A review of research on exclusionary discipline

A review on exclusionary discipline
By Kaya Feng, Johns Hopkins University 
Exclusion, encompassing various ways students can be removed from school settings (e.g., suspension and expulsion) for behavioral reasons (e.g., too disruptive or dangerous), has been adopted by educational practitioners for more than two decades. Existing studies have shown that children are more likely to be excluded from early child care and education (ECCE) settings than from K-12. Zinsser and colleagues did a systematic review of early childhood exclusionary discipline to synthesize its current state, causes, negative consequences, and interventions to reduce its use.
 
The authors stated that current studies have not reached a consensus on the terminology and definition of exclusion. Future studies should incorporate terminology that enables them to include all types of exclusionary practices and discuss connections between them. They also summarized the factors of exclusionary discipline as teachers’ wellness and emotional health, the role of parents, and the parent-teacher relationship. Furthermore, they showed that exclusion from ECCE settings might have severe negative consequences, such as lowering the opportunities for students to succeed both academically and social-emotionally and causing financial insecurity. Lastly, they provided three promising interventions for educational practitioners to curtail exclusionary discipline, that is, offering students more access to consultants, utilizing the Pyramid Model for Promoting Young Children’s Social-Emotional Competence to facilitate young children’s social-emotional development and to address challenging behavior, and informing policymakers and administrators of how disproportionate exclusionary discipline is.

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