The Relationship Between Head Start Parental Involvement and the Economic and Social Self-Sufficiency of Head Start Families

Abstract

Twenty-three years following Project Head Start's inception as a major vehicle of the War on Poverty in the United States, domestic poverty remains at one of its highest levels. More than 32 million Americans, 15 percent of the population, fell below the official poverty level for a family of four ($11,000) according to the U.S. Census Bureau.' One-fifth of all children in the United States live in low-income families, and two-fifths of the poor population are children. The poverty rate for younger children is higher than for older ones. Among racial minorities the news is even more startling. Almost 33 percent of Blacks and 30 percent of Hispanics fell below the poverty line in 1987. Of Black children younger than six years of age, 49 percent live in poverty; of White children younger than six, slightly less than 17 percent do so. Project Head Start was designed to interrupt the cycle of pov-