Publication Date
2020
School
School of Education
Major
Education: Elementary/Middle
Keywords
preschool, achievement gap, socioeconomic status, math education
Disciplines
Early Childhood Education | Urban Education
Recommended Citation
King, Sydney, "Using Preschool to Close the Socioeconomic Math Achievement Gap" (2020). Senior Honors Theses. 965.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/honors/965
Abstract
Socioeconomic status (SES) heavily influences students’ academic performance, creating an achievement gap in core subjects like reading and mathematics. This thesis will describe the socioeconomic achievement gap as it relates to mathematics specifically, discuss the problem’s causes, and propose how preschool programs should be implemented more prevalently as a solution to close the gap. Children with low socioeconomic statuses enter school with lower math proficiency due to their limited math exposure in their early years and the quality of their home learning environments. This thesis will propose an expansion of preschool programs as a solution to this problem to help mediate the proficiency in foundational math concepts of low-SES students prior to school entry.
