Are the racial disparities in school discipline the result of or a function of systemic racism mediated by educators' dispositions?

Abstract

With over 40 years of research on the well-documented issue of racial disparities in school discipline, scholars have begun to explore a plethora of plausible causalities for this phenomenon. Recent literature on the causal agents have centered on cultural differences and/or racial prejudices held by educators. Building from this emerging logic, this dissertation specifically focused on the disposition (e.g. enduring traits, character type, mentality, and temperament) of educators and its influence, if any, on discipline-related outcomes. Additionally, this exploratory study sought to build a conceptual map for future research to explore how educators' dispositions may act as conduits between systemic racism and the historic racial disparities in discipline-related outcomes. Through an intensive, multiyear embedded case study of four middle schools with both high and low rates of racial disproportionality in school discipline and with the creation and use of the Four Domains, this dissertation explored whether discipline-related outcomes are the result of systemic racism mediated by educators' dispositions. Findings from the analysis suggested the existence of shared characteristics among the dispositions of those categorized as high and low referring. Specific to those findings, trends within low referring teachers suggested that low referring teachers maintain high and consistent expectations of student behavior, but allowed for flexibility in how their discipline response was mediated out among their students. Despite a deferred approach within discipline response, low referring teachers were consistent and did not show favoritism. On the contrary, high referring teachers were inconsistent with their responses and demonstrated biases in actions and beliefs. Accordingly, it was found that high referring teachers held racially deficit beliefs about Black students and their families. Additionally, high referring teachers were more represented by the Four Domains in comparison to lower referring teachers. As a result, findings from the Four Domains support the existence of a causal link among systemic racism, higher referring teachers, and racial disparities in school discipline. In particular, it was found that classroom teachers engage in and hold racially deficit views of Blacks and these same teachers disproportionately refer Black students for out-of-school suspension.