Guest Editors: Patricia A. Jennings (Curry School of Education, University of Virginia) [email protected], Amy Roberts (Butler Institute for Families, University of Denver) [email protected], Lieny Jeon (School of Education, Johns Hopkins University) [email protected]
Background
Early care and education (ECE) professionals’ social and emotional well-being has recently emerged as an area of focus for improving quality. Jennings and Greenberg’s (Citation2009) prosocial classroom model highlights the importance of teachers’ social and emotional competence and well-being in promoting healthy teacher–student relationships, effective classroom management, and effective social and emotional learning programs. Early childhood professionals’ psychological well-being, such as depression, stress, burnout, and emotional competence (e.g., mindfulness, emotional regulation, coping), has been shown to relate to their practices and responsiveness in the ECE setting (Buettner, Jeon, Hur, & Garcia, Citation2016; Hamre & Pianta, Citation2004; Jennings, Citation2015), their relationships with children (Whitaker, Dearth-Wesley, & Gooze, Citation2015), as well as children’s social-emotional development (Jeon, Buettner, & Snyder, Citation2014; Roberts, LoCasale-Crouch, Hamre, & DeCoster, Citation2016).
Despite the importance of their social and emotional competence and well-being in ECE, ECE professionals report high levels of depression, stress, and burnout. For example, 24% of Head Start teachers in the Pennsylvania Head Start Staff Wellness Survey were considered depressed (Whitaker et al., Citation2015). In addition, ECE professionals are often exposed to chaotic and stressful work environments that lack adequate support to address their well-being (Jeon, Hur, & Buettner, Citation2016). Previous research has shown that different contextual factors at personal, classroom, and/or program levels, such as the composition of student demographics, children’s challenging behavior, school climate, and compensations and benefits, might contribute to ECE professionals’ well-being (e.g., Hall-Kenyon, Bullough Jr., MacKay, & Marshall, Citation2014; Friedman-Krauss, Raver, Morris, & Jones, Citation2014). Although research on the early childhood workforce is growing, more research is needed to provide a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of ECE professionals’ social and emotional competence and well-being in the classroom context and to identify effective and systematic approaches that support ECE professionals. The aim of this special issue of Early Education and Development is to fill these gaps by integrating evidence around ECE professionals’ social and emotional competence and well-being.
Purpose and types of manuscripts
The purpose of this special issue is to (a) describe the nature of ECE professionals’ social and emotional competence and well-being, (b) understand the factors that contribute to ECE professionals’ social and emotional competence and well-being, (c) understand to what extent and how ECE professionals’ social and emotional competence and well-being impacts classroom quality as well as children’s developmental outcomes, and (d) present evidence-based approaches that support ECE professionals’ social and emotional competence and well-being. ECE professionals include early childhood educators (e.g., teachers or home-based child care providers), practitioners (e.g., home visitors, mental health consultants, specialists), and early childhood leaders (e.g., directors, principals, or administrators) who serve children from birth to third grade. Manuscripts representing a broad range of qualitative and quantitative approaches are encouraged.
Submissions
In the cover letter please specify that your manuscript is being submitted for the special issue on ECE professionals’ social and emotional well-being. All papers will be initially screened by the editors, and papers that fit well with the theme of this special issue will be sent out for blind peer review. Please submit your blinded manuscript at http://www.editorialmanager.com/eed/.
Submissions will follow the journal’s regular blind review process. The guest editors and journal editor will make final acceptance decisions. Manuscripts must strictly conform to the formatting and writing style requirements of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Manuscripts that are accepted but not included in the special issue (because of space restrictions) will be published in a future issue of the journal.
Inquiries regarding this special issue, including optional letters of intent with a brief description of the planned submission for the special issue, should be directed to Dr. Patricia (Tish) Jennings ([email protected]).
The submission deadline is July 1, 2019. Publication of this special issue is scheduled for October 2020.
Timeline for the special issue:
November 2018 and January 2019—Publication of the Call for Papers
July 1, 2019—Deadline for submissions
October 2019—First reviews and comments to authors
December 2019—Reviews due and sent for second review if necessary
March 2020—Revision comments to authors
May 2020—Final edits completed by authors
August 2020—Proofs
October 2020—Publication
References
- Buettner, C. K., Jeon, L., Hur, E., & Garcia, R. E. (2016). Teachers’ social–Emotional capacity: Factors associated with teachers’ responsiveness and professional commitment. Early Education and Development, 1–22. doi:10.1080/10409289.2016.1168227
- Friedman-Krauss, A. H., Raver, C. C., Morris, P. A., & Jones, S. M. (2014). The role of classroom-level child behavior problems in predicting preschool teacher stress and classroom emotional climate. Early Education and Development, 25(4), 530–552. doi:10.1080/10409289.2013.817030
- Hall-Kenyon, K. M., Bullough, R. V., Jr., MacKay, K. L., & Marshall, E. E. (2014). Preschool teacher well-being: A review of the literature. Early Childhood Education Journal, 42(3), 153–162. doi:10.1007/s10643-013-0595-4
- Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2004). Self-reported depression in nonfamilial caregivers: Prevalence and associations with caregiver behavior in child-care settings. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 19(2), 297–318. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2004.04.006
- Jennings, P. A. (2015). Early childhood teachers’ well-being, mindfulness, and self-compassion in relation to classroom quality and attitudes towards challenging students. Mindfulness, 6(4), 732–743. doi:10.1007/s12671-014-0312-4
- Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525. doi:10.3102/0034654308325693
- Jeon, L., Buettner, C. K., & Snyder, A. R. (2014). Pathways from teacher depression and child-care quality to child behavioral problems. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 82(2), 225–235. doi:10.1037/a0035720
- Jeon, L., Hur, E., & Buettner, C. K. (2016). Child-care chaos and teachers’ responsiveness: The indirect associations through teachers’ emotion regulation and coping. Journal of School Psychology, 59, 83–96. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2016.09.006
- Roberts, A., LoCasale-Crouch, J., Hamre, B., & DeCoster, J. (2016). Exploring teachers’ depressive symptoms, interaction quality, and children’s social-emotional development in head start. Early Education and Development, 27(5), 642–654. doi:10.1080/10409289.2016.1127088
- Whitaker, R. C., Dearth-Wesley, T., & Gooze, R. A. (2015). Workplace stress and the quality of teacher–Children relationships in Head Start. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 30(Part A), 57–69. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2014.08.008