TOWARD INCLUSIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE: MULTILEVEL POLICY DETERMINANTS TO ADDRESS INEQUALITIES IN ACCESS, QUALITY, AND OUTCOMES

Author

• Nasir H. Uddin

Date

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Public Administration

Committee Chair

Sharon Wrobel

Committee Member

Bert Burraston

Committee Member

Denise Winsor

Committee Member

Joseph Hafer

Abstract

The current dissertation project has employed various methods to identify public policy issues and solutions, as well as community aspects that impede or promote inclusive early childhood education and care at the local level. This dissertation contains three major sub-subjects or themes, beginning with the introduction and ending with the conclusion, recommendation, and contribution. The first theme examines the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) opportunities across communities. The second theme compares rural-urban differences in access to ECEC opportunities and examines the role of public interventions in addressing these access disparities across geographic locations. The third theme examines how community-level characteristics and program-level policies and features are associated with the availability of high-quality regulated environments. The current dissertation utilizes regional and state-level data to provide a deeper understanding of the policies, practices, and limitations of the ECEC landscape. In particular, this dissertation helps identify disparities in access to ECEC opportunities at the community level, and the effectiveness of public policy interventions and structural determinants can shape ECEC availability and quality across communities. Throughout the dissertation, we applied several theories and models, including ecological or bioecological theory, spatial mismatch in social service provision, neighborhood effects, and the "preferences-and-constraints" model, to establish our arguments on ECEC policy issues and solutions. We created distinct datasets for each theme utilizing several data sources, such as the Tennessee Department of Human Services, the American Community Survey, the Federal Head Start website, the National Neighborhood Data Archive, prepared Archive prepared by ICPSR, the Childcare market rate data, developed by the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research, and the rural-urban commuting areas (RUCAs) classifications of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This ecological correlational study design employed a combination of descriptive statistics, including univariate, bivariate, multivariate, and multilevel modeling. This dissertation reveals significant differences in the availability of ECEC and quality options between rural and urban communities, as well as within communities or neighborhoods. This study also finds rural-urban disparities in access to ECEC opportunities. Children in lower-prosperity neighborhoods had substantially lower access to ECEC than children in higher-prosperity neighborhoods. Public interventions in ECEC programming play a protective role in access to ECEC opportunities. In other words, public investments in any form, such as Head Start, subsidies, transportation, scholarships, and discounts, also improve access to ECEC and even high-quality environments in communities. In addition to addressing literature, methods, and empirical gaps, this dissertation has significant policy implications for policy design and implementation.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.”

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest/Clarivate.

Notes

Embargoed until 2036-04-08

Recommended Citation

Uddin, Nasir H., "TOWARD INCLUSIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE: MULTILEVEL POLICY DETERMINANTS TO ADDRESS INEQUALITIES IN ACCESS, QUALITY, AND OUTCOMES" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive. 4007.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/etd/4007