About this paper symposium

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Paper #1
The Role of Gender and Race in Children’s Empathy Skills Across a Preschool Year
Author information	Role
Emma Sofia Strouse, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Presenting author
Catie Connolly, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Non-presenting author
Jelena Obradović, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Children’s ability to recognize and respond appropriately to peers’ emotions becomes increasingly important as children enter preschool, where they encounter novel challenging and diverse social situations. There is clear evidence underscoring the importance of social-emotional competence in early school success (Denham et al., 2014; Raver & Knitzer, 2002). Still, few studies have examined how children from diverse demographic backgrounds may influence responses. Our study addresses this gap by leveraging a large sample of diverse preschoolers to investigate the role of gender and race in peer-directed empathy skills across a preschool year. Participants were shown photographic stimuli of emotionally distressed (sad and angry) preschoolers who varied in gender and race. They were prompted to identify the emotion and suggest ways to help the sad child feel better or the angry child calm down. We assessed three outcomes: emotion recognition, the ability to propose a supportive regulation strategy for the distressed stimulus, and whether proposed strategies implied personal involvement (agency). We estimated outcome likelihoods based on (1) participant gender and race, (2) stimulus gender and race, and (3) the interaction between participant x stimulus gender and race. Preschoolers were assessed in the fall (N = 508) and spring (N = 849) of the 2022-23 school year. All students demonstrated longitudinal improvement throughout the year–especially in proposing regulation strategies. By spring, 79% of students expressed supportive strategies for their peers, compared to 59% in the fall. Girls were better at identifying anger in the fall (Figure 1); by spring, girls outperformed boys in emotion recognition and providing strategies for both emotions. The emergence of gender differences from fall to spring may reflect early different socialization experiences during early school years, where girls are implicitly and explicitly taught to respond more supportively to peers than boys. Racial differences revealed Black and White students were more likely to report supportive strategies than Asian or Latine students (Figure 2). However, follow-up analyses revealed that language differences partly explained the disparity among Latine students. Cultural differences in emotion socialization, where East Asian cultures encourage subtler, lower-arousal emotion expression compared to Western cultures (Tao et al., 2010; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1996), may help explain why Asian students showed lower levels of support for highly expressive emotions. We found no significant differences in children’s responses based on the race or gender of the stimulus, nor interaction effects between participant and stimulus demographics. Thus, we find no evidence for ingroup-outgroup differences in preschoolers’ responses to their peers’ emotions. Given that substantial gender and racial biases have been documented as early as age five under similar paradigms (Weller & Lagatutta, 2012, 2014; Spinrad et al., 2023), our null findings may indicate that social group belonging does not yet play a role in preschoolers’ social problem-solving. Preschool may offer a crucial development period for the emergence of intergroup dynamics in peer-directed behavior. However, results may also be influenced by the demographically diverse setting of this study, which offers participants substantial contact with peers from many backgrounds. Future work should explore the effects of such environmental factors.

