Overrepresentation of Indigenous students in school suspension, exclusion, and enrolment cancellation in Queensland: is there a case for systemic inclusive school reform?

Well-established evidence of the ill-effects of exclusionary school discipline, its disproportionate use on students of colour, and association with the “school-to-prison pipeline” has, in the last decade, led to systemic reforms in the United States, which are successfully reducing exclusion and improving outcomes. Few studies, however, have similarly investigated overrepresentation in Australia, with little attention to systemic reform as a result. In this study, we analysed suspension, exclusion, and enrolment cancellation rates in Queensland (QLD) government schools between 2013 and 2019 and found Indigenous students were consistently overrepresented. Suspension incidents proportionate to enrolments increased for all students, but this increase was faster for Indigenous than non-Indigenous students and driven primarily by steep rises in short suspensions during primary school (Preparatory-6). Exclusions increased—again disproportionately—for Indigenous students, chiefly in secondary school (7–12). During 2019, Physical Misconduct had the highest incident rate for both groups; however, Indigenous students were most overrepresented in suspensions for Disruptive/Disengaged behaviours. Further, while Indigenous students were overrepresented in all QLD regions, one region’s Indigenous suspension rate was higher than all others despite no difference in the distribution of Indigenous/non-Indigenous enrolments across regions. The scale and nature of Indigenous overrepresentation in exclusionary discipline incidents in QLD indicate clear need for further research to secure political commitment to systemic inclusive school reform, as well as to produce high-quality evidence capable of guiding that reform.

School deferred: When bias affects school leaders

In the classroom, Black students are disciplined more frequently and more severely for the same misbehaviors as White students. Though teachers have influence over disciplinary actions, the final decisions for exclusionary discipline (i.e., suspensions and expulsions) are principals’ responsibility. We test how principals make disciplinary decisions in a preregistered experiment. Principals endorsed more severe discipline for Black students compared with White students across two time points. Further, this discipline severity was explained through Black students being more likely to be labeled a troublemaker than White students. Future efforts should focus on principals in order to mitigate the negative impacts of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Restorative for All? Racial Disproportionality and School Discipline Under Restorative Justice

A growing number of schools are adopting restorative justice (RJ) practices that de–emphasize exclusionary discipline and aim for racial equity. We examine student discipline as RJ programs matured in Meadowview Public Schools from 2008 to 2017. Our difference–in–difference estimates show that students in RJ schools experienced a profound decline in their suspension rates during the first 5 years of implementation. However, the benefits of RJ were not shared by all students, as disciplinary outcomes for Black students were largely unchanged. While the overall effects of RJ in this context are promising, racial disproportionality widened. Our results suggest that the racial equity intentions of RJ may be diluted as schools integrate RJ into their existing practices.

Conclusion

The concluding chapter documents the impact of the school-to-prison pipeline movement on reducing suspensions and challenging policing practices in schools. It then highlights the features that help explain the growth and success of the movement and its emerging intersectional nature—like centering the participation of people most impacted by injustice. It draws lessons from this study for reconceptualizing social justice movements as ones that “nationalize local struggles.” It considers the enduring challenges facing the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, including the persistence of racial disparities in exclusionary discipline, tensions between local and national organizing, and the difficulties of implementing restorative alternatives that serve to transform deep-seated racialized processes. It ends with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities to building racial and educational justice movements powerful enough to fully transform entrenched systems of racial inequity and educational injustice, particularly in an era that has witnessed the rise of white nationalism.

Context Matters for Preschool Discipline: Effects of Distance Learning and Pandemic Fears

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the context and delivery of early childhood education, yet little is known about its impact on exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspension, expulsion), which nationally representative evidence has shown disproportionately impacts Black boys. Using one experiment, we test how preschool providers respond to three hypothetical vignettes about a Black boy’s behaviors. Participants (N = 60) were randomly assigned to read vignettes set in either distance learning or in-person classroom contexts. Then, participants completed measures about discipline and COVID-19. Results indicated there was an interaction between context and the sequence of vignettes on providers’ troubled feelings and endorsements of discipline. Providers showed heightened troubled feelings and endorsements of discipline severity in the distance learning context, as compared to an in-person context, as vignettes progressed. Additionally, the more providers feared COVID-19, the more they felt troubled over the course of the vignettes across conditions. Practitioners can use this research to inform consultative interventions that mitigate discipline by directly addressing providers’ pandemic fears and classroom contexts.

The Long Arm of Early Exclusionary School Discipline? A Multi-Model Analysis

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 share of exclusionary discipline first occurs. We further evaluate the potential, long-term effects of exclusionary discipline on different high school outcomes (non-completion, GED certification, high school diploma) in statistical models that account for observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Overall, we find robust and consistent evidence that very young children are not somehow more resilient or more protected from negative, long-term effects of suspension or expulsion in early elementary school. Moreover, previous research might underestimate the effects of (early) exclusionary discipline more generally by ignoring the independent effects on GED certification.