School exclusion during adolescence, namely suspension, expulsion, and drop out, has a number of immediate and long-term consequences for youth. Among these consequences are an increased likelihood of engaging in delinquency and risk of incarceration. Recent research has coined this process the “school-to-prison pipeline,” and while substantial evidence portraying the negative effects of school exclusion exists, much of this evidence overlooks important antecedents to exclusionary school punishment. Employing a developmental life course (DLC) framework, this dissertation applies a social control model across adolescence to evaluate how youths’ bonds to school influence school misbehavior and delinquency and contribute to suspension, expulsion, and drop out. It also expands on prior research that considers the consequences of school exclusion by evaluating this experience’s effects on employment, postsecondary education, and romantic relationships as youth transition into young adulthood, and considers how these age-graded sources of social control contribute to continued offending and incarceration. Importantly, using a diverse sample of 1,216 first-time juvenile offenders, this dissertation explores how these processes differ across race/ethnicity through multi-group structural equation modeling. Findings reveal partial support for the application of a social control model to the school-to-prison pipeline. Bonds formed to mothers in early adolescence are shown to positively influence the formation of a strong bond to school. Strong school bonds, in turn, reduce the likelihood that youth engage in school misbehavior and delinquency. Bonds to school are indirectly related to school exclusion and dropout through school misbehavior and delinquency. These negative events—school exclusion and dropout—increase the likelihood that youth offend in young adulthood, with dropout also increasing the risk of incarceration. While support for prosocial bonds in young adulthood acting as turning points is limited, individuals who are employed are less likely to experience incarceration. The multigroup model indicates that these relationships do not vary across race. Examining the school-to-prison pipeline under a unified lens allows for multiple intervention points. Implications for policy are discussed at each stage of the model and include targeting youths’ relationships with parents early in adolescence, engaging youth in school to promote strong bonds and discourage school misbehavior and delinquency, and implementing strategies to reengage youth who are excluded from or drop out of school. / Criminal Justice

This paper critically evaluates school discipline reform policy and implementation by California in the Oakland Unified School District after the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights investigation. It demonstrates that policy implementation at the school level is equally as important as policy building and reform at the state-and district level. The Oakland Unified School district was subject to many reforms at the district level through change in state-wide legislation, and school board reform after the investigation concluded with several recommendations for the district. This provides a unique opportunity to study policy implementation at the school-level to understand how school environment and discretion may affect reform implementation. As research surrounding the effects of punitive school discipline continue to support alternative discipline practices, many states and school-districts have begun to implement its own reform. However, school discretion on how these policies are implemented call for researchers to focus on the school-level of policy implementation. This thesis is motivated to create an understanding in how policy implementation at the state and district level will differ across schools in the same district, focusing on school environment can influence implementation. / Master of Arts / This paper evaluates policy implementation in a California School District as a school-level. In 2012, the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights conducted an investigation in California's Oakland Unified School District on reports of the district subjugating students of minority status to harsher punitive punishment than those of their white peers. The Office for Civil Rights found evidence to support this claim and suggested many disciplines policy and practices reform to the district, which the district began to implement throughout its schools. This paper focuses on reviewing state-wide and district-wide discipline reform by comparing two high schools who experienced a difference in suspensions after reform was implemented. I offer insight into policy implementation by focusing on school environment through mission and vision statements. I perform my analysis through a comparative case study analysis of the two schools as well as content analysis of the state policy and district level policies and practices discussing school discipline. This paper emphasizes that school policy reform at the state and district level is important, however; policy implementation at the school-level ultimately creates change and is affected by school environment.

This study explored the perspectives and lived experiences of urban youth in relation to Restorative Practices at a free public charter school in Los Angeles, California. This qualitative study used a series of semi-structured interviews with four high school students. This adaptable design allowed for the nature of questions to evolve and shift in accordance with emergent themes and patterns. After a detailed inductive analysis of the data, major themes emerged related to students’ aversion to punitive discipline, their preference for conversation-based Restorative Practices, and their desire to have more agency as school community members. Moreover, participants reported that they only felt trusting of a small handful of staff members, preventing consistent conflict-resolution practices and positive relationship building. This study’s findings indicate a need for changes to be made at the school, district, state, and federal level to halt the use of traditionally racist and punitive discipline practices and replace them with Restorative Practices and social-emotional education and support. Additionally, student voice needs to be included and acknowledged as an integral piece of meaningful decision-making in school settings.

The purpose of this study is to understand how African-American males enrolled in middle school in Los Angeles County experienced and understood the application of the California educational code regarding discipline. Disproportionate numbers of African-American students are being suspended and expelled from public schools. This overreliance on exclusionary punishment has led to the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and the statistics related to suspension rates from school mirror that of the criminal justice system. This study captures the voices of students who are consistently referred to the office by classroom teachers in order to understand how they perceive and articulate their experiences with the school disciplinary process and how those experiences impact their academic and personal lives. Findings indicate that participants want to do well in school. The participants described many of the behaviors that triggered an office referral as trivial, such as being tardy to class, talking, or not doing their work. When their infractions were more serious, students stated that they acted out because the teacher had disrespected or antagonized them. More than anything, participants want teachers to listen to them and to respect them, and they want to be active participants in their learning.

