Katherine M. Zinsser

Attending an early childhood education (ECE) program provides numerous benefits for young children; however, these benefits depend on the quality of the learning environment (Bierman et al., 2025; ...

There are mounting efforts to curb high rates of exclusionary discipline, such as suspension and expulsion, from preschool settings through statewide legislation. Mandated bans or restrictions on exclusionary discipline in state-funded programs have been largely ineffective in reducing exclusionary discipline rates and associated gender and racial disparities. Prior reviews of existing legislation highlight ways in which this legislation largely ignores teacher well-being (e.g., stress, mental health), despite its known influence on children’s expulsion risk. This policy brief reviews the evidence regarding teacher well-being and exclusionary discipline, identifies empirically informed recommendations for centering teacher well-being in future expulsion prevention legislation, and discusses implications for social work and interdisciplinary practitioners.

Recent studies have focused on predictors of exclusionary practices in early childhood, but few have examined what happens after a child is removed from care. Families' difficulty finding new care is complicated by the shortages of convenient, affordable and quality childcare in the United States. Using online surveys, we gathered data from parents whose children received multiple behavioural warnings from early education programmes (N = 218). Parents completed retrospective survey questions about their perceptions of each care arrangement's quality, accessibility and affordability. Half of the children were formally or informally expelled for their behaviour, while the other half were retained or left for reasons other than behaviour (e.g., graduating to kindergarten). Children were mostly male (65.6%), White (77.98%) and 42.66% had a diagnosed or suspected disability. This exploratory report describes the differential perceptions and experiences of families excluded from and retained by early education programmes following behavioural incidents. Results show that, for the most part, parents perceived subsequent programmes as relatively equivalent. However, nearly a quarter of excluded children did not attend a subsequent programme, and 10% were excluded more than two times before kindergarten entry. Findings are discussed in light of the broader research on early childhood exclusionary discipline.

Over the past decade, numerous reports have indicated pervasively high rates of early childhood expulsion nationwide. In response, state and federal policymakers have enacted various measures to ban or reduce reliance on such exclusionary discipline. Prior evaluations of the implementation of one such legislative ban on expulsion enacted in Illinois in 2018 showed partial reductions but relied only on program administrator-reported data. Parents (N = 16) of children (43.75% children of color) expelled from Illinois early childhood programs before and in the years since the 2018 legislative ban were interviewed about their experiences. Parents in both groups reported similar incidents regarding how and why children are excluded, how programs communicated with parents about children’s behavioral concerns, and how programs assisted (or did not) with accessing resources and supports that may enable a child to be retained. Findings indicate that expulsions continue to happen despite the ban and families’ experiences were essentially unchanged and negative. Findings hold implications for the implementation of similar policy efforts across the country.

This study explores how observed emotion-focused teaching in preschool classrooms differs across classroom activity settings. Forty-three teachers were observed across several mornings. A total of 1,604 video cycles were coded for levels of emotion-focused teaching (e.g., total, modeling, responding, and instructing) and their activity settings (e.g., mealtimes and transition). Activity settings seemed to afford—to varying degrees for different teachers—the opportunity to interact with children around their emotional learning. Small-group activity settings had the highest levels of emotion-focused teaching, and mealtimes had the lowest. Emotion instructing occurred most often during whole-group interactions, and emotion modeling occurred most often during children’s independent work. Findings can inform the creation and implementation of professional development to promote these emotion-focused teaching practices. While research is increasingly demonstrating the value of emotion-focused teaching, understanding the variability of such practice over the various activity settings may identify opportunities to enhance the intentional support of children’s emotional learning.