By the time children start primary school, large socioeconomic disparities are evident in their learning and development. Both pre-primary and home environments can play important roles in influencing school readiness and can contribute to disparities in early childhood development, but there is limited evidence on their relative roles in the Middle East and North Africa. This paper examines how pre-primary quality, stimulation at home, and early childhood development vary by socioeconomic status for pre-primary students in Egypt. The results demonstrate substantial socioeconomic inequality in stimulation at home, more so than in pre-primary quality and inputs, although there is variation in the degree of inequality across different dimensions of pre-primary quality. “Double inequality” is observed, where students with less stimulating home environments experience slightly lower quality pre-primary inputs. There are particularly large pre-primary inequities in structural quality (physical environment) and less inequity in process quality (pedagogy). These results suggest that targeted investments in pre-primary education in Egypt are necessary to reduce inequality in school readiness but are likely insufficient to close the socioeconomic status gap in children's development. Investing in interventions to improve vulnerable children's home learning environments, as well as investing in quality pre-primary, is critical to address disparities in children's development.

中文翻译：

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埃及学前教育和家庭环境对儿童早期发展投入的质量和不平等

当孩子们开始上小学时，他们的学习和发展中巨大的社会经济差距就显而易见。学前环境和家庭环境都可以在影响入学准备方面发挥重要作用，并可能导致儿童早期发展的差异，但关于它们在中东和北非的相对作用的证据有限。本文探讨了埃及学前学生的社会经济地位如何影响学前质量、家庭刺激和儿童早期发展。结果表明，家庭刺激方面存在严重的社会经济不平等，比学前质量和投入方面更严重，尽管学前质量不同维度的不平等程度存在差异。观察到“双重不平等”，即家庭环境刺激性较低的学生所获得的学前投入质量略低。在结构质量（物理环境）方面存在特别大的学前不平等，而在过程质量（教育学）方面则存在较少的不平等。这些结果表明，埃及有必要对学前教育进行有针对性的投资，以减少入学准备方面的不平等，但可能不足以缩小儿童发展中的社会经济地位差距。投资于改善弱势儿童家庭学习环境的干预措施以及投资于优质学前教育对于解决儿童发展差异至关重要。