Despite decades of efforts to racially integrate schools and the recent accountability movement, U.S. students’ access to equitable education remains elusive. Research demonstrates that discipline procedures disproportionately remove racial minority students from the classroom, creating a “discipline gap.” Racial disparities in discrete disciplinary infraction types (e.g., disruption, aggression) have shown nuanced patterns across groups and school levels. Moreover, the relationship between school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) – a framework for promoting positive behavior and preventing conflict – and the discipline gap is unclear. This investigation explored racial/ethnic disparities per infraction type (e.g. disruption, verbal abuse) and the relationship of SWPBIS implementation fidelity to these referrals using multilevel logistic regression analyses. Participants were 40 elementary schools receiving PBIS technical assistance and the 24,512 students served by the schools. Findings of disciplinary disparities largely were consistent with previous studies with similar methods. Compared to White peers, Black students were overrepresented in office discipline referrals (ODRs) across all infraction types while Hispanic students were underrepresented in Aggression referrals and other racial/ethnic minority students were underrepresented in Miscellaneous referrals. SWPBIS implementation fidelity demonstrated a significant negative relationship with the overall ODR rate and was significantly related to infractions for Aggression; however, no evidence was produced to support the notion that SWPBIS produces more equitable discipline practices. Implications for the research and practice of culturally responsive behavior supports are discussed.

School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) is a school disciplinary framework seen as an effective tool to replace school disciplinary practices that contribute to the school to prison pipeline (STPP). While evidence suggests that SWPBIS can help improve school discipline and lower suspension/expulsion rates, it has not been shown to consistently decrease racial disciplinary disparities. This study thematically analyzed semi-structured interviews of educational staff at one high school at the outset of SWPBIS implementation to understand their perceptions of school discipline and the potential for SWPBIS to address root causes of racial disciplinary disproportionality. Using a critical race theory analytical lens to center issues of race and racism, the findings revealed a school that is deeply structured in Whiteness. Participants described the school as “two schools in one”—one that is largely White, affluent, and high-achieving and another that is predominantly Black, economically disadvantaged, and achieving at lower levels. Educators were open to key elements of SWPBIS, such as positive discipline and school-wide consistency in disciplinary practices. And while many participants identified systemic barriers to achieving equity, they simultaneously relied on discursive strategies that upheld Whiteness. These findings suggest that SWPBIS has the potential to be an alternative to punitive school discipline, but faces multiple barriers in addressing disciplinary disproportionality. The segregated and stratified school structure raises questions about whom SWPBIS is for and who will bear the burden of implementation.

Exclusionary discipline policies (Casella, 2003; Christle, Jolivette & Nelson, 2005; Tuzzolo & Hewitt, 2007), academic failure and school dropout are some of the most salient factors in the school to prison pipeline (Christle, Jolivette & Nelson, 2005). While previous research has explored the variability in existing exclusionary discipline policies and identified numerous factors associated with expulsion or criminal justice outcomes among youth, there has been little effort to bring these individual and school level factors together into a single predictive model that is informed by existing criminological theories. In this context, the proposed study will use multiple waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to consider how school discipline policies, demographics, and competing criminological explanations affect the risk of expulsion and then future contact with the criminal justice system. Findings reveal that school-level factors such as severe disciplinary policies, school size, and school type are weak predictors of expulsion and adult arrest. Conversely, measures of social bonding, low self-control, learning, and strain theories show promise in predicting expulsion and arrest outcomes. A history of school disciplinary actions and self-reported delinquency present themselves as the strongest predictors of expulsion and subsequent arrest. Theoretical and policy implications are considered.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine compulsory schooling in the United States and its potential to provide an inconsistent avenue to employment for students from neighborhoods of differing socioeconomic status. Specifically, this study asked why do students from privileged neighborhoods typically end up in positions of ownership and management while those from impoverished urban or rural neighborhoods end up in working-class positions or involved in cycles of incarceration and poverty? This research involved the use of qualitative methods, including participant observation and interview, as well as photography, to take a look at a reputable private day school in the southwest. Data was collected over the span of eight weeks and was then analyzed and compared with preexisting data on the schooling experience of students from impoverished urban and rural neighborhoods, particularly data focused on juvenile detention centers. Results showed that compulsory schooling differs in ways that contribute to the preexisting hierarchical class structure. The research suggests that schooling can be detrimental to the future quality of life for students in impoverished neighborhoods, which questions a compulsory school system that exists within the current hierarchical class system. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education 2011

abstract: National mandates to decrease suspension numbers have prompted school districts across the country to turn to a practice known as restorative justice as an alternative to removing students through suspension or referral to law enforcement for problematic behavior. This ethnographic case study examines school-based restorative justice programs as potentially disruptive social movements in dismantling the school-to-prison-pipeline through participatory analysis of one school’s implementation of Discipline that Restores. Findings go beyond suspension numbers to discuss the promise inherent in the program’s validation of student lived experience using a disruptive framework within the greater context of the politics of care and the school-to-prison-pipeline. Findings analyze the intersection of race, power, and identity with the experience of care in defining community to illustrate some of the prominent structural impediments that continue to work to cap the program’s disruptive potential. This study argues that restorative justice, through the experience of care, has the potential to act as a disruptive force, but wrestles with the enormity of the larger structural investments required for authentic transformative and disruptive change to occur. As the restorative justice movement gains steam, on-going critical analysis against a disruptive framework becomes necessary to ensure the future success of restorative discipline in disrupting the school-to-prison-pipeline. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social Justice and Human Rights 2018

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