Paper #2
Measuring Heterogeneity in Socioemotional Skills Among Spanish-English DLLs from Preschool Through the End of Kindergarten
Author information	Role
Lisa Maria López, Ph.D., University of South Florida, United States	Presenting author
Dina N. Arch, University of California, Santa Barbara, United States	Non-presenting author
Matthew E. Foster, University of South Florida, United States	Non-presenting author
Karen Nylund-Gibson, University of California, Santa Barbara, United States	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Socioemotional development among dual language learners (DLLs) in early childhood classrooms is underexplored. The limited research available points to positive development of socioemotional skills in Spanish-English DLLs (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2016; Halle et al., 2014; Ramirez et al., 2023). When considering language within the context of socioemotional development, Huang et al. (2023) identified bidirectional relationships between speaking both the majority and home language and socioemotional skills. The home language fostered socioemotional skills, which in turn facilitated their development of majority language skills. Socioemotional development captures a variety of skills focused on both social interactions and emotion regulation in the classroom. Children rated as engaging in prosocial behaviors also tend to hold promotive attitudes towards learning, including attending to and persisting in learning tasks (Bulotsky-Shearer & Fantuzzo, 2011). These tasks require children to regulate their emotions, tolerate frustration, and accept help from others. We know Spanish-English DLLs are heterogeneous regarding language proficiency (Lopez & Foster, 2023). In the current study, we investigated the heterogeneity of socioemotional skills for Spanish-English DLLs at the end of Head Start and as they transitioned into kindergarten with a focus on both prosocial and socio-emotional difficulties. We conducted latent profile analysis (LPA) on teacher-reported measures of peer interactions (Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale; PIPPS-T; Fantuzzo et al., 1998) and approaches to learning (Preschool/ Learning Behaviors Scale; PLBS/ LBS; McDermott et al., 2002) for 237 Spanish-English DLLs at the end of preschool (T1). Kindergarten data was collected on approximately half the sample, with LPAs conducted on PIPPS and LBS measures at the beginning (T2; N=110) and end of kindergarten (T3; N = 90). Through profile enumeration, considering conceptual models of socioemotional development, we identified a three-profile solution as the most robust profile at T1, a two-profile solution at T2, and a three-profile solution at T3 (Figure 1). The first profile at T1 was a high prosocial profile (28.47% of the sample), with DLLs rated high on peer interaction, motivation, persistence, and attention and low on challenging behaviors. The second profile at T1 was an average social development profile (51.55%), with DLLs rated in the average range for both prosocial and challenging behaviors and exhibiting promotive approaches to learning. The third profile at T1 was a challenging behavior profile (19.97%) with DLLs rated highest on internalizing behaviors and lowest on prosocial behaviors and learning approaches. At T2, we no longer see the high prosocial profile. Kindergarten teachers rated DLL students into the average social development profile (48.72%) or the challenging behavior profile (51.28%). At T3, the profiles mirrored the T1 profiles, including the high prosocial profile (38.02%), the average social development profile (48.94%), and the challenging behavior profile (13.04%). Findings indicate there is heterogeneity in the socioemotional profiles of DLLs. Challenging behaviors decreased throughout the kindergarten year. Latent Transition Analysis allows for the interpretation of profile placement as children transition from preschool to kindergarten. Contextual variables, including language proficiency, help us interpret these findings, advancing our knowledge regarding the socioemotional development of DLLs.

