The Chicago Child-Parent program: Effective?

Early Childhood Education (ECE) interventions target young socioeconomically disadvantaged children and aim at improving their educational and life chances by offering compensational stimulation activities in education institutions and sometimes also at home. Three renowned programs are Perry Preschool, Abecedarian, and the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC). Though they date from at least 40 years ago, nowadays they are still often cited as proof that ECE programs are highly effective and that their effects can be generalized to similar current programs. This entry focuses on CPC, and makes comparisons with Perry and Abecedarian. The main questions are whether this program generates positive effects, and if it does, whether they can be generalized to similar programs today. To find an answer, a literature study was conducted. On the basis of hundreds of publications, it was concluded that CPC yielded many positive effects in the domains of education, work, well-being, health, and crime. At the same time, several limitations were found, which restricts their generalization.