Exclusionary Discipline in Iowa Childcare Centers: An Exploratory Study of Disparities and Institutional Predictors

Background

Approximately 70,000 children experience exclusionary discipline (ED), like suspension or expulsion, from US childcare programs annually. Taking an ecological approach, studies have primarily examined the role of children’s micro or mesosystems in ED in childcare (e.g., child behaviors or parent-teacher relationships). However, few studies have examined child disparities in ED in childcare, and fewer have examined how children’s environments are structured in a way that may produce disparities. An application of Institutional Theory may demonstrate how children’s environments are structured in a way that leads to unequal ED outcomes. The current study compares rates of ED by child race and childcare subsidy use and explores the association between institutional factors and ED use in childcare centers.

Methods

Center directors in Iowa with a public email address (N=818) were recruited to an online survey between November 2022 and February 2023. Participants (n=421) reported the number of children who were asked to stay home temporarily or leave the center permanently because of behavioral concerns in the past 12 months. Participants also reported race/ethnicity and childcare subsidy status for those children. I calculated relative risk ratios to examine disproportionality using characteristic of the total enrollment in centers.

Institutional factors were operationalized with two concepts. First, dominant professional norms related to discipline were assessed using an adapted 17-item Beliefs About Discipline Inventory (BADI; Wolfgang, 1999). Participants were grouped as endorsing 1) high power and control or 2) low power and control beliefs. Second, participants responded to four questions asking how often they worried that staff shortages would lead to 1) center closure, 2) compromised care quality, 3) safety concerns, and 4) insufficient staff for teacher-child ratios. I used logistic regression to examine the relationship between institutional factors and a binary measure of ED use in centers, controlling for center characteristics.

Results

Nearly 44% of respondents reported at least one incidence of ED. ED was assigned to 568 children. Children of color and subsidy users comprised 17% and 35% of ED cases, respectively, despite constituting only 7% and 18% of enrollment. Black children had 2.9 (p<.001) times higher likelihood of ED compared to children in all other race/ethnicity groups. Subsidy users had 2.5 (p<.001) times higher likelihood of ED compared to non-subsidy users.

Multivariate analysis demonstrated that every standard deviation increase in staffing concerns (Mean=0.84, SD=0.64, Range=0-3) resulted in a 43% increase in the odds of using ED (OR=1.43, p=.001). Directors who endorsed high power and control beliefs had two times higher odds of using ED compared to directors who endorse low power and control beliefs (OR=2.00, p<.05).

Conclusions

ED was reported for 2% of reported enrollment yet was used disproportionately among children of color and subsidy users. Targeted interventions may be necessary to reduce harm caused by ED among children of color in predominantly white spaces. The relationship between staffing concerns and ED use underscores how staffing shortages, driven largely by inadequate compensation, influence director and staff wellbeing and impacting child outcomes. Future research should explore how additional institutional factors impact ED use.