The increased publicity of mass shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic have fueled American demand for firearm purchases. Firearm violence has largely been blamed on people with mental illnesses instead of firearm accessibility, despite the lack of population-level evidence associating mental illness with firearm violence perpetration. We support…

Existing studies evaluate zero tolerance policies and the school-to-prison pipeline. Additional research identifies the role of criminal justice systems in deporting immigrants. Our work bridges these two literatures by discussing how immigrant students navigate the criminal justice system within schools. Using interviews with immigrant students,…

The recent increase in school shootings has brought about an urgency to renew efforts to understand and reduce them. In this article, the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health reviews what is known about school shootings, including data related to incidence and shooter profiles. In addition, we describe responses to shootings, accompanied…

This case study follows an early-career teacher from an undergraduate educator preparation program into her first teaching position in an urban high-stakes charter school organization. At the beginning, the cognitive dissonance between her emergent educational philosophy and the extreme features of the charter school environment, such as the…

Positive school climates foster an optimal learning environment in which students feel safe and supported, and are in a greater position to thrive in terms of academic performance, better relationships with peers and staff, and overall social-emotional well-being. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) students often have to…

Schools across the United States exercise an exclusionary practice that involves the removal of a student from the academic setting, as a consequence for minor to severe infractions to the code of conduct. Research on exclusionary practices has shown that students who are frequently suspended are more susceptible to developing negative perceptions…

Background/Context: Embedded in "common sense" and state-mandated reforms to close "the achievement gap," the urban school, especially those sites with a no-excuses orientation to learning, can produce and reproduce the carceral state in students' lives. The seemingly innocuous policies and processes limit access to educational…

Discipline referrals and suspensions are used as a last resort to address inappropriate student behavior in schools. The problem investigated in this study was the inconsistent trend in the number of discipline referrals and suspensions during implementation of three different discipline policies (zero tolerance, progressive discipline, and…

There is a wide consensus that violence in schools is something so morally wrong that it must not be tolerated. Therefore, the intolerance shown by a teacher towards students' violent behaviour in school could be understood as a virtue and his moral obligation and legal duty. On the other hand, extreme toleration towards an evil such as violence…

Educational innovations such as 'no-excuses' charter schools have emerged as a discipline-focused approach to schooling as they are predicated on communicating high-expectations and personal responsibility. As 'no-excuses' charters are replicated across the United States as part of a neoliberal education reform policy, there continues to be…

The use of exclusionary discipline practices in schools has been well documented since the 1970s with the passing of the Safe Schools Act and implementation of zero-tolerance policies. Despite research indicating the ineffectiveness of exclusionary practices, students continue to receive suspensions and expulsions at alarming rates. Additional…

The Zero-Tolerance Act of 1994 introduced a public education policy, which has allowed educators, administrators, and law enforcement officials to implement school rules, which are initiated with no limitations. Unfortunately, African American males represent the student population, which is most often affected by this phenomenon. The use of…

Suspension and expulsion (exclusionary discipline) continue to be common forms of punishment in American schools (Hoffman, 2014). Exclusionary discipline often occurs as a result of "zero-tolerance" policies. School districts enacted zero-tolerance policies in the 1990s to address school shootings and fears about a perceived escalation…

Zero tolerance policies were designed to create safety by implementing automatic exclusion (e.g., suspensions, expulsions) for misbehavior in response to rising school violence in the United States. However, evidence over the past four decades shows that these policies fail to increase objective and subjective safety, and instead foster poor…

There is growing concern about zero tolerance disciplinary practices in schools throughout the US. High suspension rates, specifically amongst African American and Latinx students are strongly correlated with negative student outcomes, and for some students may create an entry point into the school-to-prison pipeline. Furthermore, discipline data…