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....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social psychological & personality science 2020-05, Vol.11 (4), p.492-498
Main Authors: Jarvis, Shoshana N., Okonofua, Jason A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Black people
Black students
Classrooms
Discipline
Head teachers
School principals
Students
White people
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1948-5506
1948-5514
DOI:10.1177/1948550619875150