Racial Disproportionality Research Articles

Associations Between Community-Level Racial Biases, Office Discipline Referrals, and Out-of-School Suspensions

This study examined the extent to which disparities in Black and White students’ risks of receiving office discipline referrals (ODRs), and out-of-school suspensions (OSSs) were related to differences in implicit and explicit racial biases assessed at the community level. The sample consisted of discipline records for 1,354,010 students enrolled in 2,100 U.S. schools in 183 communities distributed across the United States. Analyses estimated and compared the contributions of average implicit and explicit racial biases in schools’ localities to school-level disproportionality in ODRs, OSSs, and OSSs controlling for disproportionality in ODRs. Results showed that community-level racial biases were related to racial disparities in ODRs and OSSs in schools, with some important differences by type of discipline decision. Impact Statement This study provides evidence that community-level explicit and implicit racial biases are associated with school-level racial disproportionality. Results indicate that a significant proportion of racial disproportionality may result from the effects of bias on the decision to issue an office discipline referral, as opposed to the decision tosuspend a student, indicating that a focus on classroom systems has the strongest potential to increase equity in school discipline. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2020.1838232

The Push for Racial Equity in Child Welfare: Can Blind Removals Reduce Disproportionality?

There have long been concerns regarding racial disproportionality in the U.S. child welfare system: Black children are represented in foster care systems at levels much higher than their numbers in the overall population. Calls for reform have grown louder in recent months, as the nationwide push to re-examine structural racism in institutions has reached the child welfare system. An increasingly popular reform seeks to reduce disproportionality by eliminating perceived implicit biases in the decisions of child welfare workers. This program, known as removals, works off of the following premise: if demographic information is unknown to professionals deciding whether or not to remove a child, then implicit biases will not impact foster care placement decisions. We conduct the first quantitative analysis of blind removals and derive two main findings. First, we show that the over-representation of Black children in most foster care systems is almost entirely driven by the fact that Black children are roughly two times more likely than White children to be investigated for child maltreatment to begin with. Conditional on initial rates of investigation, investigators remove White and Black children at similar rates. Specifically, we calculate that equalizing the removal probabilities of White and Black children would only reduce overall disproportionality by 4.5 percent. Thus, policies that target racial disparities in the removal decision have limited scope for impacting racial disproportionality in most foster care systems. Second, we find no evidence that blind removals had any effect on the already small racial disparities in the removal decision but they substantially increased time to removal. These findings yield an important insight for the multiple states and local child welfare agencies currently considering implementation of blind removals: the policy is not well-suited to reduce racial disproportionality in most foster care systems.

Engaging youth voices to address racial disproportionality in schools: Exploring the practice and potential of youth participatory research in an urban district

Drawing upon a large district-wide initiative to systematically use youth participatory research in all middle and high schools as a way to address the racial disproportionality in school experience and disciplinary actions, this paper conceptualizes youth participatory research as a tool to bring youth voices to inform school climate and school policies. The program, which began in 2015, has involved teams from 31 middle and high schools from across the district to use youth participatory evaluation to examine school climate, racial disproportionality, discipline issues, and student and teacher relationships, among other issues. This paper is a result of a multi-year, ongoing research-practitioner partnership focused on continuous program improvement and reflection. In the paper, we draw upon learning from the first five years to conceptualize a multi-level, iterative change model that highlights navigating tensions and challenges such as power, racial injustice, and authentic youth voice within a school district. We reflect on the learning to date and explore the implications for engaging youth participatory research practices within school districts. These critical reflections include the: 1) importance of engaging the most impacted youth, 2) need to prepare stakeholders for research, 3) critical nature of centering race and racial injustice within youth participatory research, 4) requirement of adapting to the realities of students’ lives, school priorities and time; 5) attention focused on the role of adults as advisors within youth participatory research efforts; and the 6) need for adult stakeholders to listen to youth’s findings. We close with practical lessons and future directions for youth participatory research to impact systemic change within large school districts.

