Young children in the United States, particularly Black boys, are being suspended and expelled from early childhood education programs and primary schools at alarming rates. Teachers describe children's “disruptive” or “challenging” behavior as the most common reason for suspending or expelling a child. For this reason, common efforts to reduce exclusionary discipline target teacher behavior to change child behavior (e.g., improve use of evidence-based practices) or child behavior directly (e.g., learn self-regulation skills). In this paper, we argue that improving the quality of the teacher-child relationship is an alternative mechanism for addressing exclusionary discipline and mitigating racial disparities in the early childhood years. We propose and provide support for a transactional, relational model to account for exclusionary discipline. The proposed conceptual model intentionally names how teachers’ racial bias and children's stereotype threat, resulting from racialized classroom experiences, exacerbate coercive teacher-child interaction cycles for Black children. We apply this model to review and evaluate select teacher-child relationship interventions to identify opportunities and challenges these interventions present to reduce exclusionary discipline and mitigate racial discipline disparities. We end the paper with recommendations for future research to advance relationship-based solutions to the exclusion crisis in early childhood education.

在美国，幼儿，特别是黑人男孩，被幼儿教育项目和小学停课或开除的比例惊人。教师将孩子的“破坏性”或“挑战性”行为描述为停学或开除孩子的最常见原因。因此，减少排斥性纪律的共同努力以教师行为为目标，以改变儿童行为（例如，改善基于证据的实践的使用）或直接改变儿童行为（例如，学习自我调节技能）。在本文中，我们认为改善师生关系的质量是解决幼儿期排斥性纪律和减轻种族差异的另一种机制。我们建议并提供交易支持，关系模型来解释排除性纪律。提出的概念模型有意指出了教师的种族偏见和儿童的刻板印象威胁（由于种族化的课堂体验而产生）如何加剧黑人儿童的强制性师生互动周期。我们应用该模型来审查和评估选定的师生关系干预措施，以确定这些干预措施为减少排他性纪律和减轻种族纪律差异带来的机会和挑战。我们在本文的结尾提出了对未来研究的建议，以推进基于关系的解决方案，解决幼儿教育中的排斥危机。加剧黑人儿童的强制性师生互动周期。我们应用该模型来审查和评估选定的师生关系干预措施，以确定这些干预措施为减少排他性纪律和减轻种族纪律差异带来的机会和挑战。我们在本文的结尾提出了对未来研究的建议，以推进基于关系的解决方案，解决幼儿教育中的排斥危机。加剧黑人儿童的强制性师生互动周期。我们应用该模型来审查和评估选定的师生关系干预措施，以确定这些干预措施为减少排他性纪律和减轻种族纪律差异带来的机会和挑战。我们在本文的结尾提出了对未来研究的建议，以推进基于关系的解决方案，解决幼儿教育中的排斥危机。