Discipline Disproportionality among Hispanic and American Indian Students: Expanding the Discourse in U.S. Research

Abstract

While disproportionality in discipline referrals and discipline action has been fairly well established among African American students in the United States, especially males in urban school districts, little research has looked at disproportionality among American Indian and Latino students. This paper uses a large dataset from the State of Arizona, with rich data on American Indian and Latino students, to explore if and how these students are being disproportionately referred for discipline and if and how these students are being punished more harshly for lesser violations than their peers. Results indicate that disproportionality in discipline referrals and in violation to action relationship for American Indians is on par with those of African Americans. Latino students were shown to be nearly proportional to their population.

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“…These findings are consistent with existing studies that have found AI/AN students facing disproportionate disciplinary action which contributes to the school-toprison pipeline (Wallace, Goodkind, Wallace, & Bachman, 2008). In addition, previous studies have also provided evidence that discipline referrals, suspensions, and expulsions were disproportionately meted out to AI/AN students compared to their NHW peers and did not correlate with behavioral differences (Brown & Tillio, 2013;Gastic, 2017). It was also found that single race AI/AN students reported being held back in school at higher proportions than multirace AI/ANs and NHWs (18.9%; 13.1%; 7.3%), which is confirmed by Dever, Raines, Dowdy, and Hostutler (2016) in their study on special education that showed AI/AN students being 86.4% more likely to be placed in special education when compared to their NHW peers.…”

Bullying y Género. Prevención desde la Organización Escolar

“…Numerosos estudios (Brown & Di Tillio, 2013;Losen & Martínez, 2013;Losen & Skiba, 2010;Office for Civil Rights, 2010;Skiba et al 2011) resaltan que los grupos más vulnerables (LGTBI, inmigrantes, minorías étnicas, personas con discapacidad, etc.) son a menudo víctimas de acoso escolar y resaltan la importancia de actuar desde una educación inclusiva.…”

Reducing exclusionary discipline from the classroom : a qualitative descriptive case studyLottie M. Watson

“…It has been well documented that inconsistent exclusionary discipline of African American students, especially males, is a crisis that needs immediate attention to save and transform the education system. The use of disproportionate exclusionary discipline has also been termed as the "discipline gap" (Brown, 2014) in some circles of the discourse. Townsend-Walker (2012) with support from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (2006) defines the overall school-to-prison pipeline context, the artery from which exclusionary discipline deviates, as "the negative school experiences that persistently route African American males away from school…" (p. 320).…”

“…Exclusionary discipline practices increased especially for African American students and spread into other minority student populations as well (LGBTQ, religious affiliations, social sub-cultures, American Indians, etc.) (Himmelstein & Bruckner, 2011;Brown, 2014;Healy, 2013). The sections ahead will share the intimate details on how students' and school environments are adversely affected, even for those students who do not experience exclusionary discipline.…”

“…And although this is the case, schools continue to use exclusionary discipline practices to control student behaviors to enforce compliance. In spite of all the research that demonstrates negative outcomes and consequences, school usage of exclusionary discipline has nearly tripled since the 1970s (Brown, 2014;Robers, Zhang, Truman, & Snyder, 2012). School offenses that were once handled by school administrators are now being 'handed' to police officers, and students remain in police custody and charged with law violations for school offense .…”