Chapter 5: Disrupting Disproportionate Discipline Through Teacher Identity Discourse

Understanding how and why teachers discipline students does not start when they step foot in their classroom but begins at the onset of their teacher educationjourney. According to the U.S. Department of Education (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018), approximately 84% of teachers in the United States are White, middle-class, and monolingual. Research also reveals discipline disparities that particularly effect Black male students. For instance, Black male students are four times as likely to be suspended than their White male counterparts for the same behavioral offenses (Hines-Datiri, 2015). However, disproportionate discipline practices are also on the rise for Black female students (Blake et al., 2011). According to this study, Black girls are experiencing disproportionate exclusionary discipline practices and Black girls’ reason for discipline referrals differs significantly from White and Hispanic girls. Furthermore, a Yale study (Gilliam et al., 2016) examined how early educators filter student behavior through their own implicit biases that contributed to discipline disparities among White and Black preschool students. Given the outcome of these studies, it is imperative that a key component of teacher development is to disrupt disproportionate discipline practices through identity discourse.