Family context of low-income young children and their self-regulation in the United States and Turkey

VEZİROĞLU ÇELİK M., Garcia A., Acar I. H., Gonen M., Raikes H., Korkmaz A., ...More

Early Child Development and Care, vol.190, no.11, pp.1712-1724, 2020 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 190 Issue: 11
  • Publication Date: 2020
  • Doi Number: 10.1080/03004430.2018.1548442
  • Journal Name: Early Child Development and Care
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, ASSIA, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Child Development & Adolescent Studies, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Psycinfo
  • Page Numbers: pp.1712-1724
  • Keywords: Self-regulation, American children, Turkish children, family context, early childhood
  • Istanbul Medipol University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The current study examines the contributions of family context (e.g. life events, home environments) to low-income preschool children’s self-regulation (behaviour regulation and executive function) in the United States and Turkey. Participants were 1139 low-income children (486 from the U.S. and 653 from Turkey) and their parents. Children’s self-regulation was assessed via structured tasks and family related variables such as life events, home environments, and demographic information were assessed via parent-report. Results from regression analyses showed that child’s age-predicted behaviour regulation and executive function in children both from the U.S. and Turkey. Child gender, favouring girls predicted behaviour regulation and executive function and parent–child verbal interaction was associated with behaviour regulation only in the U.S. Family structure (favouring living in a two-parent household) predicted executive function and economic change predicted behaviour regulation in Turkey. Contributions and future directions were also discussed.