Active Accountability for Disproportionate Discipline and Disability Classification Highlights Student Agency, Contextualization, and Racialization

• In Event: Discipline, Disparities, and Community Engagement

Abstract

This critical qualitative study on disproportionate suspension and disability classification aimed to shift focus to the active voice in research, policy, and activism to excavate institutional racism and ableism that produce those injustices. Existing policy and research on accountability overwhelmingly use a disparate impact discourse written in the passive voice. Seeking evidence for a new paradigm focused on the policies, practices, and actors that actively produce disproportionality, we interviewed leaders, researchers, practitioners, and activists engaged with these concerns. We identified three themes to guide an active voice paradigm shift in accountability: 1) centering student agency, 2) foregrounding an ecological approach to understanding student behavior and cognition, and 2) exposing the implicit racialization of ostensibly race-neutral policy and practice.

Authors

• Josh Bornstein, Fairleigh Dickinson University

• Hilary Lustick, University of Massachusetts - Lowell

• Lauren Shallish, Rutgers University - Newark

• LaChan V Hannon, Rutgers University - Newark

• Nathern S. Okilwa, The University of Texas - San Antonio