Children's executive function development and school socio-economic and racial/ethnic composition

The links between children's literacy and mathematics development and school socio-economic and racial/ethnic composition are well documented. This work, however, has generally ignored the potential effects of school demographic characteristics on children's executive function skills. Using data from ECLS-K: 2011 and piece-wise linear growth-curve models within a three-level hierarchical framework, we explore the associations between children's executive function development and the socio-economic and racial/ethnic compositions of their schools in kindergarten through second grade. We find somewhat mixed results, with some evidence of school socio-economic compositional effects, particularly for initially lower-skilled children in kindergarten, but stronger indications that school racial/ethnic enrollments influence executive function development across age and skill levels. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.