Classroom management and discipline is a major concern of administrators, teachers, and parents at all levels of formal education. In response to this concern, a variety of classroom management systems have been presented as remedies to this dilemma. There is, in light of the attention afforded classroom management, a need for a model by which the discipline systems can be examined. A structured examination of these programs, via the "Inquiry Cube", will be of assistance in the evaluation of the discipline programs of William Glasser, James Dobson, and Lee Canter. In this study, the philosophic basis for theoretical models was outlined, criteria of adequacy for "good" theoretical formats discussed, the models used to examine and evaluate the selected classroom management systems were presented, and a discipline checklist for teachers was proposed. The major thesis of this study was that values and goals act as legislative agents in the determination of the organization or structure of discipline systems and programs. The structures of discipline programs are then constructed according to a definite set of rules which, in turn, determine and signify the relevent date of the discipline systems. In examining the programs it was demonstrated that the systems suffer the weakness of the reductionist fallacy. Care must also be taken to insure student and support staff involvement at a meaningful level. Another concern is the possibility that any given classroom management program may become mechanistic and imposingly uniform, thus eliminating many student options. Classroom management and discipline, being comprised of its own universe of discourse and categories, is educational subject matter and, as such, is educative. The discipline checklist concluding this work is comprised of notions included in many of the programs studied and, aside from some structural additions, is not entirely unique. Yet, if this study is helpful at all, it should serve the function of bringing attention to theoretical models as vehicles which can be used to examine and evaluate classroom management systems. The discipline programs of the future will only be as good as the tools used to determine and inform their adequacy.

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Graduation date: 1993

Research has shown that African American males are performing poorly in American public schools and are disciplined at a higher rate than other ethnic and gender groups. Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) has a long history of success with individual students and more recently in school-wide settings. School-wide PBIS offers schools the ability to tailor their rules, rewards, and consequences to the specific needs and culture of a school. This descriptive and quantitative study sought to determine if implementation with fidelity of SWPBIS positively correlated to reduced disciplinary measures. The object of this study was to determine in what ways disciplinary rates for African American males differ in American public schools that identify as using SWPBIS with fidelity as compared to American public schools that do not implement SWPBIS with fidelity. Disciplinary rates examined included ISS, OSS single incident, and OSS multiple incidents. Descriptive findings indicated that schools that implement SWPBIS show a lower rate of ISS and OSS incidents for African American males. The quantitative findings did not yield a statistically significance between schools with fidelity of implementation of SWPBIS and schools without fidelity of implementation of SWPBIS.