学前教育的短期和长期效应，国外有不少研究，但是关于中国的故事相对较少，尤其是关于长期效应以及全国乃至地区的代表性样本。本研究旨在读懂当代中国普及学前教育的故事，并在控制个体、家庭背景等变量的前提下，探讨学前教育对儿童发展的长期效应。进一步而言，关于长期效应，以往的研究多聚焦儿童认知能力，对非认知能力的关注尚有不足。因此，本研究希望进一步分析学前教育对儿童认知、非认知能力发展的长期效应，并探讨这一效应在个体、家庭等层面的异质性。解决这个问题，既有助于普及学前教育最后一公里问题的解决，也有助于深入理解高质量学前教育建设的重难点问题。

基于以上目标，本研究依据生命周期视角，借助人力资本理论的分析框架，在运用元分析，总结发达国家普及学前教育影响儿童发展的经验和问题的基础上，立足中国情境，选取中国家庭追踪调查（China Family Panel Studies, CFPS）和OECD社会与情感能力研究（Study on Social and Emotional Skills, SSES）两个数据库来解读中国故事。CFPS是具有全国代表性的抽样调查追踪数据，能展现普及学前教育之前我国学前教育的发展样态，而SSES中的苏州数据是中国发达地区普及高质量学前教育的典型代表。本研究利用以上两个数据库，探讨影响中国儿童学前教育获得的个体、家庭、地区因素；分析学前教育经历对儿童认知能力、非认知能力发展的长期效应及异质性。

研究一利用元分析探讨了发达国家普及学前教育对儿童认知能力发展的长期效应，证明了学前教育对儿童发展至关重要，尤其是高质量的学前教育，并且对处境不利儿童具有补偿作用。但是已有研究中关于中国的故事太少，关于儿童非认知能力发展长期效应的更少。因此，研究二和研究三主要来解决这一问题。

研究二利用CFPS数据探讨普及学前教育之前全国学前教育的发展样态，分析学前教育对儿童认知能力发展的长期效应。研究发现，学前教育资源分布在家庭、城乡、地区层面差异大，处境不利的儿童接受学前教育的可能性更低；学前教育对儿童认知能力发展具有正向效应，并且对处境不利儿童具有补偿作用。但是由于CFPS数据中对非认知能力的测量仅依靠儿童自我汇报，且维度较少，需要更为全面的数据来分析非认知能力。因此，需要研究三来解决这一问题。

研究三利用SSES苏州数据探讨了发达地区学前教育的发展样态，分析学前教育对儿童非认知能力发展的长期效应，研究发现，处境不利儿童接受1年以上学前教育的可能性相对更低；学前教育对儿童非认知能力发展具有正向效应，但因评估主体不同而有所差异；更长时间的学前教育对处境不利儿童的非认知能力并无显著补偿效应。

基于以上三个子研究，本研究勾勒了全国普及学前教育之前，学前教育资源分布在家庭、地区层面的不平等样态，证明了学前教育对儿童认知、非认知能力发展的长期效应，发现了学前教育对处境不利儿童认知、非认知能力补偿效应的差异。因此本研究提出要加大对处境不利儿童的帮扶，解决普及学前教育最后一公里问题，要在保证结构性质量的同时，进一步提升过程性质量，逐步实现从教育机会的公平到教育过程的公平，促进儿童全面发展。

Many studies have analyzed the short and long-term effects of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) on children’s development, but in which few studies use representative samples to explore the long-term effects of ECEC on Children’s development in China. The purpose of this study is to describe the of expanding ECEC in China, and to explore the long-term effects of ECEC on children's development under controlling individual, family and other variables. Furthermore, with regard to long-term effects, previous studies have focused on children's cognitive skills, and there is still insufficient attention to non cognitive skills. Therefore, this study tries to further analyze the long-term effect of ECEC on children's cognitive and non cognitive development, and explore the heterogeneity of that at the individual and family levels. Solving this problem will not only help to solve the last mile problem of expanding ECEC, but also help to deeply understand the key in the construction of high-quality ECEC.

Based on the Life course theory and the framework of human capital theory, this study uses meta-analysis to summarize the long-terms effects of universal ECEC in developed countries on children's development. Then, this study uses the data of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), a representative sample of China, and OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES), a representation sample of advantaged region in China, to analyze the differences of children’s ECEC experience at individual, family and regional levels; Besides, analyze the long-term effects and heterogeneity of ECEC experience on children’s cognitive and non cognitive skills.

Based on meta-analysis, Study 1 explores the long-term effects of the implementation of universal ECEC policy on children's cognitive development. The results show that universal ECEC has long-term effects on children's cognitive development, but which would fade out by the time. The quality of programms plays an important moderation between the effects of universal ECEC and children’s cognitive development. Besides, compared to children with high SES, who with low SES benefit more from universal ECEC programs. However, there are too few studies about China in existing studies, and less about the long-term effects of children's non cognitive skills. Therefore, study 2 and Study 3 mainly solve this problem.

Using the data of CFPS, Study 2 analyzes the long-term effect of ECEC on children's cognitive skills, and whether the effect would fade out by time. The results show that: children from disadvantaged family less likely attend ECEC; ECEC has a positive effect on the development of children's cognitive skills; The positive effect of ECEC will fade out by time; ECEC has compensatory effects on disadvantaged children. Compared with cognitive skills, it’s more difficult to measure non cognitive skills, the variables and measurement of that in CFPS are only depends on children’s self-report, which cannot support the analysis of effects of ECEC. Therefore, study 3 is needed to solve this problem.

Using the data of Suzhou of SSES, Study 3 analyzes the long-term effect of ECEC on children's non cognitive skills. The results show that: children from disadvantaged family less likely attend ECEC more than 1 year; ECEC has a positive effect on the development of children’s non cognitive development, but which is different among the results from children, parents and teachers reports; Longer duration of ECEC has no significant compensatory effect on the non cognitive skills of disadvantaged children.

Based on the results of three sub studies above, this study outlines the unequal distribution of ECEC at family and region level before expanding ECEC in 2010; and proves the long-term effects and heterogeneities of ECEC on the development of Children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Therefore, this study proposes to increase the assistance to disadvantaged children to solve the problem of the last kilometer of universal ECEC, and further improve the structural and process quality to support children’s development.