I use data from the United Nations Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey to test the relationship between early childhood education and parental engagement in five Caribbean Countries. Parental engagement in the UN survey is a binary variable. It describes the reading, singing, story-telling, and playing Mothers and Fathers do with young children in a sample of 7,886. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Logit regression techniques confirm that mother’s and father’s engagement increase the probability of a young child attending preschool, although the impact of Father’s engagement is statistically insignificant. Mother’s education and family wealth also improve the likelihood of a young child attending preschool. I consider policy implications within the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Articles 28 and 29 of the CRC mandate primary education while later documents extend education rights to birth (Vaghiri, nd). Such mandates are costly and long-term and furthermore, causal pathways are difficult to sort through. Without parental engagement for example, more schooling can mean little in terms of targeted outcomes. Parental engagement improves the odds of school attendance, is likely to be less-costly, and is associated with improving cognition and lifetime outcomes. Parental engagement is the business of self-sacrificial behaviors which are often described as love. Love defies legalism and yet matters for improving the outcomes from laws and mandates. This article concludes with suggestions for cultivating parental behaviors that are consistent with rights-based idealism.
[i] Harry Arthurs (2014). The "Majestic Equality" of the Law: Why Constitutional Strategies Do Not Produce Equality. All Papers. Paper 71.
http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/all_papers/71