School Punishment, Deterrence, and Race: A Partial Test of Defiance Theory

Pesta, Racheal

doi:10.1177/00111287211005396

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Although the literature specifically addressing racial/ethnic differences in the link between suspension and arrest is small and limited, adjacent research can also inform these processes. For instance, Pesta (2018Pesta ( , 2021 provided evidence that the link from suspension to secondary deviance (rather than sanctioning) is stronger for Black than for White students, but other research examining this relationship found no meaningful differences between Black and White students in the link between suspension or expulsion and future aggressive behavior (Jacobsen et al, 2019). Research outside of school settings has provided mixed evidence on the extent to which labeling operates differently across race/ethnicity among youth and young adults.…”

Section: Integrating Labeling Theory With Critical Race Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial and ethnic differences in the consequences of school suspension for arrest

Fisher

Widdowson

2023

Criminology

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A growing body of literature has demonstrated that when schools suspend students, the suspension acts not as a deterrent but as an amplifier of future punishment. Labeling theory has emerged as the predominant explanation for this phenomenon, suggesting that the symbolic label conferred along with a suspension shapes how other people perceive and respond to labeled students. Few studies, however, have attended to racial/ethnic differences in this process even though critical race theory suggests the consequences of suspension likely differ across racial/ethnic groups due to prevailing racial/ethnic stereotypes. This study uses six waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (N = 8,634) to examine how the relationship between suspension and subsequent arrest differs for White, Black, and Hispanic students. Using a series of within‐person analyses that control for time‐stable personal characteristics, this study finds that suspension amplifies Black and Hispanic students’ risk of arrest relative to that of White students. White students’ risk of arrest was not amplified by suspension and, in some models, was diminished. This study's findings underscore the importance of understanding the labeling process as different by race/ethnicity and indicate that suspension is particularly harmful for Black and Hispanic relative to White students.

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Section: Integrating Labeling Theory With Critical Race Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial and ethnic differences in the consequences of school suspension for arrest

Fisher

Widdowson

2023

Criminology

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“…Perhaps, males are more apt to view the punishment as unfair or unjust and rather than accepting the legitimacy of the sanction, rebuffs it and the authority which enforced it. Recent research found racial differences in the perception of teacher fairness (Pesta, 2021); it may be that gender differences exist as well. Other research demonstrates that females are more likely to accept the punishment and experience shame rather than defiance and therefore may work to regain their feminine identity which is at odds with labels such as "delinquent" and "troublemaker" (Fitch & Nazaretian, 2019).…”

Section: Can a Labeling Via School Bond Perspective Explain Gender Di...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the School-To-Prison Pipeline Just for Boys? The Effect of School Punishment Across Gender

Pesta

2022

Feminist Criminology

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Boys are overrepresented in school punishment, dropout, and delinquency setting them on a path towards criminal offending. There is limited research on the effect of school punishment among females and if that effect varies across gender. Informed by a labeling perspective, this study examines the effect of exclusionary discipline on dropout, delinquency, and criminal offending among males and females. Special attention is paid to the role of school bonding as a potential gendered mechanism that protects female students from negative outcomes associated with school punishment. Results suggest both similarities and differences in the effect of exclusionary discipline across gender.

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“…This teacher-side escalation is more severe when teachers interact with Black students, suggesting that daily discipline disparities might also escalate over time. Research evaluating students’ reactions to discipline also suggests that students who are disciplined can become defiant ( 24 , 25 ), which could lead to increases in acts of misbehavior and discipline escalation. Indeed, a detailed propensity score matching analysis suggested that discipline led students to increase their rates of misbehavior ( 5 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The dynamic nature of student discipline and discipline disparities

Darling-Hammond

Ruiz

Eberhardt

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Researchers have long used end-of-year discipline rates to identify punitive schools, explore sources of inequitable treatment, and evaluate interventions designed to stem both discipline and racial disparities in discipline. Yet, this approach leaves us with a “static view”—with no sense of how disciplinary responses fluctuate throughout the year. What if daily discipline rates, and daily discipline disparities, shift over the school year in ways that could inform when and where to intervene? This research takes a “dynamic view” of discipline. It leverages 4 years of atypically detailed data regarding the daily disciplinary experiences of 46,964 students from 61 middle schools in one of the nation’s largest school districts. Reviewing these data, we find that discipline rates are indeed dynamic. For all student groups, the daily discipline rate grows from the beginning of the school year to the weeks leading up to the Thanksgiving break, falls before major breaks, and grows following major breaks. During periods of escalation, the daily discipline rate for Black students grows significantly faster than the rate for White students—widening racial disparities. Given this, districts hoping to stem discipline and disparities may benefit from timing interventions to precede these disciplinary spikes. In addition, early-year Black–White disparities can be used to identify the schools in which Black–White disparities are most likely to emerge by the end of the school year. Thus, the results reported here provide insights regarding not only when to intervene, but where to intervene to reduce discipline rates and disparities.

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School Punishment, Deterrence, and Race: A Partial Test of Defiance Theory

Cited by 5 publications

References 55 publications

Racial and ethnic differences in the consequences of school suspension for arrest

Racial and ethnic differences in the consequences of school suspension for arrest

Is the School-To-Prison Pipeline Just for Boys? The Effect of School Punishment Across Gender

The dynamic nature of student discipline and discipline disparities

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