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From Birth to Early Child Care: The Newborn Cohort Study of the National Educational Panel Study

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Education as a Lifelong Process

Abstract

The newborn cohort study in the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) takes up the challenge of measuring education-relevant conditions and processes together with the development of competencies in the first years of a child’s life. The rationale for beginning “from the crib on” can be found in results of infant and early childhood research. We review the design and main features of existing birth cohort studies in the field of education conducted in developed countries. Most studies begin when infants are between 6 and 11 months old with subsequent waves annually or every second year. The most common instruments are computer-assisted parent interviews sometimes accompanied by additional self-completion modules or completely self-administered questionnaires. We discuss early childhood developmental indicators and instruments that can be applied in large-scale assessments carried out in private homes. We favor measurements with predictive validity for subsequent development. The newborn cohort study (NEPS Starting Cohort 1; NEPS-SC1) started in 2012 with a representative sample of almost 3,500 children born that year in Germany.

Zusammenfassung

Die Säuglingskohortenstudie des Nationalen Bildungspanels stellt sich der Herausforderung, Bedingungen und Prozesse der frühkindlichen Bildung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Fähigkeiten und Kompetenzen in den ersten Lebensjahren zu erfassen. Die Notwendigkeit, bildungsrelevante Faktoren und Entwicklungen „von Geburt an“ zu erheben, ergibt sich aus Ergebnissen der Säuglings- und Kindheitsforschung. Zunächst werden inhaltliche Schwerpunkte zum Thema Bildungsforschung und das Design bisheriger längsschnittlicher Säuglingskohorten beschrieben, die in industrialisierten Ländern durchgeführt wurden. Die meisten dieser Studien beginnen mit der ersten Erhebung, wenn die Kinder zwischen 6 und 11 Monate alt sind. Die Folgeerhebungen werden im Abstand von ein bis zwei Jahren durchgeführt. Häufig werden computergestützte Elterninterviews eingesetzt und zum Teil um handschriftlich auszufüllende Elternfragebögen ergänzt. Im Anschluss werden Instrumente zur Erfassung kindlicher Kompetenzen und Fähigkeiten diskutiert, die sowohl prädiktive Validität für die weitere kindliche Entwicklung haben als auch in großangelegten, repräsentativen Studien im häuslichen Setting einsetzbar sind. Im Nationalen Bildungspanel starteten die Erhebungen der Säuglingskohortenstudie (NEPS-Startkohorte 1: NEPS-SC1) im Jahr 2012 mit einer repräsentativen Stichprobe von fast 3.500 Kindern, die im selben Jahr in Deutschland geboren wurden.

This article is an updated version of Schlesiger et al. (2011).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For details see http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/.

  2. 2.

    Not mentioned in Table 11.1 is the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) that has expanded its survey program and is gathering additional education-relevant information with questionnaires on newborns since 2003, on 2- to 3-year olds since 2005, on 5- to 6-year olds since 2008, and so forth (see also https://www.diw.de/en/diw_02.c.238114.en/questionnaires_fieldwork_documents.html).

  3. 3.

    For details see http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/.

  4. 4.

    A complete list of all study instruments and their rationale can be found on the website of the NICHD, see https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/supported/seccyd.

  5. 5.

    Due to the unexpected high response rate, families with children born in July were not contacted by the survey institute. Consequently, all children in SC1 were born between February and June 2012.

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Hachul (née Schlesiger), C., Attig, M., Lorenz, J., Weinert, S., Schneider, T., Roßbach, HG. (2019). From Birth to Early Child Care: The Newborn Cohort Study of the National Educational Panel Study. In: Blossfeld, HP., Roßbach, HG. (eds) Education as a Lifelong Process. Edition ZfE, vol 3. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-23162-0_11

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