Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Study Purpose. It is well established in relevant research that school suspension has detrimental impacts on numerous developmental outcomes of school-aged children. The negative influences include dropping out of school, exacerbated behavior problems, and impaired social relationships. Even more disturbing is that racial-ethnic minority students are more vulnerable than White students to school suspension and, therefore, its harmful impacts. This study was designed to identify compensatory and protective factors for school misconduct and school suspension, with particular focus on racial-ethnic minority students. Specifically, the current study aims to answer three research questions: (a) What is the likelihood of racial-ethnic minority students getting school suspension compared to White students?; (b) what are the compensatory and protective factors for school misconduct, which is the primary reason for school suspension?; and (c) what are the compensatory and protective factors for school suspension after controlling for school misconduct? Guided by the work of Garmezy et al. (1984) and Gest et al. (1993), a compensatory factor is defined as a factor that is inversely associated with an undesirable outcome (either school misconduct or school suspension in this study) while a protective factor is defined as a factor that mitigates the effects of racial-ethnic minority status (the key risk factor in the current study) on the undesirable outcome. Method. The data for this study were drawn from Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS2002). The study subjects are 8,716 high school sophomores composed of Whites (71%), Blacks (13%), and Hispanics (15%) in the U.S. Multilevel linear regression and multilevel logistic regression were primarily employed. To analyze ELS2002, which was hierarchically structured, HLM 6.0 was used in combination with SPSS 11.5. Results. Multilevel logistic regression revealed that Black students were approximately 3 times more likely and Hispanic students were 2 times more likely to receive a school suspension compared to White students, after adjusting for gender. Among the seven level-1 (individual, family, & peer-level) factors selected for this study, academic achievement, academic orientation, bond with teachers, parent-child shared activities, and academic orientation of close friends were identified as compensatory factors for school misconduct. At level-2 (school-level), there were two compensatory factors: fair school rules and students' awareness of school punishment. Notably, the desirable effects of academic achievement, parent involvement in school, and academic climate at school that reduced school misconduct were significantly greater for Black students than White students, indicating their protective effects for Blacks. Likewise, extracurricular activities and parent involvement in school were identified as protective factors for Hispanic students' school misconduct. With regard to school suspension, six factors were identified as compensatory factors: Three at level-1 (academic achievement, extracurricular activities, and parent involvement in school) and three at level-2 (academic climate at school, fair school rules, and parent participation in setting school policy). Yet, no single factor was identified as a protective factor for racial-ethnic minority students' school suspension. Although several factors had significant interaction effects with student race-ethnicity, their desirable effects reducing school suspension were all significantly greater for White students than racial-ethnic minority students.