Using the Teaching and Guidance Policy Essentials Checklist to Develop Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Behavior Guidance Policies

The purpose of this study was to extend our previous work using the Teaching and Guidance Policy Essentials Checklist (TAGPEC) by examining the extent to which early childhood behavior guidance policies address language and culture and support program practices that promote fairness and equity for all children. Policies previously collected from 282 programs accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) were reexamined using an updated version of the TAGPEC, which was revised to more fully address cultural and linguistic diversity and implicit bias. Overall, policies failed to address evidence-based practices, and findings are situated within the discourse on the prevalence of challenging behaviors, troubling data on preschool suspension and expulsion rates, and the current ECE context.

Keywords: Behavior guidance; Suspension and expulsion; Culture and language; Implicit bias

Addressing challenging behavior in the early childhood classroom has become an urgent national priority in the United States. Preschoolers are expelled at more than three times the rate of their K-12 peers (Gilliam [11]; U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights [21]), and data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights ([21]) indicate that young boys of color and young children with disabilities are suspended and expelled for behavioral challenges three to four times as often as other children. The recent identification of the role of implicit bias on teachers' judgements about children's challenging behaviors (Gilliam et al. [13]) has drawn additional attention to the complexity of challenging behaviors in the early years and the need for researchers and practitioners to more closely examine how challenging behavior is addressed in early childhood programs. Importantly, research indicates that early childhood teachers in the United States feel unprepared to deal with children's challenging behavior (Stormont et al. [20]) and that behavior problems represent the single greatest challenge in their work (Friedman-Krauss et al. [8])

High-quality, evidence-based behavior guidance policies can help early childhood programs by providing an infrastructure that supports the social, emotional, and academic success of all children. A systematic and intentional approach to behavior guidance can ensure that (1) evidence-based classroom practices for preventing and addressing challenging behaviors are consistently implemented across classrooms, resulting in a positive social-emotional climate and better child outcomes; (2) relationships with families are meaningful, authentic, and strengths-based; (3) professional development is in line with program goals and best-practice recommendations; and (4) decision making is fair and equitable (Longstreth and Garrity [16]). The use of policy to help prevent suspension and expulsion is a key recommendation of the joint policy statement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights ([21]) entitled Statement on Expulsion and Suspension Policies in Early Childhood Settings, which recommends that "early childhood programs develop and clearly communicate preventive guidance and discipline practices" (p. 5) that are developmentally appropriate and promote social-emotional and behavioral health. It is also recommended that policies should describe discipline and intervention procedures, be implemented consistently and without bias, and be clearly communicated to parents, staff, and community partners.

In order to address the issue of preschool suspension and expulsion, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), along with 34 agencies dedicated to the well-being of children and families, recently published a joint statement entitled Standing Together against Suspension & Expulsion in Early Childhood (NAEYC [18]). This statement describes the need for early childhood educators to work together to "facilitate equitable access to high-quality, developmentally appropriate, and culturally responsive early childhood education that helps families and communities thrive" (NAEYC [18], p. 1). The statement also cites the need to use data to inform decision making and to create systems, policies, and practices that reduce disparities across race and gender in order to prevent, and ultimately eliminate, expulsions and suspensions in settings serving young children.

Given the troubling data on racial disparities in expulsion rates, the negative long term consequences of challenging behavior in the early years, (Campbell et al. [4]; Huffman et al. [14]; McCartney et al. [17]; Webster-Stratton and Taylor [22]), and the role of implicit bias on teachers' judgements about children's challenging behavior (Gilliam et al. [13]), the purpose of this study was to extend previous work using the Teaching and Guidance Policy Essentials Checklist (TAGPEC) by examining the extent to which early childhood behavior guidance policies address language and culture and support program practices that promote fairness and equity for all children.

The Teaching and Guidance Policy Essentials Checklist (TAGPEC) is an easy-to-use, 30-item checklist that describes seven essential features of high-quality behavior guidance policies for programs serving children from birth to 8 years of age (Longstreth and Garrity [16]). This tool was developed to help administrators of early childhood programs prevent and address challenging behaviors by providing clear, evidence-based information about how to develop and implement high-quality behavior guidance policies. Results from earlier studies using the TAGPEC found that early childhood policies seldom reflected evidence-based practices and often promoted a punitive rather than preventive approach to challenging behavior (Garrity et al. [10], [9]; Longstreth et al. [15]). These findings, as well as the identification of the role of implicit bias on decision making (Gilliam et al. [13]) make it critical to examine the ways in which culture, language, and implicit bias are (or are not) addressed in early childhood behavior guidance policies. The seven features and five items described in Table 1 have been revised from original versions of the TAGPEC (Garrity et al. [10], [9]; Longstreth et al. [15]) to reflect the importance of linguistically and culturally appropriate environments and experiences, the need for ongoing professional development that ensures staff have a strong understanding of culture and diversity and engage in self-reflection to increase awareness of implicit and explicit biases, and use data to ensure that decision making is fair and equitable. As such, the purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which early childhood behavior guidance policies reflect the revised version of the TAGPEC. To achieve this goal, 282 behavior guidance policies collected as part of an earlier study (Garrity et al. [10]), were recoded, focusing specifically on items 4, 10, 24, 28, and 30 presented in Table 1.

Seven essential features of the TAGPEC and items that address language, culture and bias

The behavior guidance policies used in this study were collected from centers accredited by the National Association of Young Children (NAEYC). Following approval from the university's Institutional Review Board, centers were identified through the NAEYC Accreditation data base. Center administrators were sent a short survey via email asking about demographic characteristics of the center and were asked to upload their program's discipline policy. Surveys were sent to 6931 programs. Two hundred and ninety-three emails were returned, resulting in a final sample size of 6638. Surveys were completed by 1546 (23%) of the center directors contacted, and 308 discipline policies were uploaded. Of these policies, 282 were able to be coded (in three of the cases we were unable to open the policy, and in the remaining cases the directors had uploaded something other than a discipline policy).

The majority of centers served infants, toddlers, and preschoolers (n = 90, 31.9%) or only preschoolers (n = 58, 20.6%). A small number of respondents served only infants and toddlers (n = 4, 1.5%), while 51 (18.1%) served toddlers and preschoolers. The remaining programs served a combination of age groups that included infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children. Programmatic information about the centers is provided in Table 2.

programmatic characteristics of centers (n = 282)

programmatic characteristics of centers (n = 282)

Each item on the TAGPEC is rated along three dimensions: (a) a rating of "no" is given if the feature was not addressed at all in the policy, (b) a rating of "emerging" is given if there was minimal evidence the feature was addressed in the policy, and (c) a rating of "yes" is given if the feature was clearly addressed in the policy. A point value of zero is assigned to items marked no, a point value of one is assigned to items marked emerging, and a point value of two is assigned if the item is marked yes. The highest possible score a program can obtain on the TAGPEC is a 60, indicating that all seven Essential Features and the corresponding 30 items were sufficiently addressed in the policy.

To ensure reliability of coding, the first and second author independently scored 10 of the policies. Results were compared and the researchers met to reach consensus on discrepant ratings. Discrepancies were related to item four: Multiple, evidence-based, developmentally and culturally appropriate strategies are described and item 24: The policy describes the need for obtaining contextually and culturally relevant information (e.g. at-home sleeping and eating habits, family events, favorite toys and activities) from families in order to understand children's inappropriate behavior. The authors decided that that in order for a policy to be rated with a two on item four, there needed to be explicit mention of both developmentally and culturally appropriate strategies, and in order to score a two on item 24 there needed to be an explicit description of family culture and language.

Policies were then divided, and 10% of policies (n = 30) were selected to be independently scored by both the first and second author. Interrater reliability analysis using the Kappa statistic was used to determine consistency among raters on each item. Policies included in the initial reliability assessment were excluded from this analysis. Once the policies were scored using the revised version of the TAGPEC, the researchers identified policies that scored a "2" on any of the items. The purpose in doing so was to identify policy statements that reflected best practice recommendations and could serve as exemplars.

All of the Kappa values were found to be above 0.8, indicating very good agreement between raters (Altman [2]). Overall, programs scored low on all five items. Only 1.4% (n = 4) of policies described evidence-based strategies that were both developmentally and culturally appropriate (Item 4). The need for developmentally appropriate strategies were described by just over half (49.6%, n = 140) of policies. Two programs (.7%) had policies that described the importance of an engaging curriculum that takes a strengths-based view of culture and language as a deterrent to challenging behavior (Item 10). One policy (.4%) scored a two on Item 28, which measures the intent of the program to train staff on culture, diversity, and implicit bias. None of the programs addressed the use data to guide decision-making (Item 30). Frequency counts for each of the five items are presented in Table 3. Policy statements that scored a two on items 4, 10, and 28 are presented in Table 4.

Frequency counts of score on TAGPEC items 4, 10, 24, 28, 30

Policy Statements that scored a 2 on the TAGPEC

One of the programs served as an exemplar for how to address culture, language, and equity in program policy, and we share an excerpt from their Parent Handbook entitled, Creating a Respectful Environment for All Children and Families, below. This section of the handbook followed sections entitled Guiding Children's Behavior and Guidelines and Rules.

The Early Childhood Center is committed to incorporating and celebrating diversity in our program. The Program encourages the recognition and acceptance of each individual's intrinsic uniqueness. We encourage all families to share their cultural heritage as part of our program on an ongoing basis. This type of on-going activity strengthens the link between a child's home and school and encourages acceptance of differences.

Our goal is to encourage children to develop positive attitudes about the many ways people differ from one another through active, purposeful intervention, opportunities for expanded experiences, and confronting stereotypes to create a more just society.

The environment is rich in possibilities for exploration of gender, race, culture, and ability. Pictures in the classroom include children, staff, and families. Images include women and men doing jobs in and out of the home, people of different ages, different physical abilities, diverse family structures, and diverse cultural backgrounds engaged in current daily activities. Books reflect accurate and diverse images of people. Materials, such as puzzles, Lego people, and games depict a variety of children and adults of different gender, race and ability. Through music, art and language, children have the opportunity to explore and experience diversity.

A respectful environment challenges prejudice, stereotyping, and bias. It is not enough for children to observe people of different gender, ethnicity and ability, but rather, adults must actively intervene and challenge images that perpetuate stereotypes and bias. A natural task for the preprimary child is figuring out who they are and how they feel about themselves and those around them. Children construct their identity and attitudes through interactions and experiences within their environment. Gender, ethnicity, culture and physical ability are identity issues children struggle to understand during this period of development. Our goal is to develop an environment that encourages children to ask about their physical characteristics, provide accurate information in response to children's questions or comments, help children feel pride in their identity, develop respect for each other, and challenge biases they encounter.

The purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which early childhood behavior guidance policies describe the importance of linguistically and culturally appropriate environments and experiences, the need for ongoing professional development that ensures staff have a strong understanding of culture and diversity and engage in self-reflection that encourages awareness of implicit and explicit biases, and use data to ensure decision making is fair and equitable. Given past work using the TAGPEC to examine behavior guidance policies, results from the current study were not surprising. Findings indicated that an alarmingly few number of programs addressed these critical areas in their policies and, as such, there was no clear system for supporting children's language and culture and administering discipline consistently and without bias. Although NAEYC's position statement on developmentally appropriate practice (2009) cites the importance of viewing the child within the cultural context of his or her family, community, culture, and language, the policies reviewed very rarely addressed these issues, and Rashid ([19]) has noted that school policies often fail to address the social and emotional needs of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Results from the current study support this contention.

It is important to note that center directors were asked to upload their program's discipline policy, and that policies came in a variety of forms—entire parent handbooks, the discipline policy section of the parent handbook that was scanned as a separate document, or a stand-alone policy that often required a parent/guardian signature. Of the policies identified as exemplars described above, three were taken from parent handbooks and one was identified as a child guidance agreement. Although possible that the programs studied discussed culture, language, and implicit bias in other program documents or sections of their parent handbook, it is noteworthy that these issues were not included in discipline policies. Unfortunately, although the Latin root of the word discipline means discipulus, or pupil, its meaning has evolved over the years to be synonymous with punishment. The conceptualization of discipline as punishment has especially harsh consequences for African American boys. Adamu and Hogan ([1]) have documented how the school-to prison pipeline originates during preschool, and suspensions and expulsions have been found to be a direct pathway to the criminal justice system (Cramer et al. [5]; Bryan [3]). For this reason, the TAGPEC intentionally use the term behavior guidance rather than discipline to describe policies aimed at addressing challenging behavior. Similarly, use of the words teaching and guidance in the TAGPEC reflects the notion that it is the role of the adult to teach children more socially acceptable ways to get their needs met rather than punish them for behavior that is often developmentally and culturally appropriate.

It is important to note that policies reviewed were collected in 2015, prior to the publication of NAEYC's joint policy statement regarding suspensions and expulsions and Gilliam et al.'s ([12], [13]) identification of the role of implicit bias on teachers' decision making. NAEYC has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to high-quality early childhood education and anti-bias education (Derman-Sparks and the ABC Task Force [6]; Derman-Sparks and Edwards [7]) and is currently preparing a new position statement addressing equity in early childhood education as well as revising its position statement on developmentally appropriate practices to more fully reflect issues of diversity and equity. By using the TAGPEC to examine and improve behavior-guidance policies, the field of early childhood education can take an important step towards a more pluralistic and democratic society in which all children and families are valued.

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