The Relationship Between Early Childhood Education Access and Quality, Neighborhoods, and Children’s Developmental Outcomes in Rural Indonesia
| dc.contributor.advisor | Liebowitz, David | |
| dc.contributor.author | Klaas, Merly | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-02-24T19:56:55Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-02-24 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In recent years, the government of Indonesia has made it a priority to improve the quality of currently operated Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers in rural Indonesia. The rapid proliferation of ECE centers throughout the nation is exciting progress and yet poses a challenge to ensure that these ECE centers are providing high-quality programs for young children. In this three-paper dissertation, I seek to understand the complex relationships between family- and neighborhood wealth, access to quality ECE, and children’s outcomes. I draw my analytical sample from data collected as a part of an ECE evaluation project in rural and relatively poor villages in Indonesia in 2013. In my first article, I examine the probability of enrolling in a high-quality ECE center based on children’s socio-economic backgrounds using multilevel linear probability model. In the second article, I investigate the direct and indirect influences that structural and process quality in ECE have on children’s outcomes using multilevel structural equation modeling framework. In the third and final article, I investigate village characteristics that are associated with ECE quality and examine whether the association between village characteristics and children’s outcomes differ based on the quality of ECE children attend using multi-level regression model. I find that in the villages included in the 2013 study, access to higher ECE quality is lower for children from higher poverty villages. I also find that teachers’ years of teaching experience and ECE facilities (educational, water, health and hygiene facilities) are significantly associated with process quality and there is evidence of a small indirect effect of these structural quality indicators on student outcomes via process quality. Lastly, I find that higher community participation, higher safety, and lower poverty rates in the village are significantly associated with higher ECE quality. Moreover, I find that the relationship between village characteristics and some children’s outcomes differ based on ECE quality they attended. These findings highlight the need for policy initiatives to prioritize certain regulable structural quality factors to improve children’s learning experiences in rural communities and to prioritize ECE quality improvement programming in villages with higher levels of poverty and violence. | en_US |
| dc.description.embargo | 2025-10-30 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/30468 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Access to High Quality ECE | en_US |
| dc.subject | Early Childhood Education | en_US |
| dc.title | The Relationship Between Early Childhood Education Access and Quality, Neighborhoods, and Children’s Developmental Outcomes in Rural Indonesia | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |