How urban early childhood educators used positive guidance principles and improved teacher-child relationships: a social-emotional learning intervention study

ABSTRACT

Twenty-four early childhood educators in an urban city in the United States completed a social-emotional learning course as part of an intervention to explore how teachers learn to value and practice positive guidance principles. Affection between 124 teacher-child dyads was tracked weekly to measure change in teacher-child relationships. Phenomenological collaborative inquiry and inferential statistics were used. Findings: (1) positive relational principles (e.g. validate feelings; provide choices; demonstrate love, and others) succeeded in redirecting child behaviour, solving inter-personal conflicts and improving teacher-child relationships, (2) the extent to which teachers valued and became proficient using 8 principles significantly increased (avg. ES = .35), (3) teacher-child affection significantly increased by the end of the course (ES = .91–2.18). Providing competency-based coursework in social-emotional learning with ample opportunities for educators to practice positive guidance approaches can improve the extent to which loving relationships are experienced. Recommendations for practice, policy and research are shared.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• relationships
• early childhood
• urban
• guidance principles
• social-emotional

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Michael J. Haslip is an assistant professor of early childhood education at Drexel University. His research interests include systems building to support workforce development and children’s social, emotional, character and spiritual development. He teaches courses in child development.

Ayana Allen-Handy, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Policy, Organization, and Leadership at Drexel University’s School of Education. Her research examines issues of equity, and social justice in urban schools and communities with a specific focus on youth development of critical consciousness and empowerment through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) as well as urban teacher preparation. She teaches classes in education policy, urban teaching, and doctoral level writing for publication and grant funding.

Leona Donaldson is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at Drexel University. She has a master's degree in Education and a bachelor's degree in Human Development and Education. She has participated in several research projects investigating early childhood educators' interventions and preschool children's prosocial competencies development.

ORCID

Michael J. Haslip http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9241-7994

Ayana Allen-Handy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8910-6957

Notes

1 The 101 Positive Principles of Disciple. Retrieved from http://ww2.odu.edu/~kkersey/101s/101principles.shtml

2 Teachers were given the 101 Principles for Positive Guidance with Young Children workbook and were encouraged to experiment with as many of the 101 principles as they wished. Time limitations restricted our in-class discussion to 18 guidance principles as presented in Appendix A.

3 Students learned to score the Deveraux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) by practicing how to complete it on two children. This included discussion of related scales (self-regulation, initiative, attachment relationships, behavioural concerns) and corresponding items (behaviours). The DECA was purchased and distributed to teachers to facilitate learning how to assess SEL competencies in children.

4 After teaching college-level courses in social-emotional learning and providing related professional development, we have found that directly teaching 10 - 15 strategies is feasible given time constraints and the need for learners to practice and reflect upon the strategies being taught.

5 Activity adapted from Katherine Kersey.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Drexel University School of Education (Internal award).