Deborah A Phillips
Biographic Data
| ID | 3819941 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Deborah A Phillips |
| GIVEN NAMES | Deborah A |
| FAMILY NAME | Phillips |
| SIGNATURE | PHILLIPS D A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2068-5604 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 67 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 526 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 66 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Associations between preschool-age care arrangement and low-income children’s IEP receipt during elementary school
Heterogeneity in the perceived impact of the Covid ‐19 pandemic on parents with low incomes
Covid-19-induced educational disruptions and children’s executive functioning: A longitudinal cohort study
Literature suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic may have disrupted children's executive functioning (EF) development, but most studies rely on caregiver reports, cross-sectional data, or comparisons across cohorts. We build on the existing literature with repeated, direct assessments of EF from longitudinal pre-post COVID-19 data on a race-ethnically diverse cohort of elementary-aged children ( N = 667) from low-income families. Random-intercept m…
Start Earlier, Stay Healthier? An Earlier Start to Public Preschool May Improve Detection of Health Problems
Much hypothesized, rarely tested: Public preschool attendance predicts executive functioning skills in 3rd grade
Public preschool enhances consequential long-term education, economic, and health outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. One much-hypothesized - but rarely tested - explanation is that preschool predicts improved executive functioning (EF) in middle childhood. Our study provides empirical support linking preschool to middle childhood EF. We draw on a large, racially-diverse sample of children from low-income families in Tulsa, OK ( N =685, M age …
The Roles of Student-Teacher Relationship Quality and Classroom Self-Regulatory Supports for Children’s Self-Regulatory Skills in Kindergarten and First Grade
Research Findings: The current study aimed to explore the independent and interactive roles of individual student-teacher relationship quality and classroom-level self-regulatory supports in kindergarten for children's self-regulatory skills in kindergarten and first grade. We did so using multiple measures of children's self-regulation, drawn from multiple sources, and a relatively new measure of classroom-level supports for self-regulation. Our…
A deeper dive, a wider pool: Preschool benefits sustain to first grade on a broader set of outcomes
The current study provides new evidence on the sustained benefits of preschool attendance on a broader range of skills—both academic and executive functioning (EF)—than many prior studies have examined. Using propensity score methods, we predicted children's (N = 920, M age at 1st = 6.5 years) literacy, language, math, and EF skills in kindergarten and again at first-grade (2020–2021) based on whether they had attended public preschool (school-ba…
Exploring the predictors of enrollment and kindergarten entry skills of Spanish-speaking dual language learners in a mixed-delivery system of public preschool
Chaos during the Covid ‐19 outbreak: Predictors of household chaos among low‐income families during a pandemic
When does 1 + 1 not equal 2? The relative advantage of public school-based pre-k versus Head Start for low-income children’s kindergarten cognitive and self-regulatory skills
Decades of research suggest that both Head Start and public pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs boost low-income preschoolers' kindergarten skills. What is not yet well understood is whether there are relative advantages of transitioning from Head Start after 1 year into a school-based public pre-k program for the year immediately before kindergarten for children's developing cognitive and self-regulation skills. This is an important question, beca…
Dual language supports for dual language learners? Exploring preschool classroom instructional supports for DLLs' early learning outcomes
First do no harm: How teachers support or undermine children's self-regulation
Everyday Heroes: The Personal and Economic Stressors of Early Care and Education Teachers Serving Low-Income Children
Research findings: This study uses newly available data on low-income children and their teachers in a mixed-delivery, publicly funded early care and education (ECE) system to document the prevalence of personal and economic stressors that ECE teachers experience. We go on to explore whether these stressors are associated with child academic, self-regulatory, and social outcomes. Results indicate that ECE teachers in our sample report a high degr…
To Whom Little Is Given, Much Is Expected: ECE Teacher Stressors and Supports as Determinants of Classroom Quality
The changing portrait of center-based preschool teachers: 1990 And 2012
Associations between publicly funded preschool and low-income children’s kindergarten readiness: The moderating role of child temperament
