Early Childhood Research for Educational Equity: Family-School-Systems Connections - Paperback

by Christine M. McWayne (Author), Vivian L. Gadsden (Author)

How can we close opportunity gaps for young children affected by poverty and systemic racism--and build hope and resilience for children and their families? Research points the way forward, and in this timely volume, 40] leading researchers identify new approaches, insights, and technologies that can promote educational equity and improve outcomes for children and families living in poverty.

Building on the seminal work of researcher John Fantuzzo, this book focuses on identifying and expanding on child, family, and community strengths to address the urgent needs of the whole child and the whole family. The expert contributors examine the importance of 1) child-level strengths and social connections, 2) strengths-based intervention as an antidote to deficit framing, and 3) collaboration and data sharing across systems serving vulnerable children and families.

Chapters cover research and recommendations for:

• implementing interventions that foster children's social-emotional learning skills
• developing culturally and linguistically valid tools for measuring social-emotional development
• creating more culturally inclusive preschool classrooms and practices
• enhancing young children's communication and language competence in home visiting programs
• using partnership-based approaches to strengthen understanding between home and school settings
• integrating data across programs and agencies to inform early childhood policy and better address complex social issues

In addition to reporting on current research projects, the contributors outline future priorities and explore how research can inform policy and practice to achieve positive, sustainable change. A foundational volume for current and future early childhood researchers, administrators, and policy makers, this forward-thinking book will light the path toward greater educational equity, reduced disparities, and better outcomes for children and families.

Author Biography

Christine M. McWayne, Professor, in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, is an applied developmental psychologist and a community-based educational researcher whose work has centered on fostering better understandings of the early social and learning successes of young children growing up in urban poverty, as well as on understanding how to better support and connect the adult contributors to children's early development--their parents and teachers.

Underpinning her research with these adults are attempts to "flip the script," so to speak, and create the space for practitioners and family members supporting children's development to tell us what they know, what they do, and how they do it, so that their experiential knowledge can inform our scientific knowledge base. Dr. McWayne has served as Principal Investigator (PI) on several grants, including from the National Institutes of Health, the Administration for Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the Brady Education Foundation. She has served as a consultant on numerous local, state, and federal working groups and expert convenings on topics such as: dual language learners' school readiness, assessment, family engagement, parenting, and Head Start programming. Dr. McWayne has also served on the editorial boards of Early Childhood Research Quarterly, the National Head Start Associationâ (TM)s Dialog, and as Associate Editor for the Educational Researcher, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, and Journal of School Psychology. She received her Ph.D. in School, Community and Clinical-Child Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Vivian L. Gadsden is the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development, Professor of Education, and Director of the National Center on Fathers and Families at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a professor of Africana Studies and of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. Her research, scholarly interests, and writing focus on learning and literacies across the life-course and address issues of equity, access, and change for young children and families in historically marginalized communities. Her conceptual framework, family cultures, has been used widely to examine the interconnectedness among families' political, cultural, and social histories and racialized identities; social practices; and literacy processes. Her collaborative research projects draw upon interdisciplinary frameworks that examine early childhood development, parenting, and families; father engagement in urban settings; social factors affecting health and education; children of incarcerated parents; and intergenerational learning within African American and Latino families.

Dr. Gadsden serves and has served on numerous foundation boards and review committees, including the Buffett Institute, the Foundation for Child Development, and the Spencer Foundation; Congressionally mandated review committees; and White House initiatives. She chaired The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Committee on Supporting Parents of Young Children, serving as lead author of the Committee's report, Parenting Matters. She is a past president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and has held leadership roles in the Society for Research in Child Development, including Co-Chair of the Black Caucus. Dr. Gadsden was Co-Editor-in-Chief of AERA's Educational Researcher and lead editor of the 2009 Review of Research in Education. She was recently named co-editor of the 2023 and 2025 Review of Research in Education. Her published works, include booklength volumes and articles on early childhood research; literacy and African American youth; incarcerated parents in the lives of children, families, and communities; and risk, equity, and schooling. Dr. Gadsden is a Fellow of AERA and the Reading Hall of Fame and is a member of the National Academy of Education. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan.

Todd Abraham, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist and the Assistant Director of Data and Analytics for Iowa's Integrated Data System for Decision‐Making (I2D2), housed in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University. He co‐leads design, implementation, and sustained operations protocols for ingestion, processing, integration, and analysis of state‐level and other administrative data systems. Mr. Abraham's technical interests center on development and refinement of data standardization and record linkage algorithms. His substantive research interests focus on the interplay between individual, family, and contextual factors as influences on child and adult developmental trajectories related to psychological and physical well‐being.

