African-American Students and the Discipline Gap in High Schools
Title: African-American Students and the Discipline Gap in High Schools
Author: Anne Gregory, UC Berkeley
Date: June 4, 2007
Achievement problems and discipline problems are interconnected. Although achievement gaps are well-documented, the gaps in referrals for discipline problems between students of different racial and ethnic groups are often ignored. In districts across California and the nation, African- American adolescents have been over-represented in school discipline sanctions that often remove them from classrooms and schools for long periods of time (Advancement Project and Civil Rights Project, 2000; Gordon, Della Piana, & Keleher, 2000). Removal from classes and school hampers students’ ability to benefit from opportunities to learn and to graduate. Suspended students are more likely to become truant (Newcomb et al., 2002) and drop out of school (Wehlage and Rutter, 1986). Efforts to increase the pipeline of under-represented students into higher education need to identify approaches that will keep students in school and narrow the discipline gap. To provide directions for such efforts, research on the discipline gap was conducted at a large, urban high school in California.