Exploring Racial Disproportionalities and Disparities for Black Families Involved with the Child Welfare System

Background: The overrepresentation of Black families in child welfare systems across the various geographical locations (e.g. America, Canada, United Kingdom) is a growing concern. There are competing explanations for the causes of overrepresentation and recommendations for eliminating racial disproportionalities and disparities in child welfare system. This systemic scoping review will provide a succinct synthesis of the current literature on Black disproportionality and disparity in child welfare.
 Methods/Design: This systemic scoping review will employ Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five stage framework. This will direct our search of the seven academic databases (EBSCO: Criminal Justice Abstracts OVID: Social Work Abstracts Pro Quest: PsychINFO, ERIC, Sociological Abstracts, International Bibliography of Social Sciences and Web of Science Core Collections). These seven databases have been chosen due to their interdisciplinary resources on the issue of overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare sector. The thematic findings will be systemically synthesized using qualitative analysis and presented visually through a chart. Eligible articles for this scoping review include literature that speaks directly to the experiences of Black families involved with the child welfare system. The results of this scoping review will increase the understanding of how racial disproportionalities and disparities emerge, common outcomes and ways to begin tackling this phenomenon for Black families.
 Discussion: In order to tackle this gap in knowledge regarding the overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare system, this comprehensive scoping review will systematically organize the literature in order to understand how this issue manifests and to fill this gap in research. This methodological approach will allow for the development of practical and intentional methods to move forward in mitigating this issue.

Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in the Child Welfare System: Why Do They Exist, and What Can Be Done to Address Them?

Children of color are overrepresented in the child welfare system, and Black children have been most significantly impacted by this racial disproportionality. Racial disproportionality in child welfare exists because of influences that are both external to child welfare systems and part of the child welfare system. We summarize the causes of racial disproportionality, arguing that internal and external causes of disproportional involvement originate from a common underlying factor: structural and institutional racism that is both within child welfare systems and part of society at large. Further, we review options for addressing racial disproportionality, arguing that it needs to be rectified because of the harm it causes Black children and families and that forcible separation of children from their parents can no longer be viewed as an acceptable form of intervention for families in need.

How and Why Context Matters in the Study of Racial Disproportionality in Special Education: Toward a Critical Disability Education Policy Approach

ABSTRACT Racial disproportionality in special education is an ongoing injustice in schools in the United States. In this article, we investigate the key relationships among education policy, context, and racial disproportionality in special education. We examine this nexus by analyzing one U.S. school district’s response to federal citations for disproportionality in both the over-identification of students of color in special education and over-representation of students of color with disabilities being disciplined. Our findings demonstrate the important role of historical legacies of inequality and the limitations of technical approaches to equity oriented education policies. We end by offering a critical disability education policy approach that accounts for complex sociocultural contexts, attending to disability and its intersections, in an effort to move toward more just and equitable education policies.

Effects of a Multifaceted Classroom Intervention on Racial Disproportionality

This article reports results from an experimental study of a classroom intervention intended to decrease racial disproportionality in school discipline by focusing on making classroom behavior systems more culturally responsive and changing teacher behaviors (e.g., use of praise and reprimands). The intervention had three main components: (a) an activity to increase the cultural responsiveness of classroom behavior expectations (the personal matrix), (b) a tool to assess individual students’ preferred and nonpreferred ways to receive immediate acknowledgement for desired behaviors (the praise preference assessment), and (c) coaching with visual performance feedback to heighten awareness of racial disparities in use of praise and reprimands and setting goals for racial equity (using a modified version of the Classroom Check-up). The design was a concurrent multiple-baseline single-case design across four general education teachers ranging from kindergarten to seventh grade meeting What Works Clearinghouse standards. Results from the study indicate a functional relation between the intervention and increased rates of praise and decreased rates of reprimands for African American students. Findings from this study suggest that changing teacher use of praise and reprimands may help to increase racial equity in schools.

Awareness Is Not Enough: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Providing Discipline Disproportionality Data Reports to School Administrators

One commonly used strategy used in attempts to decrease racial disproportionality in school discipline across the country is sharing data with school administrators that discipline disparities are a problem in their schools with the assumption that it will increase attention to equity and improve outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of providing monthly disciplinary equity reports to school administrators in 35 schools on levels of (a) disciplinary equity report viewing, (b) disciplinary equity, and (c) inclusion of disciplinary equity into school improvement plan goals. We used a small, double-blind randomized controlled trial in which half of the schools were randomly assigned to receive either monthly disciplinary equity reports or monthly general discipline reports. Results showed that schools receiving the equity reports had significantly increased rates of viewing equity reports but no meaningful change in disciplinary equity or equity goal setting.

