







































 

 

 

 

 

Does Preschool Education Experience Help 

Disadvantaged Students Become Academically 

Resilient? Empirical Evidence from CEPS Data 

 
Zhenyi Li, Wanpeng Lei 

 
College of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China 

 

Abstract: Supporting socio-economically disadvantaged students to 

improve their academic resilience is vital in promoting social mobility 

and halting intergenerational transmission of poverty. Based on the 

baseline data 2013-2014 from the China Education Panel Survey 

(CEPS) database, this paper examined the impact of preschool 
education experience on academic resilience of disadvantaged students 

using coarsened exact matching (CEM) and hierarchical logistic 

regression. Research findings show that disadvantaged children have 
less access to preschool education than their advantaged peers, with a 

kindergarten attendance rate lower than 70%; that preschool education 
can significantly improve children’s cognitive ability and effectively 

predict academic resilience of disadvantaged students; and that 

preschool education is a better predictor of resilience of rural 
disadvantaged students than that of their urban counterparts. The 

government should reinforce subsidies for early childhood education 
that can serve as compensation for disadvantaged kids; and should 

further universalize preschool education to secure the opportunity of 

high-quality pre-primary school education for disadvantaged children. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education 2023; 13(1):1665-1670. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.23.ar026 

How to Cite: Li, Z., & Lei, W. (2023). Does preschool education experience help 

disadvantaged students become academically resilient? Empirical evidence from 

CEPS Data. Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 13(1):1665-1670. 

Keywords: Preschool Education, Disadvantaged Students, Resilient Students 

 

 



Li & Lei. (Hubei). Preschool Experience for Disadvantaged Students in Academic Achievements. 

BECE, Vol.13, No.1, 2023 1666 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Correspondence to: Wanpeng Lei, College of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China. 
E-mail: 2466691134@qq.com  

Conflict of Interests: None. 
 

© 2023 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. 

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the 

Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License 

(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of 

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Li & Lei. (Hubei). Preschool Experience for Disadvantaged Students in Academic Achievements. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 1, 2023 1667 

 

Raising the Questions 

Preschool education plays a compensatory role in promoting the development of disad-

vantaged students, making up for the deficiency of home education due to the low edu-

cation level of parents (Britto, Yoshikawa, & Boller, 2011). From the global perspective, 

numerous countries have formulated support policies to boost preschool education to 

close the gaps between children from different family backgrounds (Pang & Xia, 2013). 

Existing empirical research demonstrated that early childhood growth has enduring ef-

fects on individuals’ lifelong development (Darmstadt et al., 2019). Heckman and Raut 

(2016) discovered in their study that investment in preschool education can bolster chil-

dren’s cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and that educational subsidies for disadvan-

taged students can improve economic mobility of low-income families and help termi-

nate intergenerational transmission of poverty in them. From a long-term standpoint, 

investment in pre-school education is one of the most cost-effective strategies that im-

prove the productivity and heighten the competitiveness of the nation by intervening in 

the intergenerational transmission of poverty.  

Utilizing the baseline data of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this 

article aims to address the following questions: What is the status quo of preschool edu-

cation among disadvantaged children? Is preschool education beneficial to the cognitive 

development of disadvantaged children? Are there group differences in the effects of 

preschool education experience on academic resilience between urban and rural stu-

dents? Coarsened exact matching (CEM) and hierarchical logistic regression were 

adopted in the analysis.  

The Research Design 

The Source of Data 

This study sourced data from the baseline investigation of CEPS in the academic year 

2013-2014, which was designed and conducted by the National Survey Research Center 

at Renmin University of China. Adopting probability-proportional-to-size sampling, it 

surveyed the seventh and ninth grade students and their parents, teachers, and principals 

by questionnaires to collect information about students’ preschool attendance, family 

backgrounds, cognitive capabilities and more. The baseline survey included approxi-

mately 20,000 students from 438 classes of 112 schools in 28 counties (or city districts) 

in China.  

The Selection of Variables 

The Dependent Variable 

The dependent variable in the study is “the resilient student” (1 = being resilient student, 

0 = being non- resilient student). OECD defines resilient students as those who fall in 

both the bottom third of their country’s socio-economic background distribution and the 

top third of their country’s performance distribution on the PISA science assessment 



Li & Lei. (Hubei). Preschool Experience for Disadvantaged Students in Academic Achievements. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 1, 2023 1668 

 

scale (OECD, 2011). The operational definition of resilient students in this study is 

“students who fall in both the bottom fourth of China’s socio-economic background 

distribution and the top fourth of China’s performance distribution on cognitive ability 

assessment scale. Data shows that there are 4710 disadvantaged students in the sample 

and resilient students account for 12.17% of them.  

The present study measured the subject’s family social and economic status 

(SES) by parents’ highest education level, highest occupational status, self-reported 

household economic circumstances, and the size of home book collection. A continuous 

variable (KMO=0.695) was obtained via a principal component analysis and was fur-

ther converted into an SES index variable with a range of 1-100. According to this in-

dex, those students whose family SES falls in the bottom fourth of China’s socio-

economic background distribution are defined as disadvantaged students. The index was 

also a criterion for identifying resilient students. 

