It seems uncontentious that policy development should be informed by evidence, and that researchers should be engaged to assess available evidence. In this paper, we tell the story of a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) about school exclusion, a task intended to inform a 'root and branch' policy review. Drawing on Carol Bacchi's 'What's the…

Exclusionary discipline policies in K-12 public schools have faced severe scrutiny over the past two decades due to the injurious effects on students' lives. Elevated drop-out rates, anti-social behavior, alienation from peers and school staff, along with lagging behind academically is a sampling of the devastating outcomes students face who are…

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to examine how the perceptions and experiences of teachers relate to the suspension and expulsion of preschoolers in Catholic schools. Results indicated that teachers have a range of experiences with suspension, from children being removed from the classroom temporarily to out-of-school…

In this analysis, we consider how a potentially important triggering event in the life course--exclusionary school discipline--may affect students' high school outcomes. We extend the literature to focus on the long-term effects of exclusionary discipline that occurs in the early grades, when students are relatively young and when a significant…

This dissertation contains two studies that examine family therapy services within public schools related to behavioral or discipline concerns. Both studies stem from an ecological and family systems theoretical framework in examining relationships between the student, family, and school systems. The first study is a scoping review on family…

Expulsion and suspension (or exclusionary discipline) in early care and education (ECE) are widely recognized as harmful to children. Numerous states have developed expulsion and suspension prevention policies through legislation or administrative rules. However, there is limited research on the implementation of state policies designed to reduce…

This systematic review synthesises the existing research evidence regarding the experiences of young people reintegrated to a mainstream secondary school (MSS) through alternative provision (AP), following permanent exclusion. Eight studies, including one international study, were critically appraised and synthesised following PRISMA guidelines.…

African American and Latinx students are disproportionality impacted by punitive discipline models including suspensions, detention, and expulsions. This disproportionality removes students from the education setting creating adverse social emotional, academic, and economic outcomes. Students who are suspended and expelled are more likely to have…

In this article Matthew B. Kautz theorizes schools as unique carceral institutions with the capacities to criminalize, surveil, discipline, and punish and demonstrates how they have mobilized these unique abilities to establish social control. By tracing the development of school disciplinary policy and practice following "Brown v. Board of…

Following a high-quality early care and pre-K experience, the kindergarten-through-third-grade years set the foundation upon which future learning builds; and strengthening this continuum creates opportunities for later success. Key components of a quality experience in K-3 include school readiness and transitions, kindergarten requirements,…

Expulsion from school is the most severe form of student discipline allowed under California law. The primary facilitator of student expulsion is the school administrator. This study examined the school administrators' experiences with student expulsion, their decision-making process, and implications for bias. The study employed qualitative…

Exclusionary discipline practices (EDPs), including suspensions and expulsions, are used in public schools, from kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12). Excessive use of EDP can have a negative impact as students face delays in completion of their academic work. The problem of increasing use of EDPs at a suburban public school district located in a…

This study invokes the theory of self and identity to investigate how multiply marginalized students, namely Black boys subjected to exclusionary discipline, made sense of exclusionary discipline, as well as the ways in which it impacted their identity fashioning processes. An instrumental case study design was employed to understand the…

U.S. public school students increasingly attend schools with sworn law enforcement officers present. Yet little is known about how these school resource officers (SROs) affect school environments or student outcomes. Our study uses a fuzzy regression discontinuity (RD) design with national school-level data from 2014 to 2018 to estimate the…

Continued use of exclusionary disciplinary actions such as suspensions and expulsions in schools has led to an increase in the number of Black males entering the school-to-prison pipeline. This study examines administrator perspectives on how utilizing SEL practices influences student behavior and how utilizing SEL practices impact administrators'…