Abstract:

Early research findings suggest that parental variables and early stimulation relate to children's social adjustment. However, few studies have been longitudinal and of a large enough sample size, making it difficult to address the effect of home stimulation on social adjustment between children from different race and socioeconomic backgrounds. The main purpose of this study was to examine the role of home stimulation in terms of the frequency of parent-child home activities on kindergarteners' social adjustment. Comparisons of children's social adjustment between racial (Asian-American and Caucasian), SES, and different levels of home stimulating groups were also interests of this study. The sample is drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Participants consisted of a nationally representative group of kindergarteners from diverse socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds. A quantitative analysis of the ECLS-K questionnaires was conducted through descriptive statistics and two-way ANOVA in order to examine the significant differences of social adjustment and the effect of home stimulation between children from different backgrounds. Furthermore, because a study with large sample size makes small difference significant, effect size was calculated to see the practical significance of differences. Results of this study showed that home stimulation does effect children's social adjustment regardless of their SES. In addition, there is no difference in social adjustment between Asian-American and Caucasian kindergarteners. The conclusion of the study shows that kindergartens' social adjustment can be affected by parent-child home activities no matter what level of socioeconomic status they are.