This book presents four perspectives on student discipline: legal and historical, empirical, educational, and futuristic. Part I examines the legal history of student discipline in papers by J. John Harris III, Richard E. Fields, and A. Reynaldo Contreras (Chapter 1); Richard E. Fields (Chapter 2); and David G. Carter, Sr. and Cynthia L. Jackson (Chapter 3). The authors hold that corporal punishment and suspension, although approved by the courts, solve problems for teachers and administrators at the expense of those who look to schools for social and economic advancement. Part II presents empirical perspectives on discipline. Chapters 4-6 (by Christine Bennett, J. John Harris, III, and Camilla A. Heid) report results of a study of the causes of disproportionality in suspensions and expulsions of male and black students. Chapter 7 (by Heid and Contreras) presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of minority student suspension. In Chapter 8, Meryl E. Englander discusses teacher management of classroom misbehavior. Perspectives on educational policy with regard to student discipline are investigated in Part III. First, in Chapter 9 Stephen Bower argues that educational policy that equates disproportionality with social discrimination tends to blur the distinction between race and class. Then Chapter 10, by Patrick Lynch, examines the effect of educational policy on the lives and personalities of students. The last section of the book, Part IV, introduces perspectives on discipline for the future. The role of researchers is considered by Frank Brown in Chapter 11. Finally, in Chapter 12, William W. Wayson reviews the eight goals identified by Phi Delta Kappa's Commission on Discipline. Brief notes on the book's contributors follow the text. (Author/GC)