Spatial othering: Examining residential areas, school attendance zones, and school discipline in an urbanizing school district

Drawn from interdisciplinary perspectives of special education, critical geography, and education policy, in this study, we examined the spatial patterns of residential areas, school attendance zones, and school discipline rates of an urbanizing school district in Wisconsin to understand the construction of spatial “Other.” We measured the city’s dissimilarity index to examine racial and economic segregation between neighborhoods and elementary schools. We also measured the school district suspension rates to examine racial disproportionality in school discipline. We then analyzed to what extent the redrawing of elementary school attendance zones in the 2007-2008 school year was able to reduce the spatial concentration of racially and economically minoritized students in one elementary public school. We found that despite the well-intentioned efforts of the rezoning committee to lower the percentage of students from low-income families, spatial othering at the neighborhood level continued to funnel students from racially and minoritized backgrounds into the school, due to the concentration of low-income housing in the neighborhood of the school.

Restorative Practices for Empowerment: A Social Work Lens

Abstract Studies demonstrate that preventive practices, including restorative practices and social and emotional learning, reduce the need for suspension. However, emerging findings suggest that preventive practices perpetuate the same rates of racial disproportionality in suspension as traditional disciplinary codes; evidence of persistent racial disproportionality appears in research on restorative practices. The purpose of this study was to examine, through interviews with teachers and students, the successes and challenges of implementing community-building circles with attention to equity and inclusion. Authors found that both teachers and students experience these practices as transformative when enough trust is established to share openly; however, more training is necessary for this to be consistent across schools and classrooms. Considering the lack of discussion of implicit bias and cultural responsiveness embedded in the restorative practice trainings these teachers received, authors argue that social work professionals and concepts—namely, empowerment theory—can support teacher training and implementation of community-building circles.

Racial disproportionality of students in United States colleges of pharmacy

ObjectiveTo describe the disproportionality of racial and ethnic people of color (i.e., minorities) among the student body in schools and colleges of pharmacy (COPs) compared to county-specific United States Census Bureau data. MethodsData were obtained from national databases and published reports from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. In addition, demographic information for enrollees of minority-serving institutions and predominantly white institutions was obtained and racial disproportionality was assessed to determine the degree of concordance between enrollees and the demographics of people within the county that the school was located. Data were evaluated using descriptive statistics. ResultsCompared to the general population in counties where COPs are located, Asians are over-represented while all other students of color are underrepresented. The top schools that have a negative disproportionality rate for Black students included Thomas Jefferson University (−40.49), Wayne State University (−40.13), Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (−39.90), and the University of Tennessee (−39.74).The top five schools that have a negative disproportionality rate of Hispanic students included Loma Linda University (−45.67), California Health Sciences (−45.64), the University of Southern California (−43.79), the University of the Pacific California (−37.95), and Texas Southern University (−36.65). The enrollments within most COPs do not reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the counties in which they are located. ConclusionsTo meet the healthcare needs of an increasingly diverse population, each institution should establish a strategic plan for increasing diversity and evaluating and adopting best practices.

Engineer to Operations Research to Criminology: Quite a Trajectory

In reflecting on my career trajectory, I find it very intriguing: from high school science to Cornell's first class in engineering physics and then on to early involvement in the new field of operations research on military and air transportation, which led to significant leadership roles there. I was then a naïve recruit in criminology in a role that involved quantitative analysis and concern for the total criminal justice system with an emphasis on dimensions of criminal careers and their use in analysis for sentencing, incarceration, and related policies. The analytic issues emphasized included racial disproportionality in prison, drug policy, and facilitating redemption from the long-term punitive effects of crime involvement. In the process, I had the opportunity to provide leadership to the Heinz College of Carnegie Mellon University, an important academic institution concerned with facilitating rational public policy; the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR), a multi-university research and education program; and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, an important state-level criminal justice policy and funding agency.

