Early educational experiences as a foundation for academic success (MoBaEarlyEd)

Importance of early experiences in kindergarten and school for later development and education Low education is associated with high mortality and poorer health. Knowledge about how we can best support children's educational journeys from an early age can therefore have major public health benefits. In Norway, 97% of all children attend kindergarten before they start school. The quality varies. Attending high-quality kindergarten may provide benefits for later school outcomes, but whether this effect persists beyond the early school years is still uncertain. More knowledge is needed from studies that follow the same individuals over time. Historical events and social experiences from kindergarten and school also affect children's well-being, school motivation and achievement. However, we lack good studies on how the experience of experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic or social conditions such as being bullied in early school age can play a role in how kindergarten quality and later school outcomes are related. Our goal in this study is to generate new knowledge about how we can ensure favorable upbringing conditions in kindergarten and school when we take the Covid-19 pandemic and social conditions into account. We will study the importance of early relationships with teachers for later developmental trajectories and school outcomes such as grades and test scores. Furthermore, we will investigate whether genetic predisposition, gender, socioeconomic background, birth weight and prematurity can change the importance of early educational experiences for later development and education. By using unique data that follows the same children over time from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Survey (MoBa) linked to register data from the Norwegian Education Database (NUDB), we will generate new knowledge with significance for interventions and prevention. This knowledge will ultimately be able to provide more children with good educational opportunities and better health.