Beginning in the fall of 2017, Maryland severely restricted the use of out-of-school suspensions in grades PK-2. The policy presented a valuable opportunity to examine the effects of state-level discipline policies. This study researched the effects of the suspension ban on student discipline outcomes (e.g., number and frequency of different…

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…

It is argued that corporal punishment produces bad outcomes in both the short run and the long run. Instead of making students more attentive or motivated, corporal punishment leads to more delinquent behavior. In most developed countries, corporal punishment is banned in schools. However, in many developing countries, even if corporal punishment…

While research has called attention to the phenomena of a link between school and prison for many Black students in the United States, there has been much less examination of the direct impact to Black families, in this case Black mothers. This paper seeks to center the stories of Black mothers to provide a specific type of sense making around…

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…

Developmentally and culturally appropriate program behavior policies that are clearly communicated and implemented successfully can prevent exclusion and positively impact teachers, children, and families. However, it is unclear if policies are high quality or designed to equitably support positive behavior. We examined behavior policies from 41…

Because bullying behaviors occur across the many spaces that exist within schools (e.g., classrooms, gyms, bathrooms, playgrounds, cafeterias), and because students often move between classrooms and teachers, it is critical for schools to take a schoolwide approach to preventing bullying and harassment (Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Bradshaw, 2015).…

The practice of temporarily removing students from school as a form of punishment (i.e., suspensions) remains quite common. This study uses longitudinal data from a large, urban school district in California to assess whether the use of suspensions improves school safety in the following school year. Additional analyses by student race and…

The way teachers discipline students in school has wide-ranging effects on students' learning, behavior, and perceptions of themselves. Despite research indicating that punitive discipline negatively affects students, teachers persist in their use of harsh discipline methods. While there is evidence that racial biases may shape teachers'…

The disproportionate disciplinary actions imposed on African American male students in the public school system deny them educational instruction time and increased the risk for juvenile delinquency. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive descriptive study was to examine the implementation of discipline practice employed with African…

Although in-school suspensions may be viewed as less severe than out-of-school suspensions, both discipline consequences limit students' access to learning opportunities and are negatively associated with a range of educational outcomes. Moreover, if sending students out of class perpetuates the same racial disparities as sending them home, this…

There are racial and ethnic disparities in use of out-of-school suspensions within the United States. The present study assessed for the presence of disproportionate suspension by race, special education status, and receipt of free or reduced cost meals using two separate metrics (risk ratios and raw differential representation); evaluated…

Racial disparities in school discipline remain central to policy discussions around school discipline. Recent research points to the importance of how discipline disparities are measured for the conclusions that are drawn about the extent of the problem or whether such disparities are improving. This brief uses data from Maryland to demonstrate…

This case explores the complex ways unaccompanied Latinx Indigenous minors experience the intersection of immigration policies and U.S. school policies and practices and the implications this has for school leaders. As such, we present three critical incidents that center three students' experience with and through U.S. schooling--from enrollment,…

Reflecting an overall policy shift in Oregon and nationwide, Oregon passed laws in 2013 and 2015 aimed at changing the way school discipline is applied in grades K-12. The 2013 legislation directed districts to replace zero-tolerance policies with an emphasis on preventing and reducing unnecessary student suspensions and expulsions. Suspensions…