EECERA Conference 2025 – Guest Blog #3: A moral classroom management approach

One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA.

Employment of a moral classroom management approach in coping with social exclusion based on racial stereotypes – A case study

Clodie Tal – Hemdat Academy-Early Childhood Education Department

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

The goal of my planned presentation at the 33rd Annual EECERA Conference in Bratislava is to demonstrate how the mindsets (moral leadership, proactivity, ecological-systemic thinking, and a growth mindset) and competencies (interpersonal relationships with and among children, colleagues, and parents, as well as self-regulation) included in Moral Classroom Management (MCM) (Tal, 2016) were applied in 2022 by Almog Orbach, a third-year undergraduate student teacher at the Hemdat Academy in Israel. The context was her fieldwork in a preschool located in a small town in southern Israel, serving children aged 4 to 6, where she confronted repeated peer exclusion of a four-and-a-half-year-old girl of Jewish Ethiopian origin based on racial stereotypes.

We acknowledge that young children begin to develop racial stereotypes and prejudices between the ages of 3 and 5 (Peltola et al., 2023). At the same time, we believe that racial prejudice is malleable (Apfelbaum, in Weir 2021). We define MCM as the teacher’s ability to lead the classroom—including children, staff, and parents—toward enhancing the children’s socio-emotional wellbeing and learning. At the heart of this approach is a moral commitment: to ensure the wellbeing and learning opportunities of each and every child.

MCM is also conceived as a cyclical process that includes advance planning, implementation, ongoing assessment, and final evaluation—taking into account various factors related to the children and their environment. Its overarching goal is to promote emotional wellbeing and meaningful learning. The driving force behind moral classroom management is the pursuit of social justice and fairness for all those involved in the educational setting (Tal, 2016).

The case presented in the upcoming conference includes two social episodes reported by Almog, the student teacher. These episodes describe how she addressed the girl’s exclusion and the interventions she planned and implemented in collaboration with the head teacher, following the analysis of the first episode. These interventions aimed to fundamentally transform the peer group’s dynamics. Actions taken included reading and discussing picture books that dealt with diversity and inclusion; encouraging children during circle time to reflect on exclusion—both in the preschool and from their personal experiences; being emotionally available to the excluded girl; and introducing dolls of diverse skin tones into the free play areas. During circle time, the girl sat close to the student teacher and reported feeling supported.

An analysis of the student teacher’s reflective reports indicates a shift from an initial reactive stance—publicly denouncing the exclusion and conducting a superficial discussion—to the implementation of a five-week proactive, intensive ecological-moral plan. This plan led to a genuine apology from the children who had excluded the girl, followed by her integration into the group. The girl herself expressed deep appreciation, voluntarily thanking the student teacher for her support.

The intervention not only improved the girl’s wellbeing but also catalyzed a profound shift in attitudes and behavior among the children who had initially excluded her based on her skin color. The MCM approach is offered here as an alternative to a more traditional behaviorist approach, which may rely on punishing those who exclude others.

I have since used this case in both undergraduate and graduate classroom management courses to illustrate the importance of identifying social prejudice in children’s free play and to demonstrate how reflective analysis can lead to a moral-ecological intervention that benefits all involved. What motivated me to present this case was the critical response from a significant number of graduate students—practicing early childhood educators—who felt that Almog’s approach was too “soft.” They argued that the children who had engaged in exclusion should have been harshly punished.

For this reason, I believe it would be valuable to engage conference participants in a discussion about the pros and cons of the MCM approach versus punitive strategies in addressing racial prejudice in early childhood education.

Clodie Tal will present work referred to in this blog in Symposium Set A (25th August). (Schedule liable to change; please refer to final programme for details)