Assessing the Odds: Disproportional Discipline Practices and Implications for Educational Stakeholders

Abstract

One frequently held assumption found within the school discipline literature suggests that students of color- particularly African American, male, low-income populations- are at an increased risk of receiving exclusionary discipline sanctions. Aside from race, gender, and socioeconomic status; however, less is known about other factors that increase the likelihood of a student being excluded from classroom instruction as a result of disciplinary action. These other factors are equally important in understanding disproportional trends found in school discipline. Subsequently, the purpose of this article is to systematically explore other explanations relative to the odds of a student being suspended or expelled from school. Based on the findings from this study, recommendations to various educational stakeholders were offered. Keywords: juvenile delinquency, children at risk, race, ethnicity, class The past three decades of scientific and behavioral research on school discipline (see Children's Defense Fund, 1975; Penning & Rose, 2007; McCarthy & Hoge, 1987; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002) has chronicled the disproportionate representation of school discipline among students of color; a phenomenon conventionally labeled the discipline gap (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010). Several researchers, over the years, have consistently found disproportional trends in school discipline practices, as evidenced by the pattern of overrepresentation of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students for exclusionary discipline consequences (i.e., out-of-school suspension and/or expulsions; Brown, Losen, & Wald, 2002; Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Skiba & Knesting, 2001; Skiba et al., 2002). However, African American students are most interesting, seeing how they are targeted for disciplinary action in the greatest numbers; yet, they are generally no more likely to display higher levels of disruptive behavior than that exhibited by their counterparts (Children's Defense Fund, 1975; Taylor & Foster, 1986; McCadden, 1998; Skiba et al., 2002). Evidence of the discipline gap was first documented by the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) in 1975. Within this report, two major findings emerged. First, during the 1972-1973 academic school year, the use of suspensions in public schools accounted, nationally, for the removal of more than one million students from their respective school district (CDF, 1975). Second, using a national sample of over 2000 school districts from the United States Office of Civil Rights' national dataset; CDF (1975) found that one in every eight African American students, compared to one in every 16 Caucasian students were suspended, at least once during the 19721973 school year. These findings, during that time, provided a national platform, whereby racial discrimination in the use of school suspensions could be further explored. Since the publication of the CDF (1975) report, education researchers are somewhat reticent of the possibility of racial bias existing in the distribution of school suspensions. McCarthy and Hoge (1987) were among those who contested the influence of race in determining school punishment. They found that students' past history of official punishment, teacher perceptions of student demeanor, and previous academic performance were strong predictors of suspensions. Furthermore, when controlling for these three variables, McCarthy and Hoge asserted that race combined with other demographic characteristics such as socioeconomic status (SES) and gender, had no effect on school suspensions and expulsions. Despite these findings, the interest in the relationship between race and school suspensions continues to increase. In 2000, the Opportunities Suspended report, developed by the Harvard Civil Rights Project (Harvard CRP, 2000) was published. At the time, it was the first comprehensive national report to scrutinize the disproportional impact of zero tolerance policies (i. …