Does preschool attendance affect the urban-rural cognition gap among middle school students?Evidence from China Education Panel Survey  

作　　者：Lei Zheng Qiuyi Weng Xin Gong 

机构地区：[1]Faculty of Education,Beijing Normal University,No.19,Xinjiekou Wai Street,Haidian District,Beijing 100875,China [2]National Institute of Education Sciences,No.46,Beisanhuan Zhonglu,Haidian District,Beijing 100088,China [3]School of Education,Central China Normal University,No.152,Luoyu Road,Hongshan District,Wuhan 430079,China

出　　处：《The Journal of Chinese Sociology》2021年第1期239-260,共22页中国社会学杂志（英文）

基　　金：This study was supported by National Social Science Foundation for Young Scholar(15CSH011);Beijing Social Science Foundation(18JDJYB004);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(SKZZB2015012);and the 2018 Comprehensive Discipline Construction Fund of Faculty of Education,Beijing Normal University(2018QNJS002).

摘　　要：Cognitive abilities have a great impact on individuals’socioeconomic status.Among the factors that affect cognitive ability,early childhood development and preschool education are vital.However,evidence on the effect of preschool attendance on the urban-rural cognition gap from large-scale samples is almost nonexistent.Based on a nationally representative dataset from the China Education Panel Survey,this study fills this gap by presenting evidence of a significant cognition gap between urban and rural middle school students.We find a consistent positive relationship between preschool attendance and cognitive ability in grade 7 and grade 9 based on ordinary least squares and propensity score matching estimations.Results based on a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition suggest that the differences between urban and rural students in preschool education account for 28%to 44%of the between-group cognition gap.We also simulate the effects of policy interventions meant to develop preschool education on the narrowing of the urban-rural cognition gap.

关 键 词：Education equality Urban-rural gap Preschool education Early childhood development COGNITION 

分 类 号：H31[语言文字—英语]