Publicly funded center-based preschool programs were designed to enhance low-income children's early cognitive and social-emotional skills in preparation for kindergarten. In the U.S., the federal Head Start program and state-funded public school-based pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs are the two primary center-based settings in which low-income children experience publicly funded preschool. Although evidence suggests that these programs general…
The dog that didn’t bark: Preschool education and middle-school attitudes in Tulsa
To examine associations between participation in Tulsa’s preschool programs and a set of middle-school attitudes, we used propensity score weighting to compare the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) pre-K participants and, separately, the Community Action Project (CAP) Head Start participants to students who had attended neither TPS pre-K nor Head Start as 4-year olds. In the context of very few significant findings, positive associations were found betw…
The changing landscape of publicly-funded center-based child care: 1990 And 2012
The Effects of Tulsa's Pre‐K Program on Middle School Student Performance
As states have upgraded their commitment to pre‐K education over the past two decades, questions have arisen. Critics argue that program effects are likely to fade out or disappear over time, while supporters contend that program effects are likely to persist under certain conditions. Using data from Tulsa Public Schools, three neighboring school districts, and the state of Oklahoma, and propensity score weighting, we estimate the effects of Tuls…
Is pre-K classroom quality associated with kindergarten and middle-school academic skills
We employed data from a longitudinal investigation of over 1,000 children who participated in Tulsa's universal school-based pre-K program in 2005, and path modeling techniques, to examine the contribution of pre-K classroom quality to both kindergarten- and middle-school academic skills. We also examined gender and income-related differences in quality-outcome associations. Both Instructional and Emotional Support in pre-K classrooms, but not Cl…
The Early Care and Education Workforce
In this article, Deborah Phillips, Lea Austin, and Marcy Whitebook examine educational preparation, compensation, and professional development among the early childhood workforce. Their central theme is that these features look very different for preschool teachers than they do for the elementary school teaching workforce. Most teachers of kindergarten through third grade can count on clear job requirements, professional development opportunities…
The effects of Tulsa’s CAP Head Start program on middle-school academic outcomes and progress
This study presents evidence pertinent to current debates about the lasting impacts of early childhood educational interventions and, specifically, Head Start. A group of students who were first studied to examine the immediate impacts of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Community Action Project (CAP) Head Start program were followed-up in middle school, primarily as 8th graders. Using ordinary least squares and logistic regressions with a rich set of contro…
Variation in impacts of Tulsa pre-K on cognitive development in kindergarten: The role of instructional support
Public prekindergarten (pre-K) programs have been a recent focus of policy and research attention, in part because of their empirically documented, positive short-term impacts on child cognitive development and school readiness. However, no studies have explored factors that might explain variation across schools in public pre-K impacts. The current study examines the Tulsa Public School pre-K program's impacts on children's letter-word identific…
Is sensitive caregiving in child care associated with children's effortful control skills? An exploration of linear and threshold effects
Reactive Temperament and Sensitivity to Context in Childcare
Consistent with Biological Sensitivity to Context and Differential Susceptibility hypotheses, this study found that children who, as infants, were more temperamentally reactive were more sensitive to the quality of childcare they experienced as toddlers, but not to the amount of childcare with peers they had experienced since birth. Children with both highly positively and negatively reactive temperaments were more socially integrated when care q…
The Effects of Universal Pre-K on Cognitive Development
In this study of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program, the authors relied on a strict birthday eligibility criterion to compare "young" kindergarten children who just completed pre-K to "old" pre-K children just beginning pre-K. This regression-discontinuity design reduces the threat of selection bias. Their sample consisted of 1,567 pre-K children and 1,461 kindergarten children who had just completed pre-K. The authors estimated the impact of the…
Child-care quality and children's social development
Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: A unique research opportunity
The data set known as Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (SLSY) offers unusual opportunuities for research on questions not easily purpued by developmental psychologists. This article provides a history of Children of the NLSY, describes the data set with special focus on the child outcome measures and a subset of maternal life history measures, highlights several of the research and policy relevant issues that may be addressed…
