Hello! I’m Dr. Elizabeth King. I am an Associate Professor of Child and Family Development at Missouri State University.

Learn more about my teaching, research, and engagement by clicking the links at the bottom of this page.

My work focuses on early childhood educators’ beliefs about race and gender, their differential emotion language by children’s racial and gender identity, and children’s social emotional development in classrooms. To investigate these processes, I use a mixed-methods approach to explore the interplay among teachers’ lived experiences and internalized belief systems, teachers’ observed practices, and children’s social emotional development over time. The goal of my work is to inform teacher preparation and professional development to support teachers’ anti-oppressive emotion socialization practices.

Photo above taken (by me) backcountry camping in the Badlands.

Photo of me taken by the amazing Jesse Scheve at Missouri State University.