The literature linking adulthood criminality to cumulative disadvantage and early school misbehavior demonstrates that understanding the mechanisms underlying student behavior and the responses of teachers and administrators is crucial in comprehending racial/ethnic disparities in actual or perceived school misbehavior. We use data on 19,160 ninth…

Students drop out of school for a variety of reasons, yet are "pushed out" when they exhibit traits that are deemed undesirable to school officials, such as misbehavior and academic failure. While much of the previous research on pushouts views the phenomenon as a discrete occurrence often attributed to either misbehavior or academic…

Black and Latinx youth are situated in a maladaptive discriminatory context in the United States; however, prosociality may be one way that youth can promote their own positive development in the face of these experiences. We examined the longitudinal associations between discrimination and prosociality among 380 Black and Latinx early adolescents…

This research examined the risk and protective factors of responders and nonresponders to a schoolwide implementation of positive behavioral interventions and supports (SW-PBIS) within an alternative school. Students completed self-perception measures of individual, school, community, and home systems. Multivariate analysis of variance indicated a…

Previous research has suggested that school climate is an important predictor of school safety and disorder. This study builds on this line of research by examining racial and ethnic differences in the relationship between school climate and disorder in a sample of high school students. The data for this study came from a larger longitudinal study…

Given the high risk of psychopathology among recently immigrated Central American adolescents, the aim of this study was to examine several putative protective factors: parental attachment, peer attachment, and school engagement. Based on prior research with other immigrant groups, parental and peer attachment were expected to correlate with…

Black students are much more likely to be disciplined using out-of-school suspensions (OSS) compared with White students. One often-cited hypothesis, though relatively untested, is the role of misconduct and students attitudes that support deviant behavior. The differential involvement hypothesis suggests that disproportionate sanctioning may…

Solutions to the countless crises middle schools face are typically proposed by policy makers with little actual classroom experience. Meanwhile, essential insights from students on the issues they experience firsthand every day are largely ignored. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) can help, as social researchers collaborate with youth,…

Peer victimization is a pervasive problem among children and associated with numerous psychological and behavioural problems for all participants. Research is needed to understand the complex relations between factors that increase risk of victimization and its consequences. We used autoregressive cross-lagged modelling with self-report data to…

Guided by a risk and resilience framework, the current study examined the associations between Latino adolescents' ("n" = 219; "M" [subscript age] = 14.35; "SD" = 1.75) perceptions of ethnic discrimination in multiple settings (e.g., online, school) and several domains of adjustment (e.g., mental health, academic),…

This study examined different factors affecting the perceptions of barriers in academic achievement of Latino K-12 students. The study used data from 1,508 participants who identified themselves as being of Hispanic or Latino heritage in the 2004 National Survey of Latinos: Education, compiled by the Pew Hispanic Center between August 7 and…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the expectations and perceptions of respondents assigned to a Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (DAEP). The focus of the study was the experiences of adolescent Hispanic males and their parent(s)/guardian(s) upon being assigned to the DAEP. Findings from this study indicated aspects…

A plethora of research (McCadden, 1998; Monroe 2005; Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 2000) on student discipline emphasizes the inequities surrounding the distribution of disciplinary actions taken by schools/school districts in regards to behavior, particularly for African American males. This study provides an in-depth examination of disciplinary…

Nationally, educational disparities have resulted in a significant achievement gap among African American and Latino students compared to European American students. Cognitive theorists including Piaget, Bruner, and Vygotsky believe that one's environment has an effect on learning. This qualitative case study examined teacher, student, and parent…

This case study examines José, a bilingual Latino fifth-grader, and his complex and dynamic engagements in "travesuras" (mischievous behaviors). José's "travesuras" served to disassociate him from being labeled a "schoolboy." This disassociation was evident in how José: (1) renounced "school-like" work and…