Embedding Case Management in a Community Collaborative: An Early Childhood Example

Background and Purpose

Multiple investigations have found a gap between the use of exclusionary disciplinary measures (those that remove a child from the learning environment) in preschools according to a child’s race, and gender.  The gap is widened when the variable of disability is added. In addition to missing important instruction and social opportunities, these children are more likely than their peers to land in the juvenile justice system, and drop out of school.  In everyday practice adults working with children tell themselves and each other stories about these children’s behavior.  I call these “discipline narratives”.  Within these stories are principles and procedures for a teacher’s disciplinary activity, and culturally specific social knowledge gained from interactions both within, and outside of the school.  This study places these narratives at the center of investigation in order to us to get into the black box of the aggregate data.   Specifically, this study asks:

1. How do adults in a preschool setting construct and represent their disciplinary actions in discipline narratives?
2. How does social knowledge related to race and gender and disability influence these discipline narratives?   

Methods

An embedded case study design was used, consisting of three early childhood centers within a common geographic border.  Thirty, semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers, directors, and social workers. Three group meetings were observed using a semi-structured observational tool.  Textual data was collected related to the site’s population, discipline policies, and professional development. The sample is predominantly female (97% female; 3% male) and White (50% White; 45% Black/African American; 3% Hispanic/Latino; 2% Bi-racial). Participants were recruited in cooperation with a local early childhood collaborative. Interviews elicited participants’ discipline narratives, emphasizing how participants constructed discipline problems. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded thematically using NVivo 11 qualitative software, guided by the principles of narrative analysis and an inductive approach. Group observations were coded to develop themes within and across the categories that responded to the study’s questions. Textual data was analyzed to describe unique contextual features of each site.

Results

Participants’ narratives identified structural issues that both were informed by social variables of race, gender and disability status; and influential in a child’s behavior problems.  They also identified broader educational policy and community resource decisions that have significant effects on the daily life of the identified children and teachers.  Lastly, though they were challenged by these children, they articulated and displayed a significant relational commitment to them.

Conclusions and Implications

Microprocesses of daily interaction should inform policy/program decisions. Early childhood community collaboratives are public-private community-based partnerships whose goal is to improve the overall standards of early education and care.  By embedding case management services in these collective goals, social workers can have a broader ecological effect, than they might if they are simply providing individualized mental health consultation.  Case management should include reflective consultation with teachers to help them manage reactions and support the teacher-student relationship.