Table of Contents | Previous | Next |
Appendix 3.1: Differences Between Main Arrangement and Focal Arrangement
| Definition of Main Arrangement The arrangement in which the child spends the most time between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Head Start is always defined as the main arrangement for children enrolled in Head Start. |
When compared to the focal arrangements in Exhibit 3.2 in Chapter 3, the main arrangements presented in this appendix (see Exhibit A.3.1 below) indicate that the differences in the proportion of children with particular focal and main arrangements are relatively small. Furthermore, because Head Start is defined as both the main and focal arrangement—independent of hours per week—for children enrolled in Head Start, the proportions of children with Head Start as their main and focal arrangements are identical.
| Type of Arrangement | Head Start Treatment Group (sample size=1,336) | Control Group (sample size=821) | Head Start Treatment Group (sample size=1,068) | Control Group (sample size=662) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of 3-year-old group | Percent of 4-year-old group | ||||
| Parent Care | 7.8*** | 42.6 | 10.7*** | 48.9 | |
| Non-Parental Care | Total | 92.2*** | 57.4 | 89.3*** | 51.1 |
| Head Start | 84.1*** | 17.5 | 76.4*** | 13.4 | |
| Non-Head Start Center | 6.6*** | 23.7 | 11.1*** | 27.6 | |
| Non-Relative's Home | 0.3*** | 5.6 | 0.7** | 4.7 | |
| Relative's Home | 0.7*** | 7.1 | 0.5* | 3.2 | |
| Child's Home w/ Relative | 0.5** | 3.3 | 0.5* | 2.1 | |
| Child's Home w/ Non-relative | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.1 | |
| Total percent | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |
| * = p≤.05, ** = p≤.01, *** = p≤.001 |
The small differences between focal and main arrangements among children not enrolled in Head Start arise from two types of circumstances. First, some children who were mainly in parent care also spent at least 5 hours per week in a non-parental preschool or child care arrangement. When considering the arrangement in which children spent the most time (rather
than the focal arrangement) the percentage of children in parent care only increases by 1 to 2 percentage points among children assigned to the Head Start group and 4 to 7 percentage points among children in the non-Head Start group. Second, some children, mainly in small, home-based, non-parental preschool and child care arrangements (such as care by a relative in their own home), also spent at least 5 hours per week in an arrangement that we hypothesized might be more likely to offer the types of educational, social, and access-to-services opportunities offered by Head Start. Again, the proportion of children in this situation is relatively small, so the differences between main and focal arrangements are not particularly substantial.
We explored two different definitions of children’s weekday arrangements, main and focal, to better understand the patterns of preschool and child care use among families in our sample. This allows future analyses to consider various definitions of the counterfactual, i.e., the alternatives to Head Start used by families in our sample. In general, however, this report relies on focal arrangements in describing the treatment for children assigned to the Head Start group and the alternative to the treatment for families assigned to the non-Head Start group.
| Table of Contents | Previous | Next |