Jhonelle Bailey, Ph.D., is an early childhood research scientist at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) within the University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development. Her work focuses on the social‐emotional development of children in early childhood education, especially those from minoritized populations, and how those skills are associated with later school readiness skills once children enter a formal educational setting. Her interests also include examining the role that access to services in a child's community plays in the trajectory of their developmental skills, to inform policy aimed at improving access to high‐quality programs and preparing all children for school.

Katherine Barghaus, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Penn Child Research Center and a researcher with the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy Network at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Barghaus' research interests focus on advancing our understanding of and social responses to issues impacting young children and their families, applying psychometric science to support quality early childhood assessment, and building and using integrated data systems to impact positive social change. Dr. Barghaus earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and a bachelor's degree in economics from the Pennsylvania State University.

Jessica Bruning, M.S., is the Communications and Evaluation Program Specialist for Iowa's Integrated Data System for Decision‐Making (I2D2.iastate.edu). She received her M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University and is completing her Ph.D. focusing on early family experiences, public health system coordination, and home visiting programs. Prior to graduate school, Jessica spent her professional career working in public policy for children and families, education, non‐profits, and legal aid which informed her decision to pursue graduate work in research and public policy to help bridge the gap between families, communities, and public service systems.

Rebecca J. Bulotsky Shearer, Ph.D., is a child clinical, community, and school psychologist and early childhood researcher. Dr. Shearer is a former practitioner and conducts research in partnership with early childhood programs serving children and families living in urban poverty. Dr. Shearer's research focuses on children's social‐emotional development as a foundation for school readiness. Research interests include the co‐creation of classroom assessments and interventions for implementation within naturalistic settings such as early childhood programs by teachers and families. She is grateful to John Fantuzzo, and the wisdom of many community mentors who helped her focus her academic passion and commitments.

Kelsey A. Clayback, M.Ed., is a doctoral candidate in Educational Psychology‐Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development. Through her research, Kelsey seeks to partner with policymakers and practitioners to improve early childhood education. Her research centers around understanding ways to equitably promote young children's social and emotional development and prevent challenging behavior. Kelsey is also interested in early childhood educator well‐being, beliefs, and bias with the goal of determining how to better support educators to facilitate positive outcomes for themselves and the children in their classrooms.

As executive director for Child Care Aware of Kansas, Kelly Davydov, M.A., leads Kansas' Child Care Resource and Referral network in addressing access to high‐quality childcare for young children and their families. Ms. Davydov serves on the Kansas Early Childhood Recommendations Panel in addition to other state and local initiatives focused on early care and education. Prior to joining Child Care Aware of Kansas, Ms. Davydov led Iowa's TANF 2‐Generation anti‐poverty initiative and served as project director for Early Childhood Iowa, the state's early childhood systems‐building effort. Ms. Davydov holds a Master of Public Administration with an emphasis on public policy from Drake University.

Cassandra Dorius, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University. Dr. Dorius' research focuses on translating scholarship into practice through a broad range of state and national collaborations centered on data quality, community outreach, and evidence‐based policymaking. Dorius is a founding co‐director of Iowa's Integrated Data System for Decision Making (I2D2.iastate.edu), the Public Science Collaborative, and Iowa State's Data Science for the Public Good program. Across these efforts, she works with local, state, and federal leaders to advance policies that improve the lives of vulnerable children and their families.

Jason T. Downer, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and Director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia. His research emphasizes the promotion of children's academic and social competence through targeted and preventive interventions during early schooling. Specifically, he engages in developing and evaluating school‐based teacher consultation and prevention programming designed to enhance teacher practices and provide students with equitable learning opportunities that increase academic success and strengthen social‐emotional skills. He is an academic 'grandchild' of Dr. Fantuzzo, and forever grateful for John's sage advice and modeling of community‐engaged scholarship.

