Factors Associated with School Suspension and Expulsion in K-12 Public Schools: A Systematic Review

Background and Purpose: For more than four decades, educators, scholars and policymakers interested in the K-12 public educational setting have emphasized numerous concerns about the widespread the use of school suspension and expulsion (i.e., exclusionary discipline). These concerns include: disproportionate rates of exclusionary discipline by student race, ethnicity, gender, and ability status, the ineffectiveness of exclusionary discipline for reducing unwanted behavior, and the association between exclusionary discipline and negative academic, behavioral, and well-being outcomes throughout the life course. Despite these concerns, national trends indicate a sharp increase in suspensions through the early 2000s, followed by a gradual increase until 2012, at which points rates levelled off. These trends indicate no progress towards reducing the practice of exclusionary discipline. This systematic review synthesized recent research on exclusionary discipline to identify factors associated with these disciplinary practices, with a focus on predictors and correlates of exclusionary disciplinary practices.

Methods: PsycInfo, Education Full Text, ERIC, and Proquest Education were searched in consultation with a university reference librarian, resulting in 280 potentially relevant studies published in years 2014-2017 for review by three independent readers. Screening and eligibility assessment for empirical studies exploring antecedents and correlates of exclusionary discipline yielded a final sample of 37 published studies involving public school students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Results: Thirty-seven published studies described antecedents and correlates of exclusionary discipline. Significant predictors and correlates associated with exclusionary discipline were grouped into conceptual domains: individual student and family-level factors, interpersonal factors, school-level factors, district-level factors, and cultural factors. Student race, ethnicity, and gender are consistently identified as a key student-level factors associated with elevated risk of exclusionary discipline. Classroom and school climate, racial composition/segregation are also consistently named as key factors associated with higher risk for exclusionary discipline. School and district discipline policies, and the level of discretion school staff have in disciplinary decisions, also appear to be linked with elevated risk for exclusionary discipline. Studies reviewed are limited by the use of administrative data, infrequent application of theory, an overly simplistic operationalization of race and ethnicity, and overrepresentation of middle and high school student samples.

Conclusions and Implications: The present study is the first to systematically review published literature of predictors of exclusionary discipline among K-12 public school students. Students’ risk for experiencing exclusionary discipline is predicted by factors across multiple levels. Future research in this area would benefit from thoughtful application of theory, a more nuanced consideration of student race and ethnicity that better reflects an increasingly diverse student population, and greater attention to this topic in elementary and preschool settings.