MODELING THE EFFECTS OF RACIAL THREAT ON PUNITIVE AND RESTORATIVE SCHOOL DISCIPLINE PRACTICES*

It is clear that schools are mirroring the criminal justice system by becoming harsher toward student misbehavior despite decreases in delinquency. Moreover, Black students consistently are disciplined more frequently and more severely than others for the same behaviors, much in the same way that Black criminals are subjected to harsher criminal punishments than other offenders. Research has found that the racial composition of schools is partially responsible for harsher school discipline just as the racial composition of areas has been associated with punitive criminal justice measures. Yet, no research has explored comprehensively the dynamics involved in how racial threat and other factors influence discipline policies that ultimately punish Black students disproportionately. In this study (N = 294 public schools), structural equation models assess how school racial composition affects school disciplinary policies in light of other influences on discipline and gauge how other possible predictors of school disciplinary policies relate to racial composition of schools, to various school disciplinary policies, and to one another. Findings indicate that schools responding to student misbehavior with one type of discipline tend to use other types of responses as well and that many factors predict the type of disciplinary response used by schools. However, disadvantaged, urban schools with a greater Black, poor, and Hispanic student population are more likely to respond to misbehavior in a punitive manner and less likely to respond in a restorative manner.     

Race,prejudice and attitudes toward redistribution: A comparative experimental approach

Past work suggests that support for welfare in the United States is heavily influenced by citizens' racial attitudes. Indeed, the idea that many Americans think of welfare recipients as poor Blacks (and especially as poor Black women) has been a common explanation for Americans’ lukewarm support for redistribution. This article draws on a new online survey experiment conducted with national samples in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, designed to extend research on how racialised portrayals of policy beneficiaries affect attitudes toward redistribution. A series of innovative survey vignettes has been designed that experimentally manipulate the ethno‐racial background of beneficiaries for various redistributive programmes. The findings provide, for the first time, cross‐national, cross‐domain and cross‐ethno‐racial extensions of the American literature on the impact of racial cues on support for redistributive policy. The results also demonstrate that race clearly matters for policy support, although its impact varies by context and by the racial group under consideration.