出版社：Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Studijski centar socijalnog rada
摘要：The paper reviews available evidence on the impact of child-care centers attendance on children’s cognitive and social development as well as cost-benefit analyses related to compensatory programs for disadvantaged children. Most research found a connection between child-care centers attendance and more favorable cognitive development in terms of school readiness, in which the literature particularly emphasizes importance of cognitive-oriented curriculum and the group size. In the area of social development, outcomes depend on the quality of a child-care center and on the authors’ interpretation of a certain behavior as problematic or socially competent. Preschool programs targeted to very disadvantaged children obtained high rates of return as they managed to significantly improve life chances of their participants, while universal programs’ potential rate of return has been only roughly estimated and there is no an unambiguous answer as to whether do they produce an economic return on invested means.
关键词：early childhood education and care; cognitive development; social development; compensatory programs; cost-benefit analysis
