RICH CULTURE, POOR MARKETS - WHY DO LATINO PARENTS FORGO PRESCHOOLING

Debates rage in the K-12 sector over the probable effects of school-ch oice programs-often with scarce evidence of their institutional dynami cs and local effects. Meanwhile, the preschool sector has become a liv ely and sizable mixed market of public and private organizations, fina nced by parental fees and over $6 billion in public funds each year. T he sector offers an intriguing setting for studying the long-term acce ss and equity effects that res result from liberalized market conditio ns. This article focuses on the consider-ably lower proportion of Lati no parents who select a formal preschool or child-care center for thei r three- to five-year-old youngsters. We empirically focus on the infl uence of ethnicity, maternal education, family structure, and preliter acy practices on parents' propensity to select preschools and center-b ased programs. After controlling for the effects of maternal employmen t and household income, we find that children-across all ethnic groups -are less Likely to enter preschools when they are younger (age three, not four-five years), when a father or a nonparent adult resides in t he household, when the mother has low school attainment, and when chil dren's books are less evident in the household. Latino families are di stinguished in part, by these family characteristics; in addition, the negative relationship between Latino status and nonselection of a pre school persists after accounting for these effects. We then report ini tial qualitative evidence, revealing clear cultural conflicts that may discourage Latinos' use of preschools. We discuss the importance of u nderstanding how ethnic variation in family structure and cultural pre ferences regarding child rearing interact with secular conceptions of liberaized markets.