School Discipline Reform and the Challenges of Changing Practice

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-6 - Improving Teaching Practice in Complex Reforms

Abstract

Over the past several decades, research on the negative impacts of exclusionary school discipline has motivated policymakers to transform state and district laws to promote alternative discipline practices. The research base on what happens inside schools once discipline reforms are passed is limited, motivating this three-year, qualitative case study of a middle school in a reform district. Through an equity-oriented reform framework, I examined what happened when a high-suspending school attempted to alter discipline practices. I specifically looked at technical changes school leaders and staff made, and the normative and political dynamics they encountered throughout their change efforts. I argue that despite making technical changes to discipline processes, deeply entrenched normative and political dynamics posed significant obstacles to meaningful change.

Author

• Kathryn Elizabeth Wiley, University of California San Diego