Michael Gottfried, Assistant Professor of Education and Inaugural Bacon Public Lecturer – UC Center, Sacramento, will give the free talk “Formal versus informal prekindergarten care and school readiness for children in immigrant families: A review of evidence from the U.S.” on Wednesday, October 23 at 12 noon in the Don Gevirtz Boardroom, 4th Floor, Education Building. The event is sponsored by the Gevirtz School’s CORE (Conversations on Research in Education) Lunch Series. All members of the UCSB community are invited to attend; please bring your lunch – light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to Carla Whitacre by Monday, October 21 if you plan on attending: cwhitacre@education.ucsb.edu.
The U.S. is witnessing two major trends in its rising cohorts of young children preparing to start school: an increase in the use of formal (e.g., center-based) childcare options prior to entering kindergarten and a surge in the share of young children that come from immigrant families. Given that many children from immigrant families start school at a disadvantage relative to native-born children, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners have inquired into which prekindergarten alternatives might be most effective in boosting school readiness for this group of children. This literature review covers the effects of formal versus informal prekindergarten care alternatives in the year before school entry on both academic and socio-emotional measures of school readiness for children in immigrant families. It also underscores common limitations in this body of literature that can be used to shape future research agendas and policy dialogue.
Dr. Gottfried’s research focuses on the economics of education and education policy. Using the analytic tools from these disciplines, he has examined issues pertaining to peer effects, classroom context, and STEM. His research extends across the K-16 pipeline. Dr. Gottfried has published numerous articles in these areas, with multiple publications in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, American Educational Research Journal, Education Finance and Policy, Teachers College Record, American Journal of Education, Journal of Educational Research, and Elementary School Journal, among others. He is/has been the Principal Investigator on multiple funded research grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health (NICHD), American Educational Research Association, and the Haynes Foundation. He has won multiple scholarly awards for his research, including the Outstanding Publication in Methodology Award in both 2010 and in 2012 given by AERA Division H and the Highest Reviewed Paper Award in 2013 given by AERA SIG: School Effectiveness and School Improvement.