><td>−.03</td><td>.13 ***</td><td>−.04</td><td>−.1 ***</td><td>−.05 *</td><td>−.09 ***</td><td>.45 ***</td><td>−.20 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>10. Low education</td><td>−.01</td><td>−.01</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.08 ***</td><td>−.05 *</td><td>−.01</td><td>.54 ***</td><td>−.19 ***</td><td>.25 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>11. Foreign family language</td><td>−.01</td><td>.04</td><td>−.03</td><td>−.07 **</td><td>−.07 **</td><td>−.09 ***</td><td>.23 ***</td><td>−.12 ***</td><td>.50 ***</td><td>.32 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>12. Unemployment rate</td><td>.03</td><td>−.25 ***</td><td>.07 **</td><td>.20 ***</td><td>.01</td><td>.07 **</td><td>.24 ***</td><td>−.05</td><td>.16 ***</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>.10 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>13. Foreign citizens in block</td><td>−.03</td><td>.06 **</td><td>.00</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.05</td><td>.22 ***</td><td>−.03</td><td>.25 ***</td><td>.21 ***</td><td>.22 ***</td><td>.16 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>14. Socioeconomic status in block</td><td>−.04</td><td>.13 ***</td><td>−.04</td><td>−.04</td><td>.05 *</td><td>.00</td><td>−.25 ***</td><td>.39 ***</td><td>−.12 ***</td><td>−.20 ***</td><td>−.12 ***</td><td>−.27 ***</td><td>.04</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>15. Rural area</td><td>.11 ***</td><td>.03</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.09 ***</td><td>−.00</td><td>.00</td><td>−.2 ***-</td><td>−.13 ***</td><td>−.22 ***</td><td>−.13 ***</td><td>−.12 ***</td><td>−.4 ***</td><td>−.25 ***</td><td>.02</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>16. County child–teacher ratio</td><td>.12 ***</td><td>.08 **</td><td>−.03</td><td>−.01</td><td>.02</td><td>.02</td><td>.00</td><td>−.31 ***</td><td>−.07 **</td><td>.01</td><td>−.01</td><td>−.29 ***</td><td>−.17 ***</td><td>−.15 ***</td><td>.32 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>17. County group size</td><td>−.03</td><td>.44 ***</td><td>−.03</td><td>−.18 ***</td><td>.10 ***</td><td>−.13 ***</td><td>.13 ***</td><td>−.15 ***</td><td>.09 ***</td><td>.08 **</td><td>.03</td><td>−.41 ***</td><td>.06 *</td><td>.11 ***</td><td>−.03</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>18. Percentage of educators in county with a vocational degree</td><td>.07 **</td><td>−.25 ***</td><td>−.02</td><td>.05 *</td><td>−.04</td><td>.08 **</td><td>−.02</td><td>−.03</td><td>.01</td><td>−.03</td><td>.03</td><td>.30 ***</td><td>−.06 *</td><td>−.18 ***</td><td>.05</td><td>.05</td><td>−.56 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>19. East Germany</td><td>.13 ***</td><td>−.45 ***</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>−.08 **</td><td>.20 ***</td><td>−.14 ***</td><td>.02</td><td>−.16 ***</td><td>−.08 **</td><td>−.08 **</td><td>.43 ***</td><td>−.17 ***</td><td>−.21 ***</td><td>.04</td><td>.06 *</td><td>−.87 ***</td><td>.62 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>20. Siblings</td><td>.02</td><td>.02</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.04</td><td>−.01</td><td>−.06*</td><td>.08 ***</td><td>.05 *</td><td>−.01</td><td>.24 ***</td><td>.08 **</td><td>.00</td><td>.1 ***</td><td>.04</td><td>.02</td><td>.01</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.02</td><td>−.05</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>21. Single parent</td><td>−.03</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.03</td><td>.03</td><td>.03</td><td>−.01</td><td>.16 ***</td><td>−.08 ***</td><td>.03</td><td>.09 ***</td><td>−.03</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>.05 *</td><td>−.1 ***</td><td>.07 **</td><td>−.04</td><td>−.04</td><td>−.03</td><td>.01</td><td>−.04</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>22. Household income</td><td>−.03</td><td>.01</td><td>.00</td><td>.01</td><td>.01</td><td>.01</td><td>−.31 ***</td><td>.33 ***</td><td>−.19 ***</td><td>−.28 ***</td><td>−.21 ***</td><td>−.20 ***</td><td>−.15 ***</td><td>.34 ***</td><td>.08 ***</td><td>−.05 *</td><td>−.02</td><td>−.05</td><td>−.06 *</td><td>.05</td><td>−.47 ***</td><td>—</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>23. Mother works full time</td><td>.02</td><td>−.03</td><td>.02</td><td>.03</td><td>.00</td><td>.03</td><td>−.04</td><td>.03</td><td>.00</td><td>−.07 **</td><td>.01</td><td>.08 **</td><td>−.01</td><td>.02</td><td>.00</td><td>−.08 **</td><td>−.11 ***</td><td>.07 **</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>−.09 ***</td><td>.02</td><td>.06 **</td><td>—</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>24. State provider</td><td>.10 ***</td><td>.08 **</td><td>−.05 *</td><td>−.00</td><td>−.05 *</td><td>−.12 ***</td><td>.09 ***</td><td>−.02</td><td>.05 *</td><td>.03</td><td>.01</td><td>−.08 ***</td><td>.03</td><td>.08 ***</td><td>.03</td><td>−.08 **</td><td>.07 **</td><td>.06 *</td><td>−.10 ***</td><td>.04</td><td>−.04</td><td>.03</td><td>.01</td><td>—</td><td /></tr><tr><td>25. Bilingual center</td><td>.10 ***</td><td>.14 ***</td><td>−.05 *</td><td>−.12 ***</td><td>−.19 ***</td><td>−.00</td><td>.01</td><td>.02</td><td>.07 **</td><td>−.00</td><td>.03</td><td>−.16 ***</td><td>.05 *</td><td>.13 ***</td><td>.09 ***</td><td>−.14 ***</td><td>.06 *</td><td>−.11 ***</td><td>−.11 ***</td><td>.01</td><td>.04</td><td>.06 *</td><td>.08 **</td><td>.17 ***</td><td>—</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> <emph>Note</emph>. 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Header DbId: eric
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An: EJ1154488
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PubType: Academic Journal
PubTypeId: academicJournal
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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Not Just Any Child Care Center? Social and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Early Education Institutions with a Beneficial Learning Environment
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Becker%2C+Birgit%22">Becker, Birgit</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Schober%2C+Pia+Sophia%22">Schober, Pia Sophia</searchLink>
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Early+Education+and+Development%22"><i>Early Education and Development</i></searchLink>. 2017 28(8):1011-1034.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 24
