Understanding the discipline gap through a cultural lens: implications for the education of African American students

Culturally Relevant Physical Education in Urban Schools

“…Teachers must have rich, sophisticated knowledge of their students and community dynamics, to understand particulars of students' reality. Many researchers have identified the importance of knowing students in profound ways (Barrett & Noguera, 2008;Graybill, 1997;Lenski et al, 2005;Monroe, 2005b) and challenged teachers to know students as cultural beings (Irvine, 2003;Monroe, 2005a), yet our study identified unique urban-community dynamics. The second step of the cultural relevance process is to understand how community dynamics influence educational processes.…”

“…Finally, Monroe (2005a) claimed that "creating a culturally responsive classroom requires expanding instructional materials to connect with students through written, oral, aural, and artistic forms… developing academic assignments and routines that employ student strengths as starting points for learning and continued growth" (p. 154). Much literature documents the shortcomings of trying to "do" cultural relevance in curricular intervetions, one-shot workshops, and surface-level adjustments (Cochran-Smith, 1995;Monroe, 2005b). Instead, cultural relevance is an ongoing process, or cycle, in which the teacher considers community dynamics, how community dynamics influence education, and implementing teaching strategies that reflect cultural knowledge.…”

Race and racial ideology in classrooms through teachers’ and students’ voices

“…Coined as the discipline gap, racial disparities are present in virtually every major school system across the United States (Monroe 2005). Fierros and Conroy (2002) reason that disproportionality may be a function of schools' inappropriate use of special education as triage in the absence of academic resources, while O' Connor and DeLuca Fernandez (2006) show that the behavior of poor and racial minority students is more negatively evaluated when compared to the reference of their White middleclass peers.…”

Using narrative inquiry to understand persistently disciplined middle school students

“…We presume that transformed hearts lead to transformed practices that better support persistently disciplined early adolescents. Educator beliefs should be addressed through pre-and in-service training to facilitate better student discipline outcomes (Monroe, 2005).…”