Restorative justice is an increasingly common discipline policy, as schools grapple with historic inequities in traditional exclusionary discipline. This mixed-methods study examines the implementation of restorative justice in 28 intentionally diverse charter schools in five jurisdictions in the U.S. Qualitative findings suggest a range of…

School exclusion reduction in Scotland--and especially in the city of Glasgow--has received substantial media and policy attention in recent years. In London in particular, multiple governmental agencies have explicitly expressed a desire to replicate the exclusion reduction which recently occurred in Glasgow, often citing the connection between…

How should universities handle cases of student misconduct? While universities cannot make decisions about whether a criminal offence has been committed, they can judge whether there has been a breach of their own code of conduct. This guidance, building on a UUK and Pinsent Mason publication from 2016, sets out principles and practical case…

In the majority of South African schools, maintaining discipline remains a challenge -- a situation which commands the attention of departmental officials both locally and internationally. When negative disciplinary approaches were prohibited in schools in this country, positive disciplinary measures were recommended in the form of a code of…

Corporal punishment (CP), or inflicting pain through spanking, hitting, and paddling, is still legally sanctioned and exercised in U.S. schools. We use critical discourse analysis and draw on state policy documents and data from the Office of Civil Rights to investigate which discourses pervade policy texts and how CP is practiced. These sources…

Rangel, Beulah S. J., At Risk, Punished, and Pushed out of School: Leadership Practices Utilized by School Administrators for Discipline Consequences in South Texas Schools. Doctor of Education (Ed. D.), May 2024The purpose of this study was to examine leadership practices utilized by school administrators for discretionary discipline consequences…

Over the past decade, numerous reports have indicated pervasively high rates of early childhood expulsion nationwide. In response, state and federal policymakers have enacted various measures to ban or reduce reliance on such exclusionary discipline. Prior evaluations of the implementation of one such legislative ban on expulsion enacted in…

Persistent racial disparities in students' disciplinary outcomes have been one of the most concerning educational policy and equity topics for decades. Despite the hypervisibility of Black students in school discipline conversations, research and practice evade a focus on anti-Black racism. In this essay, we draw from Black Critical Theory…

Many urban school districts are adopting restorative practices (RP) as a means to reduce suspensions and resolve racial discipline gaps. In this study, we use a sensemaking framework to examine educators' beliefs about discipline and their perceptions of RP and its implementation. We draw on survey responses (N = 363) administered after educators…

Believe-Empathy-Wellness-Empower-Listen-Learn (BE WELL) program offers a promising replacement for traditional punitive suspensions in California schools. Amidst the over 6 million suspensions reported in 2022, this on-campus program fosters self-reflection, academic growth, and life skills within a compassionate and accepting learning…

The purpose of this study was to design and implement a Restorative Practice approach to discipline. The challenges of building a positive teacher-student relationship while navigating the demands of zero-tolerance policies have been well documented. Teachers need support and structure to develop and maintain positive teacher-student…

Education is widely seen as a force for good, associated with hope and optimism about better individual and social futures. By contrast, and controversially, this paper argues that education and education policy in recent decades has been far from benign, as evidenced in the growing alienation of significant numbers of teachers and students and,…

This quantitative research study will explore how educators perceive culturally responsive School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports' (SWPBIS) impact on racial disparities in school discipline. At the time of this study, the literature on the effectiveness of culturally responsive SWPBIS in terms of racial disparity was mixed.…

There are currently 23 states in the United States that have laws considered as some form of school disturbance law. These do not include codes or laws specifying school discipline consequences such as suspension or expulsion. They vary widely in how broadly they can be applied and how broadly they define behaviors. Students are often not aware…

This study investigates the correlation between student expulsions due to the zero-tolerance discipline policy and dropout rates in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS), focusing on students in grades 9-12 from 2015 to 2022. Additionally, it examines potential disparities in dropout rates between the northern and southern regions of…