Childhood play is one of the hallmarks of early childhood education, yet most early childhood educators have stereotypical views of Black boyhood play. At the same time, few scholars have addressed teachers' and school administrators' stereotypes and biases of Black boys' play styles and behaviors. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to…

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the context and delivery of early childhood education, yet little is known about its impact on exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspension, expulsion), which nationally representative evidence has shown disproportionately impacts Black boys. Using one experiment, we test how preschool providers respond to three…

Nationwide, school districts struggle to recruit and retain Black males to the teaching profession. As a result, the presence of Black male teachers is lacking in public schools, which impacts the overall student outcomes for all children, particularly Black boys. Such recruitment and retention becomes even worse at the early childhood level,…

A 12-week, 32-lesson afterschool intervention was conducted with third-to fifth-grade urban African American boys classified as aggressive. Grounded in attribution theory and organized around the construct of perceived responsibility in self and others, the intervention focused on increasing both social skills and academic motivation. Participants…