Examining the Ecology of Preschool Expulsion Decision Making

In Chicago and across the country, some of our youngest children are facing the harshest of disciplinary practices in education: expulsion. Expulsion at any age is understood to greatly increase a child’s likelihood of future negative outcomes, such as academic failure, drop-out and involvement with the criminal justice system (Council on School Health, 2013; APA, 2008), but educators, policy makers, and scholars are particularly concerned about the life course ramifications of discipline of our youngest learners. Prior research has indicated that child and teacher characteristics likely contribute to the risk of expulsion, but as has been said previously, expulsion is the result of an adult decision (Meek & Gilliam, 2016), and therefore it is important to understand the factors and contexts influencing that decision-making process. The current study contributes to the growing body of research on preschool expulsion by examining factors increasing the likelihood of an expulsion request being made in a sample of urban community-based preschool teachers. Using self-reports from early childhood teachers in Chicago (N=127) and logistic regression analyses, we explored whether and how teacher emotional intelligence, depression, perception of challenging behaviors in the classroom, and of their workplace climate influence expulsion decision making. Higher levels of teacher depression symptoms significantly predicted teacher requests for expulsions. Further, we explored how structural supports, namely early childhood mental health consultation, mitigated these pathways. Findings indicate that the positive relationship between depression symptoms and expulsion was only seen when consultants were not utilized.