The (In)Visibility of Race in School Discipline Across Urban, Suburban, and Exurban Contexts

Abstract

Background/Context: Racial disparities in school discipline represent a long-standing injustice in U.S. schools. Students of color, particularly Black students, are systematically subjected to harsher school disciplinary actions compared with their peers. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the severity of the problem and the negative consequences of harsh punishment, particularly given that students who are disciplined are more likely to be forced into the complex nexus of education and incarceration. Focus of Study: In this study, we aimed to understand how different racial contexts in urban, suburban, and exurban schools shaped responses to and understandings about racial disparities in school discipline. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework that centers the visibility and invisibility of race (Artiles, 2019) throughout the disciplinary cycle, this study was guided by two research questions: (1) What are the similarities and differences in educators’ and students’ understandings of racial contexts and racial disparities in school discipline across urban, suburban, and exurban school districts? (2) How do urban, suburban, and exurban school districts’ racial contexts shape educators’ responses to racial disparities in discipline? Research Design: This research was part of a larger mixed-methods research–practice partnership that aimed to understand racial disparities in school discipline and how to address them across varying school contexts in Central Virginia. The qualitative portion of the study included individual and focus group interviews and classroom observations. The findings reported in this article focus specifically on 50 individual and focus group interviews with teachers, leaders, staff, and students. Findings: Our findings demonstrate the ways race was made visible and invisible in responses to and understandings about racial disparities in discipline. This was evident in the ways deficit perspectives were racialized and how race-evasive perspectives and ideologies dominated educators’ responses to the problem. We found these responses were mediated by the racial contexts of each school. For instance, we learned that educators at the urban middle school with a majority of Black and Latinx students were the most willing to discuss the role of race and racism in shaping racial disparities in discipline compared with educators at the suburban and exurban schools. Educators at the racially diverse suburban high school focused on socioeconomic diversity and relied on deficit cultural explanations for poverty. Contrastingly, educators at the exurban school openly discussed its racial homogeneity with its mostly White students, and their language regarding racial disparities was laced with race-evasive terms and some racist perspectives. Across suburban and exurban school contexts, many educators adopted race-evasive and deficit rationales for disproportionality in ways that failed to consider the role of the school in disciplinary outcomes. We also found that students across the three school contexts were more willing than educators to discuss the role of race and racism in explaining disparities in discipline. Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings from this study have important implications for how schools can respond more effectively to racial disparities in discipline. First, it is important that schools create policies and practices that provide clear guidelines to promote racial equity in discipline. Data should therefore be collected, shared, discussed, analyzed, and used to inform how to improve disciplinary practices and interventions at multiple intersections (e.g., by race, gender, socioeconomic status, and disability) given research that demonstrates disproportionality in discipline emerges among students of color and multiply-marginalized students. Second, schools must critically examine how their everyday beliefs about race become enacted in practice and ultimately institutionalized, thereby granting privileges to dominant groups. Third, schools can benefit from including and engaging with students as they reform disciplinary procedures to address racial disparities. Ultimately, disrupting racial inequities in discipline requires responses that include engagement with race and racism in ways that attend to both individual beliefs and school policies and practices.

The Aftermath of Disproportionality Citations: Situating Disability-Race Intersections in Historical, Spatial, and Sociocultural Contexts

“…Few studies, for instance, examine the role of professionals' beliefs and perceptions of students of color in disproportionality (Cruz et al, 2021). Even fewer studies have targeted the perspectives of stakeholders in schools at distinctive locations such as suburban settings (see Ahram et al, 2011;Skiba et al, 2006;Tefera et al, 2022). Skiba et al (2006) documented how teachers explained the causes of disproportionality and found that ''cultural gaps and misunderstandings [between teachers and students of color] may intensify behavioral challenges'' [which was a significant issue for teachers] (p. 1424) (see also Ahram et al, 2011).…”

Disrupting disparities in school discipline

“…Race-evasive discipline policies and practices do not consider the role of race and racism, while race-conscious school discipline policies or practices do. Although all schools in our study adopted written policies and practices to address discipline disparities (Siegel-Hawley et al, 2019; Tefera et al, 2022), we found they were largely race-evasive and did little to disrupt racial disparities. Leaders and educators pointed to practices they believed directly addressed disparities, including interventions such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), professional development, and data collection.…”

“…Leaders and educators pointed to practices they believed directly addressed disparities, including interventions such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), professional development, and data collection. These practices, however, were largely symbolic and race-evasive (Bowker & Star, 1999;Tefera et al, 2022), which contributed to districts' ongoing issues with discipline disparities.…”

“…We engaged in a research-practice partnership (Farrell et al, 2021) during the 2017-18 school year that included observations and interviews with 26 educators from three secondary schools with different student demographics that showed evidence of racial disproportionality in their discipline practices (Siegel-Hawley et al, 2019; Tefera et al, 2022). Oak Middle School was in a low-income urban community serving a majority Black and Latina/o/x student population.…”

Adding Color to My Tears: Toward a Theoretical Framework for Antiblackness in School Discipline

“…Studies find that educators often use colorblind, neoliberal logic to explain racial disparities in school discipline, believing Black students’ character, ability, or inherent deficiencies are the root cause of inequity—reinforcing the idea that Black students are not mistreated but deserving of harsher treatment (Gregory & Mosely, 2004; Sondel et al, 2019; Tefera et al, 2022; Welsh, 2023a). This shift in blame may result in policies and practices that locate the crisis of educational inequities within Black students and families themselves, evading responsibility for deep structural changes and instead developing solutions that wrongfully attempt to force assimilation and adaptation among Black students through punishment and exclusion.…”