Children's early school attendance and stability as a mechanism through which homelessness is associated with academic achievement

Abstract

Unfortunately, family homelessness is a crisis in the United States. The majority of families experiencing homelessness are headed by single mothers and half of children who experience homelessness are less than five years of age. In the current study, we investigated whether children's school attendance and stability mediated the association between early experiences of homelessness (in infancy and toddlerhood) with children's school performance on standardized assessments of math and English language arts administered in the spring of third grade in a sample of children of young mothers. We used a person-centered analytic technique (i.e., repeated measures latent class analysis) to identify three classes of children's patterns of school attendance and stability from kindergarten through third grade that consisted of (a) High Absenteeism, (b) Decreasing Absenteeism, and (c) Low Absenteeism classes. Early experiences of homelessness were directly and indirectly associated with math, but not English language arts scores, through the three identified classes. The results of the current study have important implications for young children who experience homelessness and suggest promoting school attendance as one avenue to support academic achievement. In addition, supporting families and children early (i.e., before they begin pre-kindergarten) will be key in ensuring that young children who experience homelessness are successful in educational environments.

Keywords: Chronic absenteeism; Family homelessness; School attendance and stability; School mobility; School performance; Truancy.