Racial Discrepancies in School Discipline: An Analysis

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Throughout the U.S, there’s been a great racial discrepancy in schools, especially amongst the black population. This racial imbalance was tested in a two-part experiment to see if negative stereotyping played a role in the behavior of black students in more than one social experience. These discrepancies can play a key factor in academic negligence as well as misconduct. Compared to white students, it is shown that black students have a greater chance of being punished more critically in school if they had acted out in a demeanor that was not appropriate according to the school’s policies. In order to test how race plays a role in how teachers react to the misconduct of students of different ethnicities, the two experiments were conducted. Both experiments consisted of teachers from different ethnicities as well as a black and white student. Two infringements also took place during both experiments. The goal of the first experiment was to see how teachers would react to small transgressions of classroom rules by these two types of students. The goal of the second experiment was to determine to what extent the students would be punished after their two acts of misconduct. The first experiment was carried out by having the …show more content…

Teachers were asked about how much the student should be punished for his/her actions. They also had to rate the students on if they felt his/her actions to be demonstrated in a pattern. The results from the first experiment were repeated in this experiment. Additionally, it was found that there was a remarkable pattern following the conduct disorders of the Black student, opposed to the White student. This goes to say that the teachers believed that the Black student should have more severe disciplinary actions taken towards their behavior than the White student. Teachers were also more prone to suspend the Black student after his/her transgressions in the near

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