The importance and potential of preschool for the long-term integration of immigrant children

Research problem and specific questionsChildren of immigrant background tend to perform significantly worse in school compared to those of native background, which is likely to have substantial negative impacts on their life chances.

These children are also enrolled in preschool to a lower degree than others, and there are indications that they often attend preschools with less educated staff.

While studies from other countries suggest that preschool can benefit disadvantaged children’s educational outcomes, there are next to no large-scale quantitative studies on this topic in the Swedish context.

The main purpose of this project is to use recently available register data to study how policy interventions can promote preschool enrollment of children with immigrant background, the impact of preschool attendance on their school performance and health, and examine if and how these impacts vary depending on various aspects of preschool quality.

We will also provide a comprehensive picture of preschool segregation and the degree to which children of different background attend preschools of different quality.Data and methodWe will use statistical analysis and register data on preschool enrollment, linked to information on school performance, health care utilization, and family background.

We will study the following three reforms:1) The introduction of universal preschool free of charge for 3-year-olds in 2010.2) The reduction of parental leave entitlement for recent immigrants in 2017.3) Over time and between municipality variation in the hours of preschool offered to children whose parents are not working.Since these reforms likely resulted in "quasi-random" variation (i.e. variation that can be used to estimate causal relationships) in preschool enrollment among children of immigrant background, we can isolate the impact of preschool from other factors affecting educational and health outcomes.Societal relevance and utilisationProblems related to social inclusion and integration constitute urgent societal challenges at present.

Early interventions, such as preschool attendance, are among the initiatives that politicians often advocate as a way to ensure that children of immigrants are offered similar opportunities as children of natives.

We aim to contribute with empirical evidence to inform this discussion.Plan for project realisationThe project involves five researchers for three years. We mainly apply for funding for salaries and data.