“How about you just ask?”: uplifting black adolescent girls’ reflections on educators’ decisions in the context of discipline disproportionality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Educators’ subjective decisions regarding behaviors like dress code and defiance contribute to discipline disparities experienced by Black girls. However, Black adolescent girls’ voices on this issue remain largely unconsidered. To address this gap, we investigated their reflections on educators’ decision making concerning subjective behaviors and responses. We conducted a thematic analysis of quotes by Black US middle and high-school girls identified by coupling best practices for qualitative systematic reviews with a novel process to extract quotes in which Black adolescent girls specifically discussed discipline interactions (N = 41). Primarily, girls talked about discrimination and described educators’ failure to value their voices and experiences in their decision making. Notably, girls’ reflections were similar whether educators responded with a verbal reprimand or an office discipline referral. Students’ disengagement after these kinds of discipline interactions points to the importance of actively engaging Black girls in efforts to address disproportionality in school discipline.