Do Interactions With School Resource Officers Predict Students’ Likelihood of Being Disciplined and Feelings of Safety? Mixed-Methods Evidence From Two School Districts

School resource officers (SROs) are common in schools, yet consequences of their presence are poorly understood. This study leveraged mixed-methods data from student surveys and group interviews across 25 schools to examine how the frequency of interactions and trust/comfort between students and SROs relate to disciplinary outcomes and feelings of safety. We found no evidence that, in this context, more frequent interactions or differing trust/comfort with SROs increased disciplinary consequences, perhaps because, as students report, SROs tended to not engage in formal discipline. We found that, although SROs were seen as increasing safety, interactions with SROs may have heightened students’ sense of danger, potentially mitigating any benefit to students’ overall feelings of safety. Implications for use of SROs are discussed.

The moral cosmology of cancer: Making disease meaningful

More than a threat to embodied existence, cancer threatens various dimensions of social existence, including the general sense of inhabiting an ordered and moral universe. Here, we draw on sociological theory to interrogate the ontological politics of living with (and alongside) cancer. That is, how is cancer understood, made meaningful and enacted in relation to various others. Drawing on 130 interviews with people living with cancer and those close to them, we analyse people’s attempts to make cancer make sense, as well as the disciplinary consequences of apprehending cancer in this way. We focus, in particular, on the centrality of serendipity, conviction and regret in the meaning-making of cancer, and how they interact to produce complex affective and intersubjective relations. Moreover, we unpack how these logics and affects are part of a broader moral and ethical order of cancer, which entangles people within particular sets of relations: to living, to dying, and to others. We argue that the origins of luck, the practice of conviction and the affect of regret are critical facets of the ontological construction of cancer, with important consequences for survivorship.

Are School Substance Use Policy Violation Disciplinary Consequences Associated with Student Engagement in Cannabis?

Schools are increasingly concerned about student cannabis use with the recent legalization in Canada; however, little is known about how to effectively intervene when students violate school substance use policies. The purpose of this study is to assess the disciplinary approaches present in secondary schools prior to cannabis legalization and examine associations with youth cannabis use. This study used Year 6 (2017/2018) data from the COMPASS (Cannabis use, Obesity, Mental Health, Physical Activity, Alcohol use, Smoking, Sedentary behavior) study including 66,434 students in grades 9 through 12 and the 122 secondary schools they attend in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. Student questionnaires assessed youth cannabis use and school administrator surveys assessed potential use of 14 cannabis use policy violation disciplinary consequences through a (“check all that apply”) question. Regression models tested the association between school disciplinary approaches and student cannabis use with student- (grade, sex, ethnicity, tobacco use, binge drinking) and school-level covariates (province, school area household median income). For first-offence violations of school cannabis policies, the vast majority of schools selected confiscating the product (93%), informing parents (93%), alerting police (80%), and suspending students from school (85%), among their disciplinary response options. Few schools indicated requiring students to help around the school (5%), issuing a fine (7%), or assigning additional class work (8%) as potential consequences. The mean number of total first-offence consequences selected by schools was 7.23 (SD = 2.14). Overall, 92% of schools reported always using a progressive disciplinary approach in which sanctions get stronger with subsequent violations. Students were less likely to report current cannabis use if they attended schools that indicated assigning additional class work (OR 0.57, 95% CI (0.38, 0.84)) or alerting the police (OR 0.81, 95% CI (0.67, 0.98)) among their potential first-offence consequences, or reported always using the progressive discipline approach (OR 0.77, 95% CI (0.62, 0.96)) for subsequent cannabis policy violations. In conclusion, results reveal the school disciplinary context in regard to cannabis policy violations in the year immediately preceding legalization. Various consequences for cannabis policy violations were being used by schools, yet negligible association resulted between the type of first-offence consequences included in a school’s range of disciplinary approaches and student cannabis use.

Overlooked Exclusionary Discipline: Examining Placement in Alternative Schools, Expulsions, and Referrals to Hearing in an Urban District

School discipline is a salient challenge in K–12 districts nationwide. The majority of prior studies have focused on suspensions with relatively little attention paid to other forms of exclusionary discipline. This mixed-methods study provides a descriptive analysis of overlooked disciplinary consequences, namely, assignment to alternative schools, expulsions, and referrals to hearing. The findings from the quantitative analysis indicate that possession of drugs, student and staff assault, and weapons-related incidents account for the majority of infractions leading to the most severe forms of exclusionary discipline. Black male students account for the largest proportion of students receiving the harshest exclusionary disciplinary consequences. The findings from the qualitative analysis reveal several challenges that policymakers in urban districts navigate regarding alternative schools, including (a) staffing and the development of professional capacity, (b) the length of the school day, (c) transportation, and (d) the choice between in-district versus third-party operation of alternative schools.

Nurturing Is Not Enough: A Case Study on Social Justice, Caring, and Discipline

We explore the dynamics of nurturing, caring, and enabling in a social justice school and how a problematic context of educational enabling can develop when notions of nurturing are not balanced with consistent disciplinary consequences. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight school staff, teachers, and a student at a social justice urban school. Observational data and institutional documents were also analyzed, and three main themes emerged revealing the tension between nurturing and enabling: (a) sentimentalist standards, (b) perceptions of authority as oppressive, and (c) contradictions in social justice values. We discuss implications for school policy, multicultural education, and school leadership.

Do School Discipline Policies Treat Students Fairly? Evidence From Arkansas

It is well documented that Black students are more likely to receive expulsions and suspensions than their White peers. These disparities are troubling, but researchers and policy makers need more information to fully understand the issue. We use 3 years (2010-2011 through 2012-2013) of state-wide student- and discipline incident-level data to assess whether non-White students are receiving harsher disciplinary consequences than their White peers for similar infractions and with similar behavioral history. We find that Black students received more severe (longer) punishments than their White peers for the same types of infractions, but that these disproportionalities are primarily across rather than within schools.

Disciplinary Consequence Differences in Grade 6 Students as a Function of Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Status

In this investigation, we used Texas statewide data to determine the extent to which ineq- uities were present in the assignment of school disci- plinary consequences. Specifically examined were the assignment of in-school suspension, out-of-school sus- pension, and disciplinary alternative education pro- gram placement to grade 6 Black, Hispanic, and White students by their economic status in Texas public schools. Inferential analyses yielded statistically sig- nificant differences for each disciplinary consequence within each ethnic/racial group. Students who were economically disadvantaged received statistically sig- nificantly more instances of each disciplinary conse- quence than their same ethnic/racial peers who were not economically disadvantaged. Of note was the very high numbers of grade 6 students who were as- signed these disciplinary consequences. A clear lack of equity was demonstrated in the assignment of dis- ciplinary consequences to grade 6 Black, Hispanic, and White students by their economic status. As such, school administrators and educational leaders are urged to evaluate their own discipline programs to ascertain the degree to which they have equity in the assignment of disciplinary consequences in the stu- dents they serve.