Within and beyond the classroom door: Assessing quality in child care centers
Child Care in the United States, 1970 to 1995
As the proportion of children with mothers who are working has increased, so has the interest and concern about their care arrangements. This study utilizes trends in the proportion of children with a mother in the labor force along with trends in the number of children to project the proportion of children with employed mothers in 1990 and 1995, by age of child. The authors profile the current distribution of children in nonparental care and loo…
Inside the pre-kindergarten door: Classroom climate and instructional time allocation in Tulsa's pre-K programs
The effects of Tulsa’s CAP Head Start program on middle-school academic outcomes and progress
This study presents evidence pertinent to current debates about the lasting impacts of early childhood educational interventions and, specifically, Head Start. A group of students who were first studied to examine the immediate impacts of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Community Action Project (CAP) Head Start program were followed-up in middle school, primarily as 8th graders. Using ordinary least squares and logistic regressions with a rich set of contro…
The Effects of Universal Pre‐K in Oklahoma: Research Highlights and Policy Implications
Oklahoma is one of only three states in the nation to offer a free pre‐kindergarten (pre‐K) program to all students in participating school districts on a voluntary basis. Fortuitous circumstances in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the state's largest school district, permitted an unusually rigorous evaluation of the pre‐K program in Tulsa. Because four‐year‐olds beginning pre‐K and five‐year‐olds beginning kindergarten were administered the same test in Septem…
The Effects of Tulsa's Pre‐K Program on Middle School Student Performance
As states have upgraded their commitment to pre‐K education over the past two decades, questions have arisen. Critics argue that program effects are likely to fade out or disappear over time, while supporters contend that program effects are likely to persist under certain conditions. Using data from Tulsa Public Schools, three neighboring school districts, and the state of Oklahoma, and propensity score weighting, we estimate the effects of Tuls…
Child Care and Our Youngest Children
Studies of child development confirm that experiences with people mold an infant's mind and personality. Caregiving is, therefore, central to development, whether the caregiver is a parent, a grandmother, or a teacher in a child care center. This article uses data from new, national studies of families to examine the state of child care for infants and toddlers. The story it tells is complex, as the authors outline the overlapping impacts that di…
Head Start's Comparative Advantage: Myth or Reality
In recent years, Head Start's prominent role in preparing low-income 4-year-olds for school has been affected by rapid growth in state-funded pre-K programs, some of which are based in public schools. This has led to questions about the comparative advantages of these two approaches to early education. An analysis of data from Tulsa, Oklahoma, indicates that the school-based pre-K program is more effective in improving early literacy outcomes, wh…
Child Care as an Adult Work Environment
A sample of 1307 center‐based child care staff was studied to assess predictors of job satisfaction and turnover, and to link these aspects of the adult work environment of child care to the quality of care, as assessed from a child development perspective. The staff were well educated in comparison to the female labor force, but they earned, on average, poverty‐level wages. High levels of career orientation and satisfaction with the day‐to‐day d…
Variation in impacts of Tulsa pre-K on cognitive development in kindergarten: The role of instructional support
Public prekindergarten (pre-K) programs have been a recent focus of policy and research attention, in part because of their empirically documented, positive short-term impacts on child cognitive development and school readiness. However, no studies have explored factors that might explain variation across schools in public pre-K impacts. The current study examines the Tulsa Public School pre-K program's impacts on children's letter-word identific…
The state of child care regulation: A comparative analysis
Is pre-K classroom quality associated with kindergarten and middle-school academic skills
We employed data from a longitudinal investigation of over 1,000 children who participated in Tulsa's universal school-based pre-K program in 2005, and path modeling techniques, to examine the contribution of pre-K classroom quality to both kindergarten- and middle-school academic skills. We also examined gender and income-related differences in quality-outcome associations. Both Instructional and Emotional Support in pre-K classrooms, but not Cl…
The social policy context of child care: Effects on quality
Examined effects on the quality of children's child care environments of (a) the stringency of state child care regulations, (b) voluntary compliance with proposed federal child care standards, and (c) the legal auspice of the center. Quality of care was assessed in 227 child care centers in five metropolitan areas. Centers in states with more stringent child care regulations tended to have better staff-child ratios, staff with more child-related…
