Section Four: What Were the Children and Families Like at the
Beginning of the Study?
In order to understand the possible effects of pre-school experience upon children’s
development, it is essential to take account of pre-existing differences between children at the
start of the pre-school period. Hence information on the characteristics of the parents, families,
and children was collected by parental interview at the start of the study. This information
included data on parents labour market participation, socio-economic characteristics,
qualifications, marital status and age as well as the family’s composition, ethnicity and language,
the child’s health, development and behaviour, the child’s activities in the home, the use of pre-
school provision and childcare history.
The sample’s socio-economic characteristics were compared to those of a recent national
sample of parents of similar age children and the EPPE sample was found to be somewhat over-
represented at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. This was anticipated because the
project sampled from Local Authorities that were chosen to maintain a reasonable representation
of social disadvantage.
While the EPPE sample was not designed to be wholly representative of the population of the
UK, it is useful to know the relationship between the sample and the wider population. Towards
the beginning of the research, a nationally representative sample of parents with a pre-school
child was surveyed for the DfES (Prior et al, 1999). Using this survey as the basis for statistics
on a national sample, it is possible to compare the EPPE sample with a national sample of
parents of 3-4 year old children. Table 4.1 shows this comparison for educational qualifications
of the mother. Similar comparisons for other socio-economic variables show a similar pattern.
The national sample by Prior (ibid) is drawn from all parents of 3-4 year old children, regardless
of whether their child attends a pre-school centre. The EPPE sample is specifically drawn from
users of six types of pre-school centre; nursery classes, playgroups, private day nurseries, local
authority day nurseries, nursery schools and integrated centres as well as a ‘home’ group with no
pre-school centre experience.
Comparing the EPPE sample with the UK population
Table 4.1 Educational qualifications of mother: EPPE versus national sample.
|
_________Qualification_________ |
EPPE Sample% |
_____National Sample %_____ |
|
_______Degree or higher_______ |
_____________16.9_____________ |
_____________12.9_____________ |
|
HND, 18+ vocational |
_____________13.4_____________ |
_______________12.1_______________ |
|
_____________A level_____________ |
_______________8.4_______________ |
_____________12.7_____________ |
|
_____________O level_____________ |
_____________37.0_____________ |
______________44.1______________ |
|
_______Less than O level_______ |
_____________23.4_____________ |
_____________16.2_____________ |
|
_____Other miscellaneous |
_______________0.9_______________ |
________________1.9_______________ |
The EPPE sample is over-represented (as compared with a national sample) at the bottom end
of the socio-economic spectrum with some over-representation at the top end of the
spectrum. This is illustrated with mother’s educational qualifications in Table 4.1, and other
measures linked to socio-economic status reveal a similar pattern. This was done for two
reasons: (a) to provide sufficiently large numbers of disadvantaged/ethnic minority children
for robust findings related to them, and (b) to lead to a representative sample at age 7 after
(anticipated) selective attrition in more disadvantaged groups.
10