Paper #3
Peer Effects on Preschoolers’ Expressive Emotion Knowledge Gains: The Moderating Role of Classroom Language Diversity
Author information	Role
Gladys María Aguilar, PhD, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Presenting author
Javier Omar, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Non-presenting author
Emma Sofia Strouse, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Non-presenting author
Catie Connolly, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Non-presenting author
Jelena Obradović, Stanford Graduate School of Education, United States	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Classmates influence preschoolers’ academic and social-emotional skills through peer effects (Choi et al., 2018). Emotion knowledge is crucial for school success (Denham et al., 2020) but is an understudied social-emotional domain in the peer effects context. Importantly, emotion knowledge is connected to language, given that its most basic form involves knowledge and understanding of emotion words and more advanced forms require using language to infer emotional states from situational context (Lindquist et al., 2015; Cole et al., 2010). Given the increasing linguistic diversity in U.S. classrooms and its importance for positive social and emotional interactions, it's essential to explore how this diversity impacts preschoolers' emotion knowledge development. Our study examines the association between peers’ emotion knowledge in the fall and children’s emotion knowledge gains over the preschool year. We probe whether this association is moderated by classroom language diversity, as measured by (1) proportion of dual language learners (DLLs; i.e., preschoolers with a native language other than English, as reported by parents) and (2) proportion of classroom peers who share the child’s native language. We measured emotion knowledge using an adapted version of the Emotion Matching Task (EMT; Morgan et al., 2010) incorporating greater racial/ethnic diversity into the images of children shown. The EMT assessed three domains: situational emotion knowledge (matching an emotion-eliciting situation to an emotional expression), expressive emotion knowledge (labeling emotion expressions), and receptive emotion knowledge (recognizing emotion expressions). Our sample included 447 preschoolers across 66 classrooms in a diverse public school district (see Table 1). Children were assessed in the fall and spring. Descriptive analyses (see Table 1) show that children scored highest in receptive emotion knowledge and lowest in situational emotion knowledge, with improvements across all domains from fall to spring. In terms of classroom language diversity, children on average shared a native language with about half of their peers, while the average classroom had 60% DLLs, with considerable variation in both variables. Bivariate correlations (see Table 2) showed significant negative correlations between proportion of DLLs and individual expressive scores at both time points, suggesting that children with higher scores tended to be in classrooms with lower proportion of DLLs. Additionally, the proportion of DLLs was significantly associated with peer expressive knowledge (both mean and SD) in fall, such that classrooms with greater language diversity tended to have lower average peer expressive knowledge and greater variability in peer expressive knowledge. Our next analytic steps include hierarchical linear regression models to test (1) the direct effect of peers’ fall emotion knowledge on children’s emotion knowledge gains, (2) the moderating effects of classroom language diversity (percent of DLLs and percent of same-language peers in the classroom) on the peer effect, and (3) whether variability in peers' fall scores predicts spring outcomes beyond average peer scores. Findings from our study may have important implications for early childhood education policy and practice, particularly in informing strategies for fostering peer interactions and social-emotional learning opportunities in linguistically-diverse classrooms, to support the equitable development of emotion knowledge for all preschoolers.

Paper #4
Promoting Social and Self-Regulatory Competence Among Diverse Children With a High-Quality Preschool Curriculum
Author information	Role
Dr. Jeanne L. Reid, Ed.D., Teachers College, Columbia University, United States	Presenting author
Abstract
Center- or school-based preschool programs represent a critical opportunity for 3- and 4-year-old children to develop their social and self-regulatory competence before entering elementary school. Child development research indicates that children develop these competencies within supportive and responsive learning environments that offer playful learning opportunities and positive interactions with teachers and peers. An important element of such environments is a high-quality developmentally appropriate curriculum that promotes social and self-regulatory skills among racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse children. However, racially minoritized and multilingual children have insufficient access to these types of environments. This paper will describe the integrated learning experiences that promote children’s social and self-regulatory competence and the inequitable access that racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse children have to such experiences. Particular attention will be given to the need for developmentally appropriate curricula that support the social and self-regulatory skills that high-quality preschool environments can foster. Despite this evidence, in a recent study of 65 pre-k teachers across six states (Reid & O’Leary, in press), pre-k teachers reported feeling pressure to focus on narrowly-defined academic skills in developmentally inappropriate ways. The paper will then examine recent evidence of disagreement in the early childhood field regarding what constitutes a high-quality curriculum (Reid & Kagan, 2022). The paper will further review the recent study from the National Academies of Sciences, A New Vision for High Quality Preschool Curriculum, and what it indicates as key components of early childhood curricula that equitably promote the social and self-regulatory competence of diverse children. The paper will argue that a high-quality preschool curriculum can equitably promote children’s social and self-regulatory competence in several ways that include: · Fostering playful learning experiences in which children can exercise their agency · Offering multiple ways for children to engage with a curriculum that includes rich, stimulating, and meaningful content across multiple domains · Nurturing a strengths-based and caring learning community that promotes positive peer interactions and avoids peer-related adversity Finally, the paper will highlight the implications for state policymakers who seek to foster equitable access to high-quality preschool environments by supporting the selection and implementation of quality curriculum in preschool classrooms. In particular, the paper will offer policy options that support local decision-making regarding multiple curriculum options and support for pre-k educators to use curriculum effectively.

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