Poster #183 - Frequency and Predictors of Expulsion in Home-Based Child Care Settings

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Early care and education (ECE) programs expel young children at alarming rates. Gilliam (2005) found that the expulsion rate in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs nationally was 6.7 children per 1000, which is more than three times the rate of K-12 public schools. Recent studies have similarly documented this trend in center-based ECE (Smith & Granja, 2017). Expulsion is associated with negative cognitive and social-emotional developmental outcomes (Commodari, 2013; Dunlap et al., 2006).

Seven million children spend time in home-based child care (HBCC). HBCC providers often have little formal training and access to few professional supports (NSECE Project Team, 2015). A disproportionately high number of children from low-income and minority families attend HBCC (NICHD ECCRN, 2004). Given that this demographic is more likely to be expelled (Novoa & Malik, 2018), coupled with low levels of support for providers, it is important to include HBCC in research about expulsion.
This study explores these questions using a national sample of listed HBCC providers: 1) How many listed HBCC providers report expelling a child in the last year? and 2) What provider characteristics predict expulsion?

Methods
Data came from the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE; NSECE Project Team, 2013). The NSECE provided the first nationally representative sample of HBCC. Providers were designated as listed, those appearing on any state or national list, and unlisted, those who do not appear on any list. The analytic sample was restricted to listed providers who answered the question “In the past year, have you told a parent that you wouldn’t look after their child anymore because of problems with the child’s behavior?”

The sample includes 3385 providers, which represents 109,998 providers. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square and t-tests, and logistic regression using the Complex Samples module of SPSS to obtain population estimates. Predictors were selected based upon previous research.

Results
13.0% of listed providers reported expelling at least one child in the last year. Given that each listed HBCC provider cares for 8.5 children on average, this suggests many children are being expelled from HBCC. Descriptive statistics for predictors of expulsion are presented in Table 1, along with separate frequencies for providers who have and have not expelled a child and significance tests.

Table 2 presents the results of the logistic regression. Several significant predictors of expulsion emerged. Providers with some college credits were 2.2 times more likely to report expelling a child than providers with a high school diploma or less. Providers with more experience, those caring for only related children, older providers, and those in high-poverty neighborhoods were less likely to report expelling a child.

Results suggest listed HBCC expulsion rates are comparable to those in center-based care (Hoover et al., 2012). More research is needed to understand why providers expel children and how this can be prevented, with the ultimate goal of supporting children’s development. Listed HBCC providers may benefit from supports to help them deal with challenging behavior, such as early childhood mental health consultation (Gilliam et al., 2016).

Authors

• Alison Hooper, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Claire Schweiker, University of Alabama
  Non-Presenting Author