Facilitating Panelists:
Margaret Bridges, Research Scientist, Institute of Human Development, UCB
Mahesh Srinivasan, Associate Professor, Psychology, UCB
Natasha Cabrera, Professor, Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland

As part of an ambitious effort to improve academic and developmental equity, California is investing $2.7 billion to launch a rapid and dramatic expansion of Transitional Kindergarten—an endeavor that aims to hire 11,000 new teachers to serve 100,000 newly eligible 4-year-olds this year. However, as illustrated by a recent randomized control study of a statewide pre-kindergarten program that garnered extensive media attention, well-intentioned efforts can fail (see The Economist). This highlights the critical importance of identifying what aspects of designing and implementing these programs are most important to get right.

This panel discussion will address one important set of questions that focuses on the social and emotional aspects of a 4-year-old transitioning into formal schooling. For many of these 100,000 children this may represent their first experience in this setting—and may include a wide range of challenges related to language, racial, ethnic, and socio-economic inequities. Effectively supporting children, during what may be a stressful adaptive challenge, may have outsized impact. Efforts to boost children’s academic learning (so-called ‘instructional support’), with approaches previously developed for first grade, may not suffice (Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2016; Corbin et al., 2020). The socio-affective experiences of young children during these early formative interactions with teachers (and peers) may not be captured in current curricular standards, yet may drastically influence their learning and general well-being, as well as their longer-term trajectories (McKinnon, Blair, & The Family Life Project Investigators, 2018; Portnow, Downer, & Brown, 2018; Rucinski, Brown, & Downer, 2018). How does a 4-year-old feel if her teacher speaks a different language than she does, and she doesn’t understand anything she hears? What if her teacher interprets her respectful quiet as a lack of dynamic engagement? What if he is met with his teachers’ low expectations? Or if their teacher is simply struggling to manage 25 4-year-olds who are navigating a new and stressful social situation in a low-resource setting? In contrast, what kinds of teacher behaviors or social supports might encourage a 4-year-old to feel a sense of belonging and positive social regard while forming new school-based, social relationships?

Our aim is to discuss these issues from several perspectives, with a goal to generate insights that could inform pragmatic approaches to these issues—with an emphasis on a transdiscplinary developmental science perspective. To help inform this historic opportunity for preschool intervention by providing actionable insights, what may be important to get right—beyond standard academic curricula? How do we expand transitional kindergarten—and train teachers to implement it—in ways that help to enrich the social and learning experience of all young children during this formative transition into school?