{"title":"Early Childhood Teachers’ Depression and Experiences with Challenging Behaviors: Does Working with Children with Disabilities Matter?","authors":"Emine Kilincci, Zhe Gigi An","doi":"10.1007/s10643-025-01924-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Given high exclusionary discipline practices and decisions in early childhood education, it is important to understand teachers’ experiences with challenging behaviors and examine factors associated with their experiences. Depression, as a significant indicator of well-being and prevalent among early educators, is understudied in relation to teachers’ challenging behavior experiences. This study examines the association between early childhood teachers’ self-reported depression scores and experiences with children’s challenging behaviors and whether this association varies for teachers working with children with disabilities (CWD), using data from the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education. The analysis focused on 3079 center-based early childhood teachers. Both linear and ordinal logistic regression were used to analyze the data. The results showed that teachers with higher levels of depression scores were significantly more likely to report higher levels of challenging behaviors in children. While working with CWD increases the likelihood of reporting challenging behaviors, it did not significantly alter the association between teacher depression and their experiences with challenging behaviors. Implications of these findings are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":47818,"journal":{"name":"Early Childhood Education Journal","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Early Childhood Education Journal","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-025-01924-9","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Given high exclusionary discipline practices and decisions in early childhood education, it is important to understand teachers’ experiences with challenging behaviors and examine factors associated with their experiences. Depression, as a significant indicator of well-being and prevalent among early educators, is understudied in relation to teachers’ challenging behavior experiences. This study examines the association between early childhood teachers’ self-reported depression scores and experiences with children’s challenging behaviors and whether this association varies for teachers working with children with disabilities (CWD), using data from the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education. The analysis focused on 3079 center-based early childhood teachers. Both linear and ordinal logistic regression were used to analyze the data. The results showed that teachers with higher levels of depression scores were significantly more likely to report higher levels of challenging behaviors in children. While working with CWD increases the likelihood of reporting challenging behaviors, it did not significantly alter the association between teacher depression and their experiences with challenging behaviors. Implications of these findings are discussed.
期刊介绍:
Early Childhood Education Journal is a professional publication of original peer-reviewed articles that reflect exemplary practices in the field of contemporary early childhood education. Articles cover the social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development of children age birth through 8, analyzing issues, trends, and practices from an educational perspective. The journal publishes feature-length articles that skillfully blend 1) theory, research, and practice, 2) descriptions of outstanding early childhood programs worldwide, and 3) quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. Early Childhood Education Journal is of interest not only to classroom teachers, child care providers, college and university faculty, and administrators, but also to other professionals in psychology, health care, family relations, and social services dedicated to the care of young children.
Areas of Emphasis:
International studies;
Educational programs in diverse settings;
Early learning across multiple domains;
Projects demonstrating inter-professional collaboration;
Qualitative and quantitative research and case studies;
Best practices in early childhood teacher education;
Theory, research, and practice relating to professional development;
Family, school, and community relationships;
Investigations related to curriculum and instruction;
Articles that link theory and best practices;
Reviews of research with well-articulated connections to the field