Jill Ehrenreich‐May, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Associate Department Chair in Psychology at the University of Miami. Dr. Ehrenreich‐May is a clinical scholar with interest in effective youth psychotherapy for emotional disorders, predicated on the rationale that such problems have substantial phenotypic overlap and respond to similar principles of change. Dr. Ehrenreich‐May is the author of over 160 published works. Her currently funded research includes effectiveness trials regarding treatment of youth emotional distress in community settings. Dr. Ehrenreich‐May is also the 2022‐23 President of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

Rachel Eisenberg, Ph.D., is a Consulting and Research Psychologist at the Devereux Center for Effective Schools. She earned her Ph.D. in School Psychology from Lehigh University. Dr. Eisenberg's interests center on the development of meaningful partnerships with families and multi‐disciplinary school teams. Her research examines the use of behavioral consultation and performance feedback to enhance the implementation of evidence‐based interventions among families and educators. Dr. Eisenberg's clinical work focuses on developing and sustaining multi‐tiered systems of behavioral and academic supports in alternative education, behavioral health, early childhood, and family settings.â ¯

John W. Fantuzzo, Ph.D., is the Albert M. Greenfield Emeritus Professor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the National Academy of Education. He is the Co‐Director of the Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center, and Co‐Founder of the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy; a Network of Integrated Data Systems (IDS) covering over 50% of the U.S. population. It promotes development and use of IDS within government to improve policy, practice, and equity across education, health, and human services. He has directed over 30 years of applied research in Philadelphia to benefit underserved children and families.

Lok‐Wah Li, Ph.D., is a mixed method researcher and evaluator at Boston Children's Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. In her research and applied work, Lok seeks to understand childrearing beliefs and practices among culturally diverse families from a ground‐up, strength‐based perspective. She collaborates with caregivers and educators and uses their personal insights on children's learning and development to inform family‐oriented programs and community outreach. Her goal is to center the voices of caregivers from diverse communities and highlight the significance that "it takes a village to raise a child."

Patricia H. Manz, Ph.D., Professor of School Psychology and Associate Chair, Department of Education and Health Services at Lehigh University, received her doctorate in professional psychology from the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Operating from community‐based research approaches, Dr. Manz partners with families and service providers, including home visiting programs, to improve developmental and health outcomes for children experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage. Dr. Manz has developed the Little Talks program, a parent‐mediated intervention to enrich language interactions between parents and young children. Dr. Manz is co‐chair of a national community of practice focused on home visitor professional development.

Jacqueline S. Mattis, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University‐ Newark. Her research explores religiosity, spirituality, and positive psychological and psychosocial development among urban‐residing African American and AfriCaribbean youth and adults. Her quantitative and qualitative work examines the factors that contribute to volunteerism, civic engagement, altruism, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, optimism, and positive parenting among urban‐residing African American and Afri‐diasporic people. She received the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Association of Black Psychologists, Martin Luther King Jr. Award (NYU) for teaching excellence, leadership, social justice and community building, and the Paul M. Fitts Graduate Mentor Award and Cornerstone Award (University of Michigan).

Paul A. McDermott, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Human Development and Quantitative Methods Division at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. A psychometrician and quantitative psychologist, he previously served as director of Clinical and Industrial Measurement for The Psychological Corporation and holds a Diplomate from the American Academy of Assessment Psychology. Dr. McDermott is also a licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist. Dr. McDermott specializes in measurement theory, test construction, applied multivariate statistics, and multilevel and longitudinal modeling. He develops standardized measures of school behavioral adjustment, classroom learning behaviors, neighborhood effects, addiction severity, and cognitive growth.

Jenna Futterer, M.S., is a 5th‐year doctoral student at the University of Miami working with Dr. Rebecca Bulotsky‐Shearer. Her research interests encompass children's social‐emotional development and classroom quality in Head Start. Specifically, she is interested in children's approaches to learning and how these skills positively contribute to children's school readiness and academic skills. Jenna also uses an ecological perspective to examine how teachers and parents positively support children's approaches to learning. Overall, she wants to uncover the best practices that help children develop positive attitudes and motivations toward school and learning.

Eugene E. GarcÃ-a, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University. He served as Professor and Vice President for Education Partnerships at ASU from 2006‐2011 and as Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education from 2002‐2006. He joined ASU from the University of California, Berkeley where he was Professor and Dean of The Graduate School of Education (1995‐2001). He has served as an elected member of a local school board and a Senior Officer in the US Department of Education. He has published extensively in areas of early learning, bilingual development and equal educational opportunity. He has authored or co‐authored 16 books and over 200 articles and book chapters.

Daryl Greenfield, Ph.D., works at the interface of research, policy, and practice broadly focused on at‐risk and dual‐language young children and their families, with a more specific focus on early science and engineering education. Federal and Foundation funding support projects to develop and evaluate early childhood science and engineering programs. He is on the Research to Equitable Practice Advisory Panel of the Head Start National Center on Early Child Development, Teaching and Learning and a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee authoring the 2022 consensus volume, "Science and Engineering from Preschool through Elementary Grades: Brilliance of Children & Strength of Educators."

