Exploring the Role of Mindfulness in Reducing Discipline Disparities by Student Race and Disability Status

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Culturally Relevant and Disability Status–Relevant Schooling (Table 32)

Abstract

Despite decades of research and reform efforts, Black students perpetually experience the highest rates of exclusionary punishment, three times more likely to be suspended than their White peers (Losen, 2018). Disability diagnoses exacerbate these disparities. Across all student groups, Black male students diagnosed with Emotional/Behavioral Disability (EBD) at the secondary level experience the highest rates of exclusionary punishment, four times more likely to be suspended and on average losing 78 more days of instruction than their White peers, a disparity that has widened in recent years (Losen, 2018). The present study focused on addressing this disparity by testing whether a novel mindfulness intervention may shift the impacts of educator bias on their use of punitive discipline.

Author

• Lindsay Romano, New York University