A Replicable Identity-Based Intervention Reduces the Black-White Suspension Gap at Scale

Nationally, educators suspend Black students at greater rates than any other group. This disproportionality is fueled by stereotypes casting Black students as “troublemakers”—a label students too often internalize as part of their identities. Across two independent double-blind randomized field trials involving over 2,000 seventh graders in 11 middle schools, we tested the efficacy of a brief intervention to buffer students from stereotypes and mitigate the racial suspension gap. The self-affirmation intervention helps students access positive aspects of their identities less associated with troublemaking in school. Confirmed in both trials, treatment effects cut Black-White suspension and office disciplinary referral gaps during seventh and eighth grade by approximately two thirds, with even greater impacts for Black students with prior infractions.

Understanding a Vicious Cycle: The Relationship Between Student Discipline and Student Academic Outcomes

While numerous studies have demonstrated a correlation between exclusionary discipline and negative student outcomes, this relationship is likely confounded by other factors related to the underlying misbehavior or risk of disciplinary referral. Using 10 years of student-level demographic, achievement, and disciplinary data from all K–12 public schools in Arkansas, we find that exclusionary consequences are related to worse academic outcomes (e.g., test scores and grade retention) than less exclusionary consequences, controlling for type of behavioral infraction. However, despite controlling for a robust set of covariates, sensitivity checks demonstrate that the estimated relationships between consequences and academic outcomes may still be driven by selection bias into consequence type. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.