From the Editorial Board: Tangled Discrimination in Schools: Binding Hair to Control Student Identity

From the Editorial Board: Tangled Discrimination in Schools: Binding Hair to Control Student Identity Torrie K. Edwards School discipline policy is not implemented equitably in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (2014), Black students represent 16% of the student population, but represent 32–42% of students suspended or expelled; in contrast, White students make up over half of the student population, and yet only 31–40% of White students are suspended (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). In total, Black students are suspended and expelled more frequently than their White peers; only 4.6% of White students are suspended, while 16.4% of Black students are suspended. The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (2014) not only reports on racial disproportionality in discipline policy implementation, but also gender disproportionality. For example, its data show that boys make up nearly three of every four students suspended or expelled; additionally, although students with disabilities only make up 12% of student enrollment, they are subject to 25% of school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Significant literature has explored the broad impacts of discipline policy disproportionality on students of color (e.g., lost instructional time, school-to-prison pipeline, etc.), but few have focused on the impact of specific discipline policies. One of these specific policies that has not been studied extensively is dress code, which often regulates clothing, jewelry, and other choices in student appearance. The focus in this editorial is on dress code related to hair, hairstyles and accessories, a topic which has been a focus as of late on social media and in the news, as several recent school-based events have shown clear instances of hair discrimination impacting students of color in particular. In December 2018, a Black high school wrestler in New Jersey was forced to choose between maintaining his hairstyle and competing in a wrestling match. Under the guise of following a dress code policy, the referee publicly cut off the student’s locs before allowing him to compete. This event may seem extreme, yet public schools regularly control hair, hairstyles, and hair accessories through presumably less public dress code policies. Rampant in the news media are stories of students and young people being refused entry to (Kai, 2018) or sent home from school (Harris, J., 2016; Jackman, 2018; Lazar, 2017), having their natural hair cut off (Whelan, Jr., 2018), being threatened with disciplinary action (Pulliam, 2016; Taketa, 2020), or being removed from their extracurricular activities for hair styles or accessories deemed unacceptable in mainstream White culture (Lattimore, 2017). These examples underscore the politics of hair management (Banks, 1997) and the dominant narrative around hair that hooks (1989b) describes in which “black people, and especially black women.. .are not acceptable as we are.. .” (p. 5). Although Banks (1997) found the messaging of hair management to reflect experiences of power, choice, and/or self-hatred, this message is unquestionably, according to Oyedemi (2016), a form of cultural violence. This cultural violence is enacted on student bodies through hair regulations in dress code policies, and, until very recently was permitted in every state in the country. [End Page 53] In 2019, three states wrote legislation addressing hair discrimination in school: California, New York, and New Jersey. California’s law is the first of its kind. Passed in early 2019, this law took effect January 1, 2020. Formally Senate Bill No. 188, the Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair Act (CROWN Act) is “an act to amend Section 212.1 of the Education Code, and to amend Section 12926 of the Government Code, relating to discrimination” (CROWN Act, 2019). Specifically, it “adds traits historically associated with race to the state’s list of classifications protected from discrimination” (Griffith, 2019). SB-188 explicitly protects afros, braids, natural hair, twists, and locs in both employment practices and educational policy, and is intentional in outlining the history and impact of racial discrimination in public arenas. In particular, Section 1b of the Act notes that Whiteness (e.g., European features and mannerisms) often guides societal understandings of professionalism by linking European features to professionalism; moreover, it names hair...

Disproportionality in Juvenile Justice Diversion: An Examination of Teen Court Peer-Derived Consequences

AbstractJuvenile justice diversion programs, such as Teen Court (TC), represent an alternative to traditional juvenile justice responses to youth misbehavior and delinquency. However, although TC represents a potential strategy to address disproportionate minority contact, there is a dearth of research examining the extent to which TC programs are racially equitable. To address this gap, the current study examines racial disproportionality in a TC program in Arizona. Results indicated that in a diverse sample of youths involved in a TC program in Arizona, youths who identified as Latinx or American Indian were more likely to receive a severe consequence from the peer jury compared with their non-Latinx, white counterparts. Multiracial youths were less likely to receive a severe consequence compared with white youths. A hierarchical regression model indicated that offense-related variables explained the largest proportion of variance in number of consequence hours assigned. However, disparities for Latinx and American Indian youths compared with non-Latinx, white youths persisted after controlling for other demographics, type of offense, prior offenses, and additional charges. The results of the current study are the first to document racial disparity in the TC process.