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2017
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Child+Care+Centers%22">Child Care Centers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Environment%22">Educational Environment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Influences%22">Social Influences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Ethnic+Groups%22">Ethnic Groups</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Racial+Differences%22">Racial Differences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Statistical+Analysis%22">Statistical Analysis</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Attainment%22">Educational Attainment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Parent+Background%22">Parent Background</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+Usage%22">Language Usage</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22German%22">German</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Environmental+Influences%22">Environmental Influences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Family+Environment%22">Family Environment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hypothesis+Testing%22">Hypothesis Testing</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Quality%22">Educational Quality</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Learning+Activities%22">Learning Activities</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interviews%22">Interviews</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Questionnaires%22">Questionnaires</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Class+Size%22">Class Size</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Multivariate+Analysis%22">Multivariate Analysis</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Germany%22">Germany</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/10409289.2017.1320900
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1040-9289
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: This study investigates social and ethnic differences in the use of early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers with different learning environments in an ECEC system with universal state-subsidized provision and low fees. Based on the German National Educational Panel Study-Kindergarten Cohort from 2011, we matched data on 587 groups in 253 ECEC centers with information on about 1,700 children and their parents and applied stepwise multivariate regression models. Research Findings: The results showed that social and ethnic differences tended to be small and were mostly not significant in terms of structural quality, activities, and materials in ECEC centers. In contrast, large disparities emerged regarding the use of ECEC centers with different compositions of children: Children of low educated parents and those with a non-German family language attended institutions with higher proportions of children from families with low educated parents and from families with a non-German family language, respectively. Practice or Policy: To counteract and compensate for the large disparities in the social and ethnic composition of children in ECEC centers, state funding rules and structural quality standards should take the composition more strongly into account.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: Ref
  Label: Number of References
  Group: RefInfo
  Data: 68
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2017
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1154488
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1154488
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/10409289.2017.1320900
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 24
        StartPage: 1011
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Early Childhood Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Child Care Centers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Educational Environment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Social Influences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Ethnic Groups
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Racial Differences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Statistical Analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Educational Attainment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Parent Background
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      – SubjectFull: Language Usage
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      – SubjectFull: German
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      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
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      – SubjectFull: Environmental Influences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Family Environment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Hypothesis Testing
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Educational Quality
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Learning Activities
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Interviews
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Questionnaires
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Class Size
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Multivariate Analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Germany
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Not Just Any Child Care Center? Social and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Early Education Institutions with a Beneficial Learning Environment
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            NameFull: Becker, Birgit
      – PersonEntity:
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            NameFull: Schober, Pia Sophia
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2017
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              Value: 1040-9289
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              Value: 28
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              Value: 8
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Early Education and Development
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