How teachers' perceptions of the parent–teacher relationship affect children's risk for early childhood expulsion

Abstract

Rates of expulsion from early care and education settings (e.g., childcare and preschool programs) exceed those in K-12, and relatively little is known of how to prevent such disciplinary decisions. In addition, expulsion disproportionately affects children of color, especially boys. The present study explores a potential protective strategy existent in all early care and education settings, the parent-teacher relationship. Surveys with early childhood teachers (N = 295) outline the association between teachers' perceptions of the parent-teacher relationship and a child's risk for expulsion. Findings indicate that teachers' perceptions of high-quality parent-teacher relationships are related to a lower risk for expulsion for children who have not been expelled, with the strongest association found for Black children. In contrast, for children identified as previously expelled, we found no association between teachers' perceptions of the parent-teacher relationship and future expulsion risk. Each finding will be described in detail with an eye towards implications and intervention.

A Systematic Review of Early Childhood Exclusionary Discipline

“…The degree to which studies included demographic data on participants varied widely, with administrator reports of programs often only describing the setting (program type) and others like Upshur et al (2009) and Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser (2020) providing full descriptive data on children and teachers. Socioeconomic status (SES) was inconsistently reported, and we captured a level of education when no other approximation was available.…”

“…Those assessing teacher practices tended to use dichotomous categorization of whether they had excluded any children in the past year. Similarly, child-focused studies tended to use dichotomous ratings of whether or not a child had been excluded in a set amount of time or ever in the past (e.g., Zeng et al, 2019; Zeng et al, 2020; Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser, 2020). Two studies used ratings on a Likert-style rating scale developed by Walter Gilliam, the Preschool Expulsion Risk Measure (PERM; Gilliam & Reyes, 2018), which measures teachers’ perceptions of children.…”

“…However, notably, in Gilliam’s study, the disruptiveness of the behavior was not a significant predictor, and instead, there was a small trending association with teachers’ hopelessness about the behavior’s malleability and expulsion risk. Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser (2020) was the only paper to assess children’s prior expulsion experiences and found a significant and positive association with expulsion risk. As with Gilliam and Reyes (2018), Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser (2020) used teacher reports, however, which may be akin to teachers’ perceptions of the malleability of children’s behavior.…”

“…Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser (2020) was the only paper to assess children’s prior expulsion experiences and found a significant and positive association with expulsion risk. As with Gilliam and Reyes (2018), Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser (2020) used teacher reports, however, which may be akin to teachers’ perceptions of the malleability of children’s behavior. Those who have previously been expelled were at greater risk of future expulsion, according to these same teachers.…”

“…d Both of Zeng et al’s analyses (2019 and 2020) use data from the National Survey of Early Care and Education Project Team (2016). In Zulauf-McCurdy and Zinsser (2020), “Exp” = teacher who reported a child had previously been expelled, “No Exp” = teacher reported no child with previous expulsion.…”