Predictors of parent involvement in an early intervention program: comparing sites, cohorts, and type of involvement

Abstract

The 1960s War on Poverty launched four decades of early educational intervention programs designed to increase the chances that children from low-income families could succeed in school. Evaluations of such programs have demonstrated that under the right conditions, early educational intervention programs can have a remarkably powerful and long term impact on the lives of participants (Gomby, Lamer, Stevenson, Lewit, & Behrman, 1996; Lazar & Darlington, 1982). For example, children attending the Perry Preschool program in Ypsilanti, Michigan not only performed better in school but ultimately led more productive lives, with decreased high school drop-out rates, fewer early pregnancies, fewer criminal prosecutions, and higher job salaries (Schweinhart, Barnes, Weikert, Barnett, & Epstein, 1994). Historically, experimental and quasi-experimental research designs have been utilized in evaluations of these intervention programs in order to compare groups of children who received a program to peers who did not. Differences in the life trajectories of these two groups is attributed to the treatment group's participation in the intervention. Such studies, although useful for demonstrating program effectiveness, pay only scant attention to the mechanisms by which these programs have their impact.