Browsing by Author "Williford, Amanda P."

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    A conceptual model to understand and address racial disparities in exclusionary discipline through teacher-child relationships
    (Elsevier Science Inc., 2023) Alamos Valenzuela, Pilar María; Williford, Amanda P.
    Young children in the United States, particularly Black boys, are being suspended and expelled from early childhood education programs and primary schools at alarming rates. Teachers describe children's "disruptive" or "challenging" behavior as the most common reason for suspending or expelling a child. For this reason, common efforts to reduce exclusionary discipline target teacher behavior to change child behavior (e.g., improve use of evidence-based practices) or child behavior directly (e.g., learn self-regulation skills). In this paper, we argue that improving the quality of the teacher-child relationship is an alternative mechanism for addressing exclusionary discipline and mitigating racial disparities in the early childhood years. We propose and provide support for a transactional, relational model to account for exclusionary discipline. The proposed conceptual model intentionally names how teachers' racial bias and children's stereotype threat, resulting from racialized classroom experiences, exacerbate coercive teacher-child interaction cycles for Black children. We apply this model to review and evaluate select teacher-child relationship interventions to identify opportunities and challenges these interventions present to reduce exclusionary discipline and mitigate racial discipline disparities. We end the paper with recommendations for future research to advance relationship-based solutions to the exclusion crisis in early childhood education.
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    Missing Out: Kindergarten Teachers' Reports of Soft Exclusionary Discipline Practices
    (2024) Williford, Amanda P.; Alamos, Pilar; Whittaker, Jessica E.; Accavitti, Maria R.
    Research Findings: Students perceived as struggling to regulate their emotions and behavior are at risk for experiencing classroom and school exclusion beginning in preschool. In this preliminary and exploratory secondary data analysis study, we examined teachers' self-reported use of classroom-based soft exclusionary discipline practices with kindergarten students whom they perceived as displaying the lowest self-regulation and social skills. In a sample of 2,053 teachers and 40,771 kindergarten students, teachers reported on their use of five soft exclusionary discipline practices and rated students' self-regulation and social skills in the fall of the kindergarten year. Teachers reported variability in their use of soft exclusionary discipline practices with some practices being used multiple times per day by some teachers. Most variability in the use of these practices was at the teacher (rather than the school or district) level. Teachers reported using certain soft exclusionary discipline practices (break outside classroom, losing free time, and limit talking) more frequently when the racial composition of students they rated as having the lowest self-regulation and social skills included more Black students. Practice or Policy: Findings highlight the importance of better understanding the range and types of exclusionary discipline practices used with young students, and which children are most likely to experience them.
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    The joint development of self-regulation and expressive language in preschool classrooms: Preliminary evidence from a low-income sample
    (2025) Alamos Valenzuela Pilar Maria; Turnbull, Khara L. P.; Williford, Amanda P.; Downer, Jason T.
    Self-regulation and expressive language are theorized to develop in tandem, shaped by children's social interactions in context, including interactions with teachers and peers in the preschool classroom. In the present study, we examined reciprocal associations between two components of self-regulation (behavior regulation and emotion regulation) and two components of expressive language skills (expressive vocabulary and narrative language) across two time points during the preschool year. We also explored whether individual children's interactions with teachers and peers moderate these associations. Participants were 767 preschool children (49 % female; M = 53 months old; 49 % Black, 22 % White, 13 % Hispanic, 14 % multiracial/other) from low-income households. A multivariate latent change score model provided evidence that early self-regulation predicts increases in expressive language; fall emotion regulation predicted increases in narrative language and fall behavior regulation predicted increases in expressive vocabulary. Empirical support was also found for early expressive language predicting increases in self-regulation; fall expressive vocabulary predicted increases in behavior regulation. Moderation analysis indicated that some of these associations depended on individual children's interactions with peers, but not with teachers. Results provide preliminary evidence for the joint development of expressive language and self-regulation in early childhood classrooms.