Excluding Whom? Race,Gender,and Suspension in High School

Abstract

Students of color are more apt to face exclusionary discipline in school, such as suspension or expulsion, than their white counterparts, and once suspended students may be more likely to drop out of school altogether. Utilizing the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS), we assess the separate and combined effects of various student level influences while controlling for contextual influences on the odds of suspension and dropping out. Results suggest students of color face a more punitive schooling experience and are more likely to experience scholastic exclusion even after controlling for a host of covaraites. Thus, findings indicate implicit perceptions of students of color, irrespective of their attitudes and behaviors, guide disciplinary practices which have real effects for students’ subsequent academic experience.

Keywords

social justice educational policy school reform students

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63(9), 852.

Apple

M. W.

(2004). Ideology and curriculum. Routledge Falmer.

Arum

Beattie

I. R.

(1999). High school experience and the risk of adult incarceration. Criminology, 37(3), 515–540.

Blake

J. J.

Butler

B. R.

Lewis

C. W.

Darensbourg

(2011). Unmasking the inequitable discipline experiences of urban Black girls: Implications for urban educational stakeholders. The Urban Review, 43(1), 90–106.

Bourdieu

Passeron

(2011). Reproduction in education, society and culture. SAGE. (Original work published 1977)

Bowditch

(1993). Getting rid of troublemakers: High school disciplinary procedures and the production of dropouts. Social Problems, 40(4), 493–509.

Brown

T. M.

(2007). Lost and turned out: Academic, social, and emotional experiences of students excluded from school. Urban Education, 42(5), 432–455.

Bryan

Day-Vines

N. L.

Griffin

Moore-Thomas

(2012). The disproportionality dilemma: Patterns of teacher referrals to school counselors for disruptive behavior. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90(2), 177–190.

Carter

P. L.

(2003). “Black” cultural capital, status positioning, and schooling conflicts for low-income African American youth. Social Problems, 50(1), 136–155.

10.

Carter

P. L.

(2005). Keepin’ it real: School success beyond Black and Whites. Oxford University Press.

11.

Cho

Crenshaw

K. W.

McCall

(2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38(4), 785–810.

12.

Civil Rights Data Collection. (2014). Data Snapshot: School discipline. https://ocrdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/CRDC-School-Discipline-Snapshot.pdf

13.

Cole

E. R.

(2009). Intersectionality and research in psychology. American Psychologist, 64(3), 170.

14.

Crenshaw

(1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, Article 8.

15.

Doll

J. J.

Eslami

Walters

(2013). Understanding why students drop out of high school, according to their own reports: Are they pushed or pulled, or do they fall out? A comparative analysis of seven nationally representative studies. Sage Open, 3(4), 1–15.

16.

Dornbusch

S. M.

Erickson

K. G.

Laird

Wong

C. A.

(2001). The relation of family and school attachment to adolescent deviance in diverse groups and communities. Journal of Adolescent Research, 16(4), 396–422.

17.

Edelman

M. W.

Beck

Smith

P. V.

(1975). School suspensions: Are they helping children. Children’s Defense Fund.

18.

Educational Longitudinal Study. (2002). Educational longitudinal study, 2002. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.

19.

Eitle

T. M.

Eitle

D. J.

(2004). Inequality, segregation, and the overrepresentation of African Americans in school suspensions. Sociological Perspectives, 47(3), 269–287.

20.

Epstein

Blake

González

(2017). Girlhood interrupted: The erasure of Black girls’ childhood. Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality.

21.

Fall

A. M.

Roberts

(2012). High school dropouts: Interactions between social context, self-perceptions, school engagement, and student dropout. Journal of Adolescence, 35(4), 787–798.

22.

Ferguson

A. A.

(2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of Black masculinity. University of Michigan Press.

23.

Fine

(1986). Why urban adolescents drop into and out of public high school. Teachers College Record, 87(3), 393–409.

24.

Ganao

J. S. D.

Silvestre

F. S.

Glenn

J. W.

(2013). Assessing the differential impact of contextual factors on school suspension for black and white students. The Journal of Negro Education, 82(4), 393–407.

