The article provides an overview of the issues surrounding racial and ethnic disproportionality in school suspensions. It is useful to practitioners that seek to complicate commonly held ideas about the effectiveness of school discipline practices.
Gregory, A., Skiba, R. J., and Noguera, P. A. “The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin?” Educational Researcher, 39(1), 2010: 59-68.
Providing an essential counternarrative for white teachers in urban settings, the authors draw on historical belief systems and current events to reinforce the importance of their work and give strategies for improvement.
Moore, Eddie. 2018. The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Reinforcing the commonly held scholarly perspective that inequitable school discipline practices are not the result of poverty or higher rates or intensity of behaviors, the authors of this article review root causes of inequity and the complex changes required for remediation.
Welsh, Richard O., and Little, Shafiqua. 2018. “The School Discipline Dilemma: A Comprehensive Review of Disparities and Alternative Approaches.” Review of Educational Research 88 (5): 752-794.
Newsletter addressing legal, policy, and human aspects of disproportionate representation.
California Department of Education (2010).
The empathic-mindset intervention is an online exercise to refocus middle school teachers on understanding and valuing the perspectives of students and on sustaining positive relationships even when students misbehave. This intervention reduced suspension rates especially for Black and Hispanic students, reduced the racial disparity over the school year by 45%. Significant reductions were also observed students with disabilities and for students with one previous suspension. These reductions persisted through the next year when students interacted with different teachers, suggesting that empathic treatment with even one teacher in a critical period can improve students’ trajectories through school.
Okonofua, Jason, J. Parker Goyer, Constance Lindsay, Johnetta Haugabrook, and Gregory Walton. 2022. “A scalable empathic-mindset intervention reduces group disparities in school suspensions.” Science Advances 8, no. 12, https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.abj0691 (accessed January 30, 2023).
This CDE-approved self-assessment tool provides three checklists that address 1) district and school resource issues; 2) system policy, procedure, and practice issues at district, school, and classroom levels; and 3) environmental factors, all designed to aid in efforts to identify possible root causes of disproportionality and to help districts develop hypotheses and action plans for more detailed explorations of racial disproportionality.
Losen, D.J., Annotated Checklist for Addressing Racial Disproportionality in Special Education. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (2008).
By highlighting Angela Ward, Supervisor of Race and Equity Programs in Austin schools, the author shares with readers particular equity challenges and successes in an expanding urban district.
Blad, Evie. 2019. 2019 Leaders to Learn From: Angela Ward. “Confronting and Combating Bias in Schools.” Education Week February 20, 2019.
An overview of the history and scope of the problem of disproportional representation.
Martha Coutinho and Donald Oswald (2006) National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems.
Considers promising practices for ensuring that all students from racial and ethnic minorities are given every opportunity to succeed in school.
Matthew Deninger (2008) Massachusetts Department of Education.
Preeminent authors in the field of equitable education, Gregors, Skiba, and Mediratta provide practitioners with a ten-point framework to reduce race and gender disparity in school discipline.
Gregory, Anne, Skiba, Russell J., and Mediratta, Kavitha. 2017. “Eliminating Disparities in School Discipline: A Framework for Intervention.” Review of Research in Education 41: 253-278.
