Examining Teacher Factors Related to Disproportionate Discipline for Soft Offenses: An Analysis Examining Teacher Perceptions

ABSTRACT

Teachers' culturally responsive practices and wellbeing have been theorized as relevant to racial disparities in exclusionary discipline, but empirical research examining these associations is limited. Using state administrative data and teacher survey reports from 23 middle schools and 574 teachers, this study examined whether school‐level disproportionality in out‐of‐school suspensions, particularly for soft offenses, was associated with teacher‐reported use of culturally responsive practices (CRPs), multicultural teaching self‐efficacy, stress, and burnout. Specifically, we used linear regression models with cluster‐robust standard errors to account for clustering to examine associations between school‐level disproportionality metrics and teacher‐reported outcomes. Results indicated that school‐level disproportionality was not associated with teachers' self‐reported use of CRPs. However, greater disproportionality, particularly for all offenses, was associated with lower multicultural teaching self‐efficacy and higher teacher stress; associations with burnout were weaker and less consistent. Counter to expectations, the associations were not stronger for soft offenses than for all offenses. Findings have the potential to inform future research and practice by clarifying which teacher‐reported constructs are patterned with racially disproportionate disciplinary contexts. This work may also illustrate the importance of measuring CRPs using other methods beyond educator self‐report on and of using more proximal discipline data, such as office referrals and referral‐to‐suspension decisions.