25.

George

J. A.

(2015). Stereotype and school pushout: Race, gender and discipline disparities. Arkansas Law Review, 68, 101.

26.

Glass

C. S.

(2014). Perception of misbehavior: Understanding the process of labeling and the role of cultural capital in the disciplinary process. The Urban Review, 46(3), 372–394.

27.

Grissom

J. A.

Nicholson-Crotty

(2009). Race, region, and representative bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 69(5), 911–919.

28.

Halberstadt

A. G.

Castro

V. L.

Chu

Lozada

F. T.

Sims

C. M.

(2018). Preservice teachers’ racialized emotion recognition, anger bias, and hostility attributions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 54, 125–138.

29.

Jimenez

McDaniels

Shapiro

(2018). Public schools must address disparities in discipline rates. Center for American Progress. Retrieved April 17th, from, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2018/01/17/444972/public-schools-must-address-disparities-discipline-rates/

30.

Kupchik

(2009). Things are tough all over: Race, ethnicity, class and school discipline. Punishment & Society, 11(3), 291–317.

31.

Lamont

Lareau

(1988). Cultural capital: Allusions, gaps and glissandos in recent theoretical developments. Sociological Theory, 6, 153–168.

32.

Lareau

(2011). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. University of California Press. (Original work published 2001)

33.

McGrady

P. B.

Reynolds

J. R.

(2013). Racial mismatch in the classroom: Beyond black-white differences. Sociology of Education, 86(1), 3–17.

34.

McIntosh

Girvan

E. J.

Horner

R. H.

Smolkowski

(2014). Education not incarceration: A conceptual model for reducing racial and ethinc disproportionality in school discipline. Journal of Applied Research in Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk, 5(2), Article 4.

35.

Mendez

L. M. R.

Knoff

H. M.

(2003). Who gets suspended from school and why: A demographic analysis of schools and disciplinary infractions in a large school district. Education and Treatment of Children, 26, 30–51.

36.

Mendez

L. M. R.

Knoff

H. M.

Ferron

J. M.

(2002). School demographic variables and out-of-school suspension rates: A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a large, ethnically diverse school district. Psychology in the Schools, 39(3), 259–277.

37.

Monahan

K. C.

VanDerhei

Bechtold

Cauffman

(2014). From the school yard to the squad car: School discipline, truancy, and arrest. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(7), 1110–1122.

38.

Monroe

C. R.

Obidah

J. E.

(2004). The influence of cultural synchronization on a teacher’s perceptions of disruption: A case study of an African American middle-school classroom. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(3), 256–268.

39.

Morris

E. W.

(2005). “Tuck in that shirt!” Race, class, gender, and discipline in an urban school. Sociological Perspectives, 48(1), 25–48.

40.

Morris

E. W.

(2006). An unexpected minority: White kids in an urban school. Rutgers University Press.

41.

Morris

E. W.

(2007). “Ladies” or “loudies”? Perceptions and experiences of Black girls in classrooms. Youth & Society, 38(4), 490–515.

42.

Morris

E. W.

Perry

B. L.

(2016). The punishment gap: School suspension and racial disparities in achievement. Social Problems, 63(1), 68–86.

43.

Morris

(2016a). Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools. The New Press.

44.

Morris

(2016b). Protecting black girls. Disrupting Inequity, 74(3), 49–53.

45.

Murphy

A. S.

Acosta

M. A.

Kennedy-Lewis

B. L.

(2013). “I’m not running around with my pants sagging, so how am I not acting like a lady?”: Intersections of race and gender in the experiences of female middle school troublemakers. The Urban Review, 45(5), 586–610.

46.

Nance

J. P.

(2013). Students, security, and race. Emory Law Journal, 63(1), 1–57.

47.

Neel

(2017). Poll: 6 in 10 Black Americans say police unfairly stopped them or a relative. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/10/30/560382301/poll-6-in-10-black-americans-say-theyve-been-unfairly-stopped-by-police

48.

