"The Oxford Dictionary of English" defines authoritarianism as the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom, as well as a lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others. In this paper I argue that there are growing signs of a move towards more authoritarian practices and structures…

Beginning in the early 1990s, many school districts began to implement zero-tolerance discipline policies that relied heavily on the use of suspensions. As a result, the number of students removed from the classroom and the school environment has dramatically increased over the past 30 years. To increase school safety and combat the rise of school…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which white fear governs school discipline policies and practices in Alabama. Specifically, we advance white fear as a conceptual framework through which school discipline policies implementation, interpretation, and data reporting can be understood. We focus here on the case of Alabama public…

Conservatives should be for school safety. It sounds so easy that it should go without saying. But the sad fact is that the progressive-minded education establishment has subordinated safety to "social justice." America's schools should not be governed by the whims of progressive groupthink. They should be governed by school boards that…

This braided essay weaves together the reflective journey of a school administrator traversing through a doctoral program during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic while considering her Problem of Practice in the current context of her school, local community, and global society. The ongoing challenges of a rural 3rd-5th consolidated…

To evaluate the net effects of classroom disciplinary practices, policy makers and educators must understand not only their effects on disciplined students but also their effects on non-disciplined peers. In this study, we estimate the link between peer suspensions and non-suspended students' learning trajectories in a California school district…

In the field of education, teachers are sentries for maintaining proper decorum, upholding school policies, and maintaining a social justice classroom, free of adversarial behaviors. While the premise of proper social and academic student engagement is expected, teachers are not always aware of or able to respond to inappropriate social…

This important volume examines how and why increasing numbers of students, disproportionately youth of color, are being taken from our schools and put into our prisons. Williamson and Appleman, along with a collection of scholars, teacher educators, K-12 teachers, an administrator, and an incarcerated student, offer their perspectives on how…

Many school leaders with decision-making authority over discipline have been historically traditional in their approach to misbehavior with the default consequences involving classroom removals and the wide-spread use of zero-tolerance policies (Skiba et al., 2014; Skiba, 2015). Unintended negative consequences have emerged as a result of these…

The coronavirus has profoundly disrupted American public education and substantially harmed the learning trajectories of tens of millions of students. The incoming administration will have its hands full trying to get schools reopened and students back on track. As it does so, it may feel tempted to use this crisis to consolidate federal control…

The recent increase in school shootings has brought about an urgency to renew efforts to understand and reduce them. In this article, the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health reviews what is known about school shootings, including data related to incidence and shooter profiles. In addition, we describe responses to shootings, accompanied…

This chapter addresses the over-representation of certain groups of men in campus judicial proceedings and interrogates prevailing ideological and philosophical standpoints related to gender within the area of student conduct. The chapter ends by encouraging a gender-aware restorative justice approach to student conduct practice.

This study explored current disciplinary practices by primary school teachers in Eswatini. A missed method design was employed using 48 primary teachers in the Hhohho region in the Kingdom of Eswatini. Instruments used were questionnaires and interviews. Data was collected and analyzed both quantitative and qualitatively. For analyzing data for…

Research demonstrates harmful effects of disparate discipline practices on outcomes for students of color. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR), under the Obama administration, significantly increased investigations under the mandate of Title VI. In this study, we examine OCR's investigation of Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) to establish the…

High teacher turnover rates and shortages of quality teachers plague many large, urban U.S. school districts disadvantaging their students who often already come from traditionally underserved populations and communities. Restorative Practices is a quickly growing whole school approach to community building and discipline, but little is known…