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13 - Social Justice and School Discipline

Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS)

from Part II - International Social Justice Issues That Have an Impact on Children and Young People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Jessica Swain-Bradway ,
Satish Moorthy  and
Milaney Leverson
Edited by
Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers ,
Aradhana Bela Sood  and
Mark D. Weist
Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Aradhana Bela Sood
Affiliation:
Virginia Commonwealth University
Mark D. Weist
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
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Summary

Exclusionary discipline practices, in US public schools, have a historic, disproportionate, negative impact on black and Hispanic American youth, in particular those receiving special education services. Use and overuse of exclusionary discipline limits students’ ability to access academic and social success. At its root, exclusionary discipline is a civil and human rights issue. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, social justice movements internationally and in the United States served an important means to achieve and sustain civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of individuals. This chapter provides a broad context for these civil, disability and human rights-based movements and connects to current social justice approaches in education, schoolwide positive behavioral support (SWPBIS) and the potential for SWPBIS to act as a vehicle for social justice in school discipline. Over twenty years of evidence document that SWPBIS is an empirically valid systems approach to reducing exclusionary discipline. Recent adaptations to SWPBIS align with recommendations from 2014 guidelines from the federal Department of Education to explicitly address disciplinary equity. The result has been state, district, and regional impact on disciplinary equity, and decreases in the social and academic gap between black, Hispanic, students with individualized education programs, and their white peers.

Keywords

schooldisciplineequitySWPBISstatewidedisproportionatesuspensionsexpulsions
Type
Chapter
Information
Social Justice for Children and Young People
International Perspectives
 , pp. 211 - 227
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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