Does pre-schooling contribute to equity in education? Participation in universal pre-school and fourth-grade academic achievement

The assumption that (early) attendance of universal pre-school enhances the future academic performance of pupils with lower socio-economic and/or immigrant backgrounds underlies many education policies in Europe. The purpose of this study is to assess this assumption for Flanders – a case characterised by near-general enrolment and a ‘schoolified’ approach to pre-school education. We investigated general and equity benefits of pre-school duration regarding academic outcomes in fourth grade, analysing quantitative data from a survey of 1761 pupils. First, multilevel regression analysis showed that pre-school duration was significantly yet weakly related to standardised test scores in science but not in reading. Second, pre-school duration moderately mitigated the relation between parental socio-economic status (SES) and reading outcomes. Third, the relation between pre-school duration and science/reading achievement did not vary significantly across immigrant and linguistic backgrounds. Altogether, these findings indicate a relationship between pre-school participation and short-term academic achievement that is mixed in terms of cognitive task and pupil backgrounds. The result that attending pre-school seems to counter the disparity in reading outcomes between low-SES and high-SES pupils is consistent with existing evidence.