School punishment and interpersonal exclusion: Rejection,withdrawal, and separation from friends

School suspension is a common form of punishment in the United States that is disproportionately concentrated among racial minority and disadvantaged youth. In labeling theories, the implication is that such stigmatized sanctions may lead to interpersonal exclusion from normative others and to greater involvement with antisocial peers. I test this implication in the context of rural schools by 1) examining the association between suspension and discontinuity in same-grade friendship ties, focusing on three mechanisms implied in labeling theories: rejection, withdrawal, and physical separation; 2) testing the association between suspension and increased involvement with antisocial peers; and (3) assessing whether these associations are stronger in smaller schools. Consistent with labeling theories, I find suspension associated with greater discontinuity in friendship ties, based on changes in the respondents’ friendship preferences and self-reports of their peers. My findings are also consistent with changes in perceptual measures of exclusion. Additionally, I find suspension associated with greater involvement with substance-using peers. Some but not all of these associations are stronger in smaller rural schools. Given the disproportionate distribution of suspension, my findings indicate that an excessive reliance on this exclusionary form of punishment may foster inequality among these youth.     

A New Measure of Policy Spending Priorities in the American States

In this paper, we develop and test a general measure of policyexpenditures in the American states. Our approach is to constructa spatial proximity model of yearly state program spending.The empirical analysis reveals that state spending patternsvary along a clear and readily-interpretable unidimensionalcontinuum which differentiates policies that provide particularizedbenefits to needy constituencies from policies that providebroader collective goods. Based upon standard evaluative criteria,the variable created from our model possesses some highly desirablecharacteristics. And, it compares favorably to other measuresof state policy activity. The net result is a yearly score foreach state which summarizes that state's spending across allmajor program areas. More generally, we believe that our variablecan be interpreted as valid and reliable representational measurementof state policy priorities. In this capacity, it could occupyan important position within models of state politics. Author's note: Many colleagues provided useful feedback on earlierversions of this paper. We particularly appreciate the excellentcomments and suggestions from Robert Erikson, Richard Fording,Kim Hill, David Lowery, Andrea McAtee, and George Rabinowitz.We would also like to thank Daniel Lewis and William Myers fortheir assistance with the data collection. The yearly statepolicy priority scores obtained from the unfolding analysis,along with the data used to create the scores, the SAS macroto carry out the unfolding procedure, and all other supplemental materialsare available on the authors’ web sites: http://polisci.msu.edu/jacobyand http://polisci.msu.edu/schneider. All these materials arealso available on the Political Analysis Web site.     

Last Thoughts on <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Last Intellectuals</Emphasis>

Over twenty years ago my book The Last Intellectuals put into circulation the phrase “public intellectual.” The term unexpectedly enjoyed great success. It encapsulated a new division between a professional or academic intellectual focused on his or her specialty and an intellectual orientated to a larger public. The former tend to disappear into the university, while they latter write for the educated public. In the twenty years since its publication, my book has been sharply challenged. Moreover the emergence of African-American and women intellectuals, and well as new developments such as Internet, have possibly undermined my thesis. Yet these phenomena amount to revisions, not refutations, of my thesis. Moreover the role of intellectuals in France and Germany suggest that the same process of academization is taking place in other advanced industrial nations. What is called for is not nostalgia or its opposite, a celebration of everything that happens, but a consideration of the real shifts that affect the lives and work of intellectuals.