Multiple Dimensions of Biological Development: Implications for Kindergarten Readiness Among Young Children in Poverty

Dominic F. Gullo

Journal of Social Science Studies, 2015, vol. 2, issue 1, 106-128

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine differences in low-socioeconomic (SES) children's kindergarten readiness reflecting multiple dimensions of their biological development. Independent variables included birth-weight, health status, gender, and kindergarten entry age. Dependent variables included measures of academic achievement, psychomotor development, as well as parents¡¯ and teachers¡¯ ratings of social competence. A low-SES sample of 3,301 boys and 3,208 girls who were enrolled in kindergarten for the first time were drawn from the United States Department of Education Early Childhood Longitudinal Study ¨C class of 1998 ¨C 1999 Kindergarten Cohort data set. Multivariate analyses of variance were performed on the readiness variables to determine differences in performance among children with different biological factors. Results indicated that there were differences among children depending on certain aspects of their biological characteristics, thus indicating that children who reside in poverty are not a homogeneous group who should be viewed and taught as though they were homogeneous in their characteristics. Implications for teaching and future research are suggested.

Keywords: Social class; Kindergarten; School readiness; Achievement; Social competence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jsss/article/view/6394/5222 (application/pdf)
http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jsss/article/view/6394/5222 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mth:jsss88:v:2:y:2015:i:1:p:106-128

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Social Science Studies is currently edited by John Smith

More articles in Journal of Social Science Studies from Macrothink Institute
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Technical Support Office ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).