Exploring the Landscape of Soft Exclusionary Discipline in the Early Years of School

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Suspensions and expulsions are ineffective strategies for reducing problem behavior (Sharkey & Fenning, 2012), and may be detrimental to the social and academic success of children who receive them (Noltemeyer, Ward, & Mcloughlin, 2015). Yet, children receive these exclusionary discipline sanctions beginning in preschool, and Black children experience them disproportionately compared to White children (Gilliam, 2005; U.S. Department of Education, 2014). In response to these concerning discipline trends in early childhood, state departments of education and large public-school districts have increasingly acted to prohibit suspensions and expulsions for students in preschool through third grade in recent years (see USDHHS, 2016, for examples).
However, without ensuring access to evidence-based interventions that help teachers and programs implement new strategies in place of exclusions, such policies banning out-of-school removals for young students may inadvertently increase the use of “soft” exclusionary practices within their schools or classrooms. Soft exclusionary practices are defined by Wymer, Williford, and L’Hospital (2020) as “any practice that reduces or eliminates the opportunity for a child to learn from the activity or experience they should be engaged in during the school day” (p. 37), and may include things like time-outs and loss of privileges. These practices may be used in ways that negatively impact children, and may potentially perpetuate racial inequities in education. At present, we do not have enough data about soft exclusions to determine their implications. Though anecdotal descriptions have surfaced in practitioner-oriented resources (Schachner et al., 2016; Wymer, Williford, & L’Hospital, 2020), the use of soft exclusions is scarcely documented within the literature.
To address this gap, we conducted a descriptive, mixed-methods exploration to determine (1) what types of soft exclusionary practices are used with young children, (2) how frequently they are used, (3) how they are documented, if at all, in student records, and (4) in what ways individual (e.g., personal beliefs or experiences) and contextual (e.g., school expectations or policies) factors are associated with their use. For the qualitative portion, we conducted individual, semi-structured interviews with 24 teachers, administrators, and specialists who worked preschool through third grade children about their approaches to managing challenging behaviors. For the quantitative portion, participating teachers were asked to rate the frequency with which they used 12 specific discipline strategies, while administrators and specialists were asked to rate how frequently they observed such strategies.
We followed the six-phase guide to thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) to generate and apply codes to our qualitative data. Upon completion of qualitative analyses, we identified 13 distinct types of soft exclusion across three overarching areas: physical exclusion, social exclusion, and informal push-outs. Our documentation of these practices and their frequencies, as well as the rich descriptions provided by participants regarding their characteristics and the individual and contextual factors related to their use, provide important considerations for further research to develop sound measurements soft exclusionary practices and to determine their implications for young children.

Authors

• Maria Accavitti, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author

• Amanda P Williford, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author