Citation

Larson KE, Bottiani JH, Pas ET, Kush JM, Bradshaw CP. J. Sch. Psychol. 2019; 77: 152-167.

Affiliation

University of Virginia, Curry School of Education and Human Development, USA; Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Society for the Study of School Psychology, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsp.2019.09.003

PMID

31837724

Abstract

Excessive use of exclusionary school discipline with Black students is a persistent, systemic problem in U.S. schools with potential to affect students' perceptions of their school. For example, students may notice racial differences in out-of-school suspensions, which may relate to how academically engaged they feel and the extent to which they view the school's disciplinary environment as positive. The current study investigated school-level racial discipline disproportionality and observed classroom-level, positive behavior supports in relation to student perceptions of academic engagement and school disciplinary environment by fitting a series of three-level models, which included data on students (N = 17,115), classrooms (J = 310), and schools (K = 53). Two metrics of discipline disproportionality were used (i.e., the risk ratio and the risk difference) and moderation was examined through cross-level interactions.

RESULTS indicated that, regardless of race, students perceived the disciplinary environment as significantly less favorable in schools with greater racial discipline disproportionality when measured by the risk ratio, but not when measured by the risk difference. Using different disproportionality metrics in education research has important implications for policies and practices to identify and address the issue. How discipline disparities relate to the way that students perceive the disciplinary environment will likely inform intervention efforts for school psychologists.

Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Academic engagement; Disciplinary environment; Multilevel modeling; Positive behavior support; Racial discipline disproportionality; School climate