The Explanatory Variable 

The core explanatory variable in this study is “having received preschool education or 

not” (Yes = 1, No = 0). The question “Have you attended any kindergartens or pre-

primary classes before the age of three?” was included in the CEPS’s questionnaire. 

According to the SES index, the subjects are divided into three groups: the dis-

advantaged, ordinary, and advantaged groups. Data shows that the percentages of stu-

dents who had preschool education experience among the three groups are 68.03%, 

81.59%, and 89.10%, respectively, with significant gaps (X
2
= 675, p= 0.000). For urban 

and rural groups, the proportions of students with preschool education experience are 

84.94% and 75.71%, respectively, indicating a considerable difference (X
2
= 254, p= 

0.000). 

The Control Variables 

This study has controlled individual-, family-, and school-related variables that may 

pose impact on individual preschool attendance and cognitive ability. Individual-related 

control variables include gender, grade, type of Hukou (registered permanent residence), 

and being the only child in the family or not. Family-related control variables include 

family economic circumstances before the student’s primary school attendance and the 

average number of years of schooling in the local county or city district where the stu-

dent lives. The school-related control variable is the location of the school (rural 

school= 1, urban school= 0). 

Research Methods 

 Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) 

CEM established by Iacus, King, and Porro (2012) was determined as an effec-

tive approach to define the net impact of preschool education experience on cognitive 

ability of disadvantaged students. 

 Hierarchical Logistic Regression 



Li & Lei. (Hubei). Preschool Experience for Disadvantaged Students in Academic Achievements. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 1, 2023 1669 

 

The main purpose of this study is to examine whether preschool education experience 

can help disadvantaged students become resilient students. The dependent variable in 

the study is a binary variable (1= being resilient student, 0= being non-resilient student), 

which necessitates a logistic regression. Moreover, data comes from the two dimensions: 

the student and the school. In order to reduce the impact of intraclass correlation, this 

study adopted hierarchical logistic regression for analysis. 

Research Findings 

The Cognitive Ability of Disadvantaged Students 

Disadvantaged students have significantly poorer cognitive ability than their ordinary 

and advantaged peers. Family limitations in financial, cultural, and social capital have 

hindered the development of cognitive ability of disadvantaged students. 

The Impact of Preschool Education Experience on Ac-

ademic Resilience of disadvantaged students 

After controlling for individual-, family-, school-, and district-related factors, preschool 

education experience can effectively predict the likelihood of disadvantaged children 

becoming resilient students. The disadvantaged students who have received preschool 

education had a 24.7% higher probability of becoming resilient students than those 

without any preschool education experience. Therefore, early childhood education is a 

potential booster of academic resilience of disadvantaged students.  

The Heterogeneity Analysis 

The rate of preschool enrollment of rural children is prominently lower than that of their 

urban peers. In terms of the difference in the effect of preschool education between ru-

ral and urban disadvantaged students, preschool attendance can well predict academic 

resilience of rural disadvantaged students, but has no significant influence on their ur-

ban counterparts’ school resilience according to the results of heterogeneity analysis.  

Conclusions 

Preschool education is the start of one’s lifelong training and an indicator of social equi-

ty. As a basic component of social welfare, preschool education affects the growth of 

hundreds of millions of children. High quality preschool service for disadvantaged chil-

dren can compensate for the adverse impact of their unfavorable family background and 

potentially bridge the performance gap between disadvantaged and advantaged teenag-

ers. We can conclude from the evidence based on CEPS data that: (i) Disadvantaged 

children’ access to preschool education is still limited; their preschool attendance rate is 

below 70%, considerably lower than that of their ordinary and advantaged peers. (ii) 

Preschool education experience is beneficial to disadvantaged students in developing 

academic resilience. Early childhood education can effectively promote the growth of 



Li & Lei. (Hubei). Preschool Experience for Disadvantaged Students in Academic Achievements. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 1, 2023 1670 

 

cognitive ability of disadvantaged students, indicating that it plays a compensatory role 

in offsetting the adverse effect of their disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. In 

addition, preschool education experience can effectively predict the probability of dis-

advantaged students’ becoming resilient students, which is 24.7% higher than that 

among disadvantaged students without such experience. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References
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3988.2011.tb00067.x  

Darmstadt, G., Yang, J., Nie, J. C., An, Q., Liu, 

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The Chinese version of this article has been published in Journal of Education and Economics, 

2022(05):50-57. The English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE by the 

author(s) and the Chinese journal. 

 

李贞义 & 雷万鹏. (2022). 学前教育能助力处境不利学生成为抗逆学生吗?—来自 CEPS 基线

数据的经验证据. 教育与经济, 2022(5):50-57. 

 

 

Received: 14 November 2022 

Revised: 21 December 2022 

Accepted: 24 December 2022 

 

 

 

 

 
 

https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2379-3988.2011.tb00067.x
https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2379-3988.2011.tb00067.x
https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jeconom.2015.10.001
https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jeconom.2015.10.001
https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr013
https://doi.org/10.1787/19963777

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