SCEC impact evaluator awarded for work on exclusionary discipline

Dr. Callie Silver, an Impact Evaluation Associate at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC), was awarded Thursday by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for her work on a review of a research article about early childhood exclusionary discipline.

Silver was the second author of the paper that appeared in the Review of Educational Research journal in October 2022, exploring equity issues around young children being expelled or suspended from various childcare settings.

Silver and co-authors Dr. Katherine M. Zinsser, Elyse R. Shenberger, and Velisha Jackson (all from the University of Illinois Chicago), will be honored at AERA’s 2023 Awards for Excellence in Educational Research on April 18 at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.

Silver has brought her passion for early childhood equity and justice issues to her role at Stanford, where she works with community-based organizations and governmental agencies to improve outcomes for children, families and educators. 

“The team that I worked with on this review paper and I firmly believe that suspensions and expulsions in early childhood settings are symptomatic of larger issues within the early childhood system (e.g., compensation, training, resources, etc.) and a lot of my work at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood is directly related to those issues,” she said. 

Silver began working on the systematic review while attending graduate school at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she and her co-authors had an extensive research program on this social justice issue. Early childhood exclusionary discipline  disproportionately affects children of color –  especially young Black boys, whom research has found make up 18% of male preschool enrollment, but 41% of male preschool suspensions. The systematic review paper called for more research and policy action to prevent young children from being suspended or expelled from childcare when their behavior is deemed as challenging.

With support from the UIC Research Open Access Article Publishing (ROAAP) Fund, Silver and her co-authors were able to publish the article open-source, meaning anyone can access it online without payment or academic affiliation. 

Silver said her research team was “adamant about the article being accessible to those who work directly with young children.”

Also among the AERA awardees is Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, who earned the Distinguished Public Service award.

Founded in 1916, AERA is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning.