Stephanie Potochnick on Advancing Latino Children’s Access to Early Education

Dr. Stephanie F. Potochnick, Department of Sociology, Charlotte presents highlights from two different projects, both of which focus on advancing young (age 0-5) Latino children’s overall well-being.

Do Immigration Raids Deter Head Start Enrollment? (Robert Santillano, Stephanie Potochnick, and Jade M. Jenkins) Using geographic variation in immigration raids, we investigated their deterrence effect on Hispanic Head Start enrollment. Using a nationwide panel of raids from 2006 to 2008, a time of intensified immigration enforcement across communities in the U.S., we find robust evidence that raids decreased Hispanic Head Start enrollment by around 10 percent. We disentangle this impact and find evidence that this decrease is driven by a deterrence effect rather than a mobility effect, which suggests that families are staying in their communities but not enrolling their children in Head Start.

Creating equitable systems of care that promote young Black and Latino child development in the rapidly changing U.S. Southeast: Generating generalizable lessons from Charlotte, NC (Armstrong, L., Potochnick, S., Kangmennaang, J., Delmelle, E., Kilmer, R., Shahinfar, A.) Black (non-Hispanic) and Latino families with young children are often marginalized by key prenatal through age 5 (PN-5) child development systems. Communities—particularly in the U.S. Southeast, a region transformed by rapid Latino population growth—need guidance on how to develop more equitable PN-5 systems of care. To provide this guidance, we focus on Charlotte, NC as a case example and build upon two related pilot projects. Using a mixed-methods, community-engaged research approach, we address three aims: (1) create an inventory of PN-5 services and policies across 4 policy domains (health, education, income, food); (2) map the landscape of PN-5 service use/accessibility, and (3) engage low-income Black and Latino parents and direct service providers to learn their perspectives on PN-5 service opportunities and barriers.

Update: You can now watch this presentation at the CAGIS YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/FZDc6Ukbe3A