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Interventions to Address Racial/Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline: Can Systems Reform Be Race-Neutral?

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Race and Social Problems

Abstract

More than 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education, the over-representation of African American students in suspension and expulsion remains as one of the most pressing areas of inequity in education. African American disparities in school discipline are large and consistent over time; data often fail to support typical expectations concerning the distribution of disproportionality in discipline. In particular, the evidence fails to support presumptions that disciplinary disparities are due to poverty or differential rates of behavior. Despite almost 40 years of documentation of the issue, there remain few published intervention studies specifically targeting racial and ethnic disparities in school discipline. Although the current political climate may well be more conducive to the implementation of race-neutral approaches, available data raise doubts as to whether it is possible to effectively address racial inequity without specific attention to issues of race and culture.

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  1. Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47401, USA

    Russell J. Skiba

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  1. Center on Race and Social Problems, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Ralph Bangs

  2. Center on Race and Social Problems, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Larry E. Davis

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Skiba, R.J. (2015). Interventions to Address Racial/Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline: Can Systems Reform Be Race-Neutral?. In: Bangs, R., Davis, L. (eds) Race and Social Problems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0863-9_7

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