Natural experiments and the educational context: The environment and effects of an alternative inner‐city public school on adolescents
The 1-year impact of attending a public alternative high school on two cohorts of adolescents who gained entrance to the school through a lottery was studied. Adolescents who had applied to the school but were not selected in the lottery served as a control group. The nature of the alternative high school environment is described, and the outcome of this natural experiment defined in terms of reactions to school, attitude change, and student achi…
Attitudes of Homeowners and the Decision to Rehabilitate Property
To Whom Little Is Given, Much Is Expected: ECE Teacher Stressors and Supports as Determinants of Classroom Quality
The changing landscape of publicly-funded center-based child care: 1990 And 2012
Rethinking the role of early care and education in foster care
Reactive Temperament and Sensitivity to Context in Childcare
Consistent with Biological Sensitivity to Context and Differential Susceptibility hypotheses, this study found that children who, as infants, were more temperamentally reactive were more sensitive to the quality of childcare they experienced as toddlers, but not to the amount of childcare with peers they had experienced since birth. Children with both highly positively and negatively reactive temperaments were more socially integrated when care q…
The import of the cortisol rise in child care differs as a function of behavioral inhibition
Children of ages 3 to 4.5 years (N = 107; 45 boys, 62 girls) were studied twice, 6 months apart, to examine whether the cortisol rise in child care at Time 1 (T1) was associated with (a) changes in anxious, vigilant behavior from T1 to Time 2 (T2) and (b) higher internalizing symptoms at T2. Controlling for measures of home environment and child care quality at T1, as well as for cortisol activity at T2, we obtained results indicating that behavi…
When does 1 + 1 not equal 2? The relative advantage of public school-based pre-k versus Head Start for low-income children’s kindergarten cognitive and self-regulatory skills
Decades of research suggest that both Head Start and public pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs boost low-income preschoolers' kindergarten skills. What is not yet well understood is whether there are relative advantages of transitioning from Head Start after 1 year into a school-based public pre-k program for the year immediately before kindergarten for children's developing cognitive and self-regulation skills. This is an important question, beca…
Dual language supports for dual language learners? Exploring preschool classroom instructional supports for DLLs' early learning outcomes
Information Diffusion Within an Inner City Neighbourhood
Until recently, the role of process has been neglected in many geographical diffusion studies, greater attention having been devoted to the simulation of large scale diffusion patterns. This paper examines the process of information diffusion within an ethnically mixed inner city neighbourhood of Vancouver. The information pertained to a Federal aid programme for housing improvement. The impact of official mass media communications concerning the…
Children's self-image disparity: Effects of age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and gender
Attitudes of Homeowners and the Decision to Rehabilitate Property
Natural experiments and the educational context: The environment and effects of an alternative inner‐city public school on adolescents
The 1-year impact of attending a public alternative high school on two cohorts of adolescents who gained entrance to the school through a lottery was studied. Adolescents who had applied to the school but were not selected in the lottery served as a control group. The nature of the alternative high school environment is described, and the outcome of this natural experiment defined in terms of reactions to school, attitude change, and student achi…
Books
British thinking about race before and after 1945 Paul B. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1986,272 pp., £25. Reassessing the ‘black presence’ in English literature David Dabydeen (ed.), The Black Presence in English Literature, Manchester University Press, 1985, 214 pp.. £5.95 pb. 1 The Colonial Encounter: A Reading of Six Novels (Rex Collings, 1977). 2 The Study of Literature in an African University was pu…
The federal Model Child Care Standards Act of 1985: Step in the right direction or hollow gesture
Child care quality has resurfaced as an important policy issue, buttressed by demographic data, increased knowledge about the current status of child care programs, and recent allegations of sexual abuse in child care settings. This article evaluates the likely effectiveness of the Reagan administration's major response--the 1985 Model Child Care Standards Act--in assuring that children receive quality care in their early years
Child-care quality and children's social development
Child Care in the United States, 1970 to 1995
