Do early childhood education experiences really make a difference in children's language achievement in Contemporary China?

      China has issued a universal preschool policy for all children since 2010, in order to build up better human capital from early on. This paper addressed the debate over the significance of early childhood education... [ view full abstract ]

      China has issued a universal preschool policy for all children since 2010, in order to build up better human capital from early on. This paper addressed the debate over the significance of early childhood education experiences for children’s language achievement within the context of contemporary China. Longitudinal and nationally representative data from China Family Panel Study (CFPS) were used and we selected a children sample of 7-year-old from 14798 families in 2010 dataset, then tracked their language scores in 2014. The children sample was divided into two groups “children with early childhood education experiences” and “children without early childhood education experiences”. After the merger and cleaning of the database, the final determination of the children sample was 301. The findings suggest that: (1) In the logic regression model, compared with children from disadvantaged families, children from advantaged families are more likely to have early childhood education experiences. (2) In the multiple regression model, early childhood education experiences showed a significant positive effect on children’s cognitive development, especially for language scores. (3) Following that, on the interaction of early childhood education experiences and SES as well as gender respectively, it showed a larger compensation effect on disadvantaged families and girls. Further discussions about how to provide target support for all children and better policy in quality early childhood education have been included.