Nicholson-Crotty

Birchmeier

Valentine

(2009). Exploring the impact of school discipline on racial disproportion in the juvenile justice system. Social Science Quarterly, 90(4), 1003–1018.

49.

Noltemeyer

A. L.

Mcloughlin

C. S.

(2010). Patterns of exclusionary discipline by school typology, ethnicity, and their interaction. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, 7(1), 27–40.

50.

Noltemeyer

A. L.

Ward

R. M.

Mcloughlin

(2015). Relationship between school suspension and student outcomes: A meta-analysis. School Psychology Review, 44(2), 224–240.

51.

Okonofua

J. A.

Paunesku

Walton

G. M.

(2016). Brief intervention to encourage empathic discipline cuts suspension rates in half among adolescents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(19), 5221–5226.

52.

Peguero

A. A.

Popp

A. M.

Latimore

T. L.

Shekarkhar

Koo

D. J.

(2011). Social control theory and school misbehavior: Examining the role of race and ethnicity. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 9(3), 259–275.

53.

Peguero

A. A.

Shekarkhar

(2011). Latino/a student misbehavior and school punishment. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 33(1), 54–70.

54.

Perry

B. L.

Morris

E. W.

(2014). Suspending progress: Collateral consequences of exclusionary punishment in public schools. American Sociological Review, 79(6), 1067–1087.

55.

Proctor

B. D.

Dalaker

(2003). U.S. Census Bureau, current population reports, poverty in the United States: 2002. U.S. Government Printing Office.

56.

Reardon

S. F.

Owens

(2014). 60 years after Brown: Trends and consequences of school segregation. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 199–218.

57.

Rocque

Paternoster

(2011). Understanding the antecedents of the “school-to-jail” link: The relationship between race and school discipline. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 101, 633–665.

58.

Rosenbaum

(2020). Educational and criminal justice outcomes 12 years after school suspension. Youth & Society, 52(4), 515–547.

59.

Skiba

R. J.

Chung

C. G.

Trachok

Baker

T. L.

Sheya

Hughes

R. L.

(2014). Parsing disciplinary disproportionality: Contributions of infraction, student, and school characteristics to out-of-school suspension and expulsion. American Educational Research Journal, 51(4), 640–670.

60.

Skiba

R. J.

Horner

R. H.

Chung

C. G.

Rausch

M. K.

May

S. L.

Tobin

(2011). Race is not neutral: A national investigation of African American and Latino disproportionality in school discipline. School Psychology Review, 40(1), 85–107.

61.

Skiba

R. J.

Michael

R. S.

Nardo

A. C.

Peterson

R. L.

(2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34(4), 317–342.

62.

Stearns

Glennie

E. J.

(2006). When and why dropouts leave high school. Youth & Society, 38(1), 29–57.

63.

Sum

Khatiwada

McLaughlin

(2009). The consequences of dropping out of high school: Joblessness and jailing for high school dropouts and the high cost for taxpayers. Northeastern University.

64.

Sweeten

Bushway

S. D.

Paternoster

(2009). Does dropping out of school mean dropping into delinquency? Criminology, 47(1), 47–91.

65.

Townsend

B. L.

(2000). The disproportionate discipline of African American learner: Reducing school suspensions and expulsions. Exceptional Children, 66(3), 381–391.

66.

Wallace

J. M.

Jr Goodkind

Wallace

C. M.

Bachman

J. G.

(2008). Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in school discipline among US high school students: 1991–2005. The Negro Educational Review, 59(1–2), 47.

67.

Welch

Payne

A. A.

(2010). Racial threat and punitive school discipline. Social Problems, 57(1), 25–48.

68.

Welch

Payne

A. A.

(2018). Latino/a student threat and school disciplinary policies and practices. Sociology of Education, 91(2), 91–110.

69.

Wight

V. R.

Chau

Aratani

(2010). Who are America’s poor children?: The official story. National Center for Children in Poverty.

70.

Yang

M. Y.

Harmeyer

Chen

Lofaso

B. M.

(2018). Predictors of early elementary school suspension by gender: A longitudinal multilevel analysis. Children and Youth Services Review, 93, 331–338.