http://www.akf.dk/udgivelser/2011/pdf/5058_quality_preschooling.pdf/

Long-Run Benefits from Universal High-Quality Pre-Schooling

This paper investigates the role of pre-school quality for children’s cognitive development at the end of elementary schooling (age 16). We use a unique dataset based on Danish admini- strative registers where pre-school children are linked to their pre-school and its pre-school teachers. Based on this, we generate five main quality indicators of pre-schools. Child out- comes are language test scores from final (9th grade) elementary school exams. Controlling for child background factors, we find that a higher number of staff members per child, a higher share of male staff, a higher share of staff with a pedagogic education, and a higher share of teachers with non-Danish ethnic background lead to significant improvements in children’s test results in Danish at the end of the 9th grade. Boys benefit more from pre-school quality than girls. We address possible selectivity by using instrumental variables estimation. For two of the quality indicators, i.e. the share of male staff and the share of non-native staff, IV estimates show significant positive effects which are numerically higher than OLS estimates.

Min vän professorn antyder resultaten bör tolkas “varsamt”. Annars tycker jag det låter som något för kvällstidningarna.

Hej och hå – här var det forskning!