A meta-analytic study of the effect of pre-school education on pre-school children of different socio-economic levels

The purpose of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis of the studies that examined the effect of preschool education (PE) on the school readiness of preschoolers from families of different socio-economic status (SES). Five meta-analyses were conducted with the effect sizes obtained from ten studies including a total of 2290 children. In the first analysis, the effect of attending/not attending PE on school readiness was examined. In the second analysis, the effect of attending PE on the readiness of children with lower and upper SES was examined. In the third analysis, the readiness of the upper SES children who did not attend PE and the lower SES children who attended PE were compared. In the fourth analysis, the readiness of lower SES children who did not attend PE and lower SES children who attended PE were compared. In the fifth analysis, the readiness of the upper SES preschoolers with/without PE was compared. It was observed that having preschool education experience had a high effect on children's elementary school readiness skills (d = 0.853). In other meta-analyses, the readiness skills of children from lower and upper SES were examined according to the status of having or not having PE. The difference in mean readiness skills scores of lower and upper SES children was high (d=1,254) favoring upper SES children. A moderate effect, favoring children from upper SES without PE, was observed in the analysis of school readiness of children from the upper SES without PE and the lower SES with PE (d=0.43). A large effect was observed in the readiness skills analysis of the low SES with and without attending PE (d=0.97), favoring low SES children who attended PE. A large effect was found when the upper SES with and without PE was compared (d=0.84) favoring upper SES with PE. As a result of the analyzes discussed PE were interpreted and discussed according to the difference in SES and the findings were explained through a causal framework. Findings indicated that preschool education is effective in supporting school readiness of children from low and high SES families. Children from high SES families benefited most from the preschool education than their peers from low SES families. The preschool education was unable to close the school readiness gap between low and high SES children.