Implicit Bias in Low-Level School Discipline: A Mixed Methods Approach

• In Event: Research on School Discipline Policy: Exploring Bias, Race, and Local Context

Abstract

As seen through the lens of implicit bias, school discipline structures are examined in a mixed-methods approach to explore the relationship between race/ethnicity and rates of and reasons for lunch detention. Demographic information and data on lunch detentions were gathered during the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and 2016-2017 school years at a diverse urban middle school in the southeast. The author uses linear regressions to analyse the race/ethnic disparities in rates of punishment, and student accounts of the contexts of the lunch detentions are examined to situate the reasons for lunch detention within a discussion of the role of implicit bias in exacerbating race/ethnic disparities in rates of school discipline.

Author

• Paul Fram, University of South Carolina - Columbia