Abstract
Youth from nondominant racial communities have been disproportionately subjected to exclusionary disciplinary actions for less serious and more subjective incidents in the United States. This racial disproportionality in school discipline is associated with negative academic and social outcomes, further exacerbating the historical marginalization of nondominant communities. Grounded in cultural-historical activity theory and informed by an interdisciplinary literature, this article presents a formative intervention methodology, Learning Lab, as means of designing culturally responsive behavioral support systems from the ground-up with—not for—local stakeholders. Implications for practice and research are discussed.
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Acknowledgments
I acknowledge the support of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction under Disproportionality Demonstration Grant #84.027. Funding agency endorsement of the ideas presented in this article should not be inferred. I thank the Learning Lab members at Ponderosa High School for their innovative and critical work to improve and democratize their school system. I also thank the CRPBIS research team members, Elizabeth Schrader, Kemal Afacan, Halil Cakir, Rebekka Olsen, Dian Mawene, and Larry Love, for their hard work and contributions to the Ponderosa Learning Lab and the CRPBIS study in general. I appreciate the continuous support and critical partnership of Courtney Jenkins, Julia Hartwig, and John Harper and other educational leaders in DPI and Madison Metropolitan School District. Last but not least, I appreciate the support of Alfredo Artiles, George Sugai, and Gloria Ladson-Billings in the CRPBIS Project.
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Bal, A. From Intervention to Innovation: A Cultural-Historical Approach to the Racialization of School Discipline. Interchange 47, 409–427 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-016-9280-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-016-9280-z