Disrupting the Racial Discipline Gap: Assistant Principal Sense-Making During the Adjudication of Disciplinary Referrals

• In Event: 34.025 - The Impact of Ethics, Policy, and Equity on Decision Making and Outcomes

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to address the marginalization of voice as referred to in Dr. Amy Stuart Wells’ call for the 2019 Annual AERA Meeting. Specifically, by examining the sensemaking process of assistant principals as they adjudicate discipline referrals we are able to raise the often-invisible voices, concerns, and potential solutions of the very persons most frequently challenged with deciding on the disciplinary fate of our P-12 students, the assistant principal. This study also speaks directly to Division A, Section 1’s call to consider the “moral, ethical, and spiritual” complications today’s leaders face, as we investigate the ways in which social justice oriented assistant principals attempt to confront racial disciplinary disparities within their own schools.

Authors

• Bradley W. Carpenter, Baylor University

• Kevin Banks, Spring Independent School District