Cambridge Elements - Child Development: Equity for Children in the United States
April 2024
Authors: Dr. Shantel Meek, Dr. Xigrid Soto-Boykin, Dr Darielle Blevins and Dr. Evandra Catherine
All children deserve access to the conditions and opportunities needed to thrive, including unbiased accessible healthcare and high-quality learning opportunities; safe, toxin-free communities and stable housing; access to nutritious meals; and secure, warm, available, and loving caregivers. Historic and contemporary injustices in US society have created inequities in opportunity and access to resources for Black, Latine, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native, and other children of color, children with disabilities, children in poverty, and other marginalized children; these have contributed to stark disparities across child development outcomes. This Element overviews inequities in economic, educational, and health systems through historical and contemporary perspectives and describes how these inequities impact children and families. Solutions to address these inequities are considered for a fairer US society, starting with its youngest residents, where all families have what they need to thrive.
About Equity for Children in the United States
Equity for Children in the United States examines the conditions, systems, and opportunities that shape children’s development and well-being across the United States. Written by Children’s Equity Project researchers Shantel Meek, Xigrid Soto-Boykin, Darielle Blevins, and Evandra Catherine, the publication takes a historical and contemporary look at inequities affecting children and families across economic, educational, and health systems.
The report considers how children’s opportunities are influenced not only by individual or family circumstances, but also by the policies, resources, institutions, and environments that surround them. It pays particular attention to children and families who have historically faced barriers to opportunity, including children of color, children with disabilities, immigrant children, multilingual children, and children experiencing poverty.
What Does Equity for Children Mean?
Equity for children means ensuring that every child has access to the resources, relationships, services, and opportunities they need to thrive. This includes safe and stable housing, nutritious food, high-quality health care, supportive caregivers, safe communities, and high-quality educational opportunities beginning in early childhood.
The report emphasizes that understanding child equity requires looking at both children’s access to important resources and their experiences within the systems designed to support them. It also examines how historical conditions and contemporary policies can shape disparities in children’s health, education, economic security, and development.
Equity and Family Economic Well-Being
Children’s well-being is closely connected to the economic well-being of their families. The report examines economic stability, economic mobility, and wealth and how each can influence a family’s ability to meet basic needs such as food, housing, health care, and child care.
It also explores the historical and contemporary factors that have contributed to disparities in income, wealth, employment opportunities, housing, and access to public supports.
Understanding these connections is important because family economic conditions can affect children’s home environments, access to basic necessities, educational opportunities, health, and longer-term economic mobility.
Equity in Children’s Learning and Education
All children need access to high-quality learning opportunities, beginning in early childhood and continuing throughout their educational experience.
The report describes an equitable education system as one that provides children with well-resourced schools and early learning programs, safe and engaging learning environments, effective instruction, supported educators, strong family partnerships, and access to health and mental health supports. It also examines inclusion for children with disabilities and support for dual language learners and multilingual children.
Equity for Children in the United States places today’s education disparities within a broader historical context and examines how barriers to educational opportunity have affected different groups of children over time.
Topics explored include:
- Access to high-quality early childhood education
- School funding and educational resources
- Exclusionary discipline and positive behavior supports
- Inclusive education for children with disabilities
- Support for dual language learners and multilingual children
- Culturally and linguistically responsive learning environments
- Family engagement and leadership
- Educator preparation and workforce conditions
The report emphasizes that educational equity involves both access to high-quality learning opportunities and children’s experiences once they enter educational systems.
Equity in Children’s Health and Well-Being
Children’s health is influenced by far more than what happens inside a doctor’s office. Where children are born, live, learn, and play can shape their physical health, mental health, development, and overall well-being.
The report examines health equity for children through issues including health care access, mental health, nutrition, maternal and child health, environmental conditions, and other social determinants of health. It also considers how disparities in these conditions can affect children and families differently.
Achieving health equity, as described in the publication, includes expanding access to high-quality care and ensuring that children have access to nutritious food, healthy environments, mental health supports, and other conditions that contribute to healthy development.
Understanding How Systems Shape Child Development
One of the central themes of Equity for Children in the United States is that children develop within interconnected systems.
A family’s economic circumstances can influence housing, nutrition, access to health care, and educational opportunities. A child’s experiences in school can interact with their health, family circumstances, language, disability status, and community. These factors do not operate independently.
The publication therefore uses an intersectional and systems-focused approach to examine how race, income, disability, language, immigration status, gender, and other characteristics can interact with children’s experiences across economic, education, and health systems.
This broader perspective can help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers better understand disparities in child development and identify the conditions and resources that support children and families.
Building More Equitable Opportunities for Children
The report does more than document disparities. It examines policies, programs, and approaches intended to expand opportunity and improve children’s health, learning, and economic well-being.
Among the areas discussed are early care and education, health and mental health services, food assistance, paid family leave, family economic supports, inclusive education, positive behavioral supports, and approaches addressing the social determinants of health. The publication discusses these approaches in the context of creating stronger systems for children and families.
Ultimately, Equity for Children in the United States provides a research-based resource for understanding how economic security, education, health, and public policy intersect throughout childhood.
Frequently Asked Questions
Equity for children means ensuring that all children have access to the resources, relationships, opportunities, and conditions they need to thrive. This can include high-quality education, health care, nutritious food, safe housing and communities, economic security, and supportive caregivers.
Children’s opportunities and outcomes can be influenced by interconnected factors including family economic stability, access to high-quality education and early learning, health care, housing, nutrition, neighborhood conditions, disability inclusion, language access, and experiences within public systems.
Family economic well-being can affect children’s access to housing, food, health care, education, safe environments, and other resources important to healthy development. The report examines economic stability, economic mobility, and wealth as interconnected components of family well-being.
Educational equity includes access to well-resourced, high-quality learning opportunities as well as positive experiences within education systems. The report discusses early childhood education, school resources, inclusion of children with disabilities, multilingual learners, educator support, family engagement, and positive learning environments.
Health equity means children have access to the resources and conditions needed to live healthy lives and reach their potential. These include high-quality health care, mental health supports, nutritious food, safe environments, and equitable access to other social and economic resources that affect health.
Social determinants of health are conditions in the environments where children are born, live, learn, and play that can influence their health and development. They include economic stability, education, health care access, neighborhood conditions, and social and community environments.
The publication can serve as a resource for researchers, educators, early childhood professionals, health professionals, policymakers, advocates, students, and organizations interested in child development, early childhood equity, education equity, health equity, and family economic well-being.