Research & Policy

Interwoven histories of education law, reading, and special education research together expose failures to improve reading achievement and diminish racial disproportionality, under Response to Intervention.

The Racialized Nature of Child Welfare Policies and the Social Control of Black Bodies.

Black women are disproportionately involved in the child welfare system. This state-level intervention occurs at two levels-a higher likelihood of being (i) screened for drug use during pregnancy and (ii) reported to child welfare authorities after delivery. Consequently, they face further enmeshment in state-systems, including custody loss and lower reunification odds. Using evidence from the past forty years of research and media reports, we argue that systemic forces and policies largely contribute to racial disproportionality in the child welfare system, and assert this state intervention serves as a mechanism to control black reproduction.

Race, Response to Intervention, and Reading Research

In this critique, race is centralized to draw attention to the role it plays in the complex evolution of response to intervention, past and present. I use a critical race theory analytical lens to focus on how the dominant narrative serves as a framework within institutional and political structures in support of the approach. A brief overview of anti-discrimination laws and policies is followed by several historical narratives that are used to convey the intersecting nature of early reading and special education research. The body of research is employed to articulate the goals and purpose of the intervention, sans a clear commitment to addressing racial disproportionality. This critique particularly exposes how response to intervention has neither improved reading achievement nor curtailed racial disproportionality, and emphasizes that reading research is complicit in the reproduction of racial inequality in education. I conclude with a call to action.

A BlackCrit analysis on Black urban youth and suspension disproportionality as anti-Black symbolic violence

ABSTRACTThrough an analysis of Black urban high school youth’s critical engagements with literacy, the authors examine school suspensions–particularly disproportionality–as anti-Black symbolic violence. By historically mapping the terrain of discipline, from chattel slavery to The New Jim Crow, the article unearths the connection between racial disproportionality in school discipline and the micro-level context of systemic societal Black exclusion. Gathered from a 3-week summer writing course, the data highlights how Black youth conceptualize suspensions and disproportionality as structurally anti-Black by design. Guided by the triangulation of CRT, BlackCrit, and theories of critical literacy, the data provides an anti-Black specific analysis of school suspensions centered in the voices and lived truths of Black youth. The article concludes by prompting educators to (1) confront antiblackness within disciplinary practices (and schooling at-large) and (2) wrestle with the necessity for school suspensions given the history of being meted out in racially inequitable ways.

Transforming Schools from the Ground-Up with Local Stakeholders: Implementing Learning Lab for Inclusion and Systemic Transformation at a Middle School

Historically, students from racially minoritized communities receive exclusionary disciplinary actions more frequently and severely in the United States. Researchers have recommended that schoolwide behavioral interventions implemented to address racial disproportionality need to be culturally responsive to local school contexts. Using the theory of expansive learning, we conducted a one and a half year-long formative intervention, Learning Lab, to examine and address racial disproportionality with local stakeholders at an urban middle school. We analyzed how parents, teachers, administrators, community members, and researchers collaborated to design a culturally responsive school discipline system at Rogoff Middle School. The analysis of expansive learning actions showed that the systemic transformation process facilitated at the school included a cycle of seven expansive learning actions. We discussed implications of the current study for education research and practice.

Facilitating en/counters with special education’s cloak of benevolence in professional learning to eliminate racial disproportionality in special education

Despite the U.S. government’s funding and provision of technical assistance as a prevailing approach to remedy special education racial disproportionality, and considerable research on the explanations, causes, and frameworks for addressing the phenomenon, there is little documentation of research or technical assistance efforts for actually doing so. As a white, non-disabled professor and executive director of a federally funded Equity Assistance Center, I theorize and offer for critique ways I have facilitated (mostly white, non-disabled) educators’ en/counters with culturally historically embedded systemic and individual practices contributing to the construction of special education as a cloak of benevolence for white supremacy and ableism. Drawing from a theory of expansive learning, I illustrate how purposeful introduction of artifacts into the activity system of a technical assistance relationship brings educators in contact with contradictions between their expressed goals of eliminating disproportionality and their pathologization of children’s differences at the intersection of race and disability.