Voices That Matter: Chief Administrative Officers’ Role in the Student Discipline Gap

Abstract

This study explores how community socioeconomic status (SES), geographical location, and administrator perspectives influence the implementation of exclusionary disciplinary policies. Using Geographical Information Systems mapping technology, in-depth interviewing, and document analysis, this study finds that schools located in high SES sectors have higher rates of exclusionary disciplinary practices, whereas schools located in low SES sectors have lower levels. The findings also indicate five normative values that influence leadership’s decisions to exclude students more frequently. These guiding belief systems include productive efficiency, equality versus equity, the potential of legal liability, prescribing to a cultural deficit ideology, and the notion of strict surveillance.

The Discipline Gatekeeper: Assistant Principals’ Experiences With Managing School Discipline in Urban Middle Schools

“…N. Smith & Hains, 2012). The incorporation of these elements is highly dependent on school administrators having time within the day to individualize disciplinary practices toward African American students (Shabazian, 2016). APs who apply discipline toward African American students without taking the time to incorporate multiple, pre-incident, contextual factors, underscore the nuanced ways in which educators promote and sustain color blindness, and reject counternarratives just by conducting their daily activities (Carter et al, 2017; Gooden & O’Doherty, 2015).…”

The Collateral Damage of In-School Suspensions: A Counterfactual Analysis of High-Suspension Schools, Math Achievement and College Attendance

“…To this end, previous research on school discipline has implicitly used social control to trace the historical transformation of overt racism and the legacy of slavery into modern school practices (see Duncan, 2000;Wacquant, 2001). More recently, research on school discipline has explicitly used social control to (a) describe criminogenic environments (see Kupchik, 2010), (b) demonstrate how students perceive these environments (Portillos et al, 2012) and how these perceptions negatively impact student outcomes (Peguero et al, 2015), (c) detail the criminalization of student behavior (see Basile et al, 2019) and how this criminalization increases student discipline gaps (see Shabazian, 2020), and (d) theorize how discipline may have "collateral consequences" for non-disciplined students (see Perry & Morris, 2014). Similar to Perry and Morris (2014), we use social control to theorize how overly punitive environments may have collateral damages for all students.…”

Looking Back, Moving Forward: Technical, Normative, and Political Dimensions of School Discipline

“…Research on the technical aspects of discipline (strategies like suspension, expulsion, or their alternatives) comprise much of the research base. Other studies highlight educators’ normative perspectives about discipline, and the association of these beliefs with discipline outcomes (Christle, Nelson, & Jolivette, 2004; Evans, 2007; Losen & Gillespie, 2000; Shabazian, 2016; Skiba, Chung, et al, 2014). Finally, scholars have explored the relationship between perceived racial threat and the use of punitive discipline strategies, highlighting the political nature of discipline reform (Edwards, 2016; Evans, 2007; Hughes, Warren, Stewart, Tomaskovic-Devey, & Mears, 2017; Welch & Payne, 2010).…”