The Cumulative Impacts of Exclusionary Discipline

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 20: School and Classroom Dynamics: Trust, Discipline, and the Pathways to Educational Flourishing

Abstract

Scholars of education have long documented disparities and consequences in the use of exclusionary discipline (Gregory, Skiba, and Mediratta 2017). Prior research suggests that experiences with exclusionary discipline are associated with worse academic outcomes, as measured by test scores and grade retention (Anderson, Ritter, and Zamarro 2019). In addition to academic outcomes, a breadth of work finds that students who experience exclusionary discipline are more likely to have contact with various elements of the criminal justice system including arrest and incarceration (Bacher-Hicks, Billings, and Deming 2019; Mittleman 2018; Mowen and Brent 2016). To date, few datasets allow researchers to examine students entire discipline history as reported by schools. Given our understanding the cumulative nature inequality in illuminating disadvantage, the timing and frequency of exclusionary discipline may complicate these consequences(DiPrete and Eirich 2006; Ferraro and Kelley-Moore 2003; Roscigno 1998). This analysis aims to examine students discipline records (suspensions and expulsions) from grades 1st-12th including the frequency, timing and length of consequence and their associations with students’ eighth grade achievement, likelihood of dropout and postsecondary plans.

Author

• Sofia Duenas, University of Notre Dame