As the proportion of children with mothers who are working has increased, so has the interest and concern about their care arrangements. This study utilizes trends in the proportion of children with a mother in the labor force along with trends in the number of children to project the proportion of children with employed mothers in 1990 and 1995, by age of child. The authors profile the current distribution of children in nonparental care and loo…
As the pendulum swings: Federal agency programs for children
Working mothers and their families
The topic of maternal employment and its effects on the family is receiving considerable attention as more and more mothers enter the work force when their children are very young. This article reviews the effects of mothers' employment on marital relations, on the development of their children, and on mothers themselves
As the pendulum swings: Federal agency programs for children
Books
London Against Racism in Housing, Anti‐Racism for the Private Rented Sector, London: London Against Racism in Housing, 1988, 122 pp., n.p. Marc Reuver, Christians as Peacemakers, Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1988, 84 pp., £3.75 p.b. Robin Boyd, Ireland: Christianity Discredited or Pilgrim's Progress, Geneva: WWC Publications, 1988, 127 pp., £4.75 p.b. Máirtin Mac an Ghaill, Young, Gifted and Black: Student‐Teacher Relations in the Schooling…
The state of child care regulation: A comparative analysis
Longman Preparation Course for the Toefl
This contains the tapescript and answer key for the Longman TOEFL preparation course for which a course book and cassette are also available. The course aims to break down each section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language into teachable skills for students to master. It is designed for universities and private schools, particularly in the USA and Canada
Books
Colin Holmes, John Bull's Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988, 448 pp., £33.00 h.b., £10.95 p.b. Patricia R. Pessar (ed), When Borders Don't Divide: Labor Migration and Refugee Movements in the Americas, New York: Center for Migration Studies in association with the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 1988, 220 pp., $17.50 cloth, $12.95 p.b. Da…
Child Care as an Adult Work Environment
A sample of 1307 center‐based child care staff was studied to assess predictors of job satisfaction and turnover, and to link these aspects of the adult work environment of child care to the quality of care, as assessed from a child development perspective. The staff were well educated in comparison to the female labor force, but they earned, on average, poverty‐level wages. High levels of career orientation and satisfaction with the day‐to‐day d…
Child Care Policy Research
This paper reviews current policy issues in child care in the United States. Recent statistics on the demand for and supply of child care in the United States from national surveys show that, even though there may be selective shortages, overall there is an adequate supply of child care for preschoolers. Today, the most important issues are not supply per se but the quality and cost of care, and freedom of choice. The paper describes the market f…
Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: A unique research opportunity
The data set known as Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (SLSY) offers unusual opportunuities for research on questions not easily purpued by developmental psychologists. This article provides a history of Children of the NLSY, describes the data set with special focus on the child outcome measures and a subset of maternal life history measures, highlights several of the research and policy relevant issues that may be addressed…
Thresholds of Quality: Implications for the Social Development of Children in Center-Based Child Care
Carollee Howes, Deborah A. Phillips, Marcy Whitebook, Thresholds of Quality: Implications for the Social Development of Children in Center-Based Child Care, Child Development, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 449-460
The social policy context of child care: Effects on quality
Examined effects on the quality of children's child care environments of (a) the stringency of state child care regulations, (b) voluntary compliance with proposed federal child care standards, and (c) the legal auspice of the center. Quality of care was assessed in 227 child care centers in five metropolitan areas. Centers in states with more stringent child care regulations tended to have better staff-child ratios, staff with more child-related…
Books
Abdul R. JanMohamed and David Lloyd (eds), The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, 472 pp., £12.95 p.b. Commission for Racial Equality, ’Sorry it's Gone’: Testing for Racial Discrimination in the Private Rented Housing Sector London: Commission for Racial Equality, 1990, 41 pp., £3.50 p.b. Mohammed Habeebullah and David Slater, Equal Access: Asian Access to Council Housing in Rochdale London: Community …
On using research as a tool
On using research as a tool
Correlates of grandmother childcare support to adolescent mothers: Implications for development in two generations of women
Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities
Psychology (54 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (43 works) · Developmental psychology (38 works) · Medicine (32 works) · Political science (21 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Nursing (14 works)