Cassandra Henderson, Ph.D., is a research specialist with the Penn Child Research Center. She focuses on applied, place‐based research in early childhood education and social policies affecting young children and families. Her work is centered around identifying evidence‐based risk and protective individual and familial factors affecting children's educational well‐being, efforts to monitor and cultivate student engagement through school attendance data and social‐emotional learning, and innovative uses of integrated administrative data systems for social policy research. Dr. Henderson earned her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and her bachelor's degree in English from Duke University.

Sunah Hyun, Ph.D., is a senior researcher at Jonathan M. Tisch College, Tufts University. She currently focuses on creating new evaluation strategies and effective assessment systems to better support Tisch College's mission and values. She is an applied developmental psychologist and community‐based researcher whose chief aim is to develop culturally responsive interventions for marginalized populations and conduct research to foster and prepare young generations for a lifetime of effective engagement in civic and democratic life. Her research reflects a desire to serve as a liaison to bridge academic research and the local community, inform policy, and develop innovative intervention strategies.

Marilou Hyson, Ph.D., is a national and international consultant in early childhood development and education. Formerly Associate Executive Director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Marilou's professional work and publications have focused on social and emotional development, children's approaches to learning, and early childhood teacher education. Marilou was an SRCD Fellow in the US Department of Education and Professor and Chair of the University of Delaware's Department of Individual and Family Studies. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors at the Foundation for Child Development.

Della Jenkins, M.A., is the Executive Director of Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), an initiative based at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Policy and Practice focused on improving social service delivery through cross‐sector data sharing. Jenkins oversees AISP's operations, strategic partnerships, and national peer network of integrated data systems. Her previous work experiences include advocacy, policy analysis, and mixed‐methods research spanning the birth to post‐secondary education spectrum. Jenkins earned her BA in Political Science from Georgetown University and her MA in Social Policy from Penn. She lives in Philadelphia with her talented husband, energetic toddler, and two sweet cats.

Jacqueline Jones has been a teacher, researcher, and policymaker. She was President and CEO of the Foundation for Child Development and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning in the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to federal service, Dr. Jones was Assistant Commissioner for the Division of Early Childhood Education in the New Jersey State Department of Education and worked as Senior Research Scientist at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton. Dr. Jones earned both a masterâ (TM)s degree and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

DorÃ(c) R. LaForett, Ph.D., is a Research Scholar at Child Trends, and an Advanced Research Scientist at FPG Child Development Institute at UNC Chapel Hill. She studies contexts that shape the experiences of young children and families; educational, social‐behavioral, and family‐focused interventions; and early childhood programming. Dr. LaForett has extensive experience conducting research with populations living in low‐resource environments and with culturally and linguistically diverse children and families, with a heavy emphasis on dual language learners. Her work has been funded by federal and state agencies, as well as private foundations. Dr. LaForett is a licensed psychologist in North Carolina.

Ebony D. Leon, M.S., is a fellow at the University of Virginiaâ (TM)s Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, School of Education and Human Development. Ebony's research interests involve understanding how children's social emotional development is impacted by trauma and stress related to racism and poverty; how teachers and parents can support children in navigating their social emotional learning (SEL); and how SEL paired with equitable practices can maximize young children's school readiness/success. Ebony earned a MS in Human Development and Family Studies from UNC Greensboro, and a BA in Psychology from NC State University. She holds both applied and research experiences helping children, families, and educators such as through the U.S. Department of Defense, NC Public Schools, and UNC Chapel Hill.

Lisa M. López, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of South Florida, Tampa. Dr. López earned her Ph.D. in applied developmental psychology from the University of Miami and completed a National Science Foundation‐funded postdoctoral fellowship in language and literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She serves as Chair of the Society for Research in Child Development Latinx Caucus (2019-2021). Her research agenda involves understanding and improving upon the educational and environmental opportunities of Latino dual language learner (DLL) children in the United States. Her main research objective is to identify the developmental trajectory of school readiness skills for Latino DLL children while applying an ecological perspective to better understand this developmental trajectory. Her research has been funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and published in journals focused on both education and developmental psychology. Dr. López has won numerous awards for her scholarly and community work with the Latino DLL population.

Ann L'hospital, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and Senior Scientist at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the University of Virginia. She focuses on the development and implementation of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) and social‐emotional coaching models. She began her work at CASTL in 2012 as a Mental Health Consultant and Implementation Support Specialist for the Looking to Objectively Observe Kids (LOOK) project. She currently serves as the LOOK Implementation Support Specialist for the Goal 3 study, while overseeing a new ECMHC pilot and a birth‐to‐five social‐emotional coaching model in Virginia.