Does Your Classmatesʼ Early Childhood Education Experience Affect Your Non‐Cognitive/Socio‐Emotional Skills?

ABSTRACT We investigate whether having more classmates with ECE experience affects junior high school studentsʼ non‐cognitive/socio‐emotional skills. We draw on panel data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) and leverage the exogenous variation in classroom ECE experience composition brought by the random assignment of students when they entered junior high schools. Results from a quasi‐experimental research design show that having more classmates with ECE experience helps to improve studentsʼ non‐cognitive/socio‐emotional skills. Possible mechanisms underlying these relationships include having more classmates with ECE experience is associated with improved classroom peer environment, the enhanced parent and teacher behaviours. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the positive spillover effects of ECE are more prominent among girls, students without ECE experience, those with better‐educated parents, those in classes with lower ECE enrolment or smaller size, as well as those in urban or public schools.