Racial Fairness, School Engagement, and Discipline Outcomes in African American High School Students: The Important Role of Gender

ABSTRACT

This preliminary investigation explored associations between African American students’ perceptions of racial fairness, dimensions of school engagement (behavioral, emotional, cognitive) and school discipline (office discipline referrals, out-of-school suspensions), and the role of gender as an important social context for these associations. In this cross-sectional investigation, participants were 151 (78 girls; 73 boys) high school students from the southeastern United States who reported on their perceptions of the school’s racial fairness and their engagement. Discipline outcomes were retrieved from school record data. For girls, results revealed a significant indirect relationship (small to medium effect) between perceived racial fairness and office discipline referrals through emotional engagement. For boys, a significant indirect association of perceived racial fairness on office discipline referrals (medium effect) and out-of-school suspensions (large effect) through behavioral engagement was found. Implications for our findings are discussed for the work of school psychologists.

KEYWORDS:

• racial fairness
• school engagement
• school discipline
• gender
• African American youth

ASSOCIATE EDITOR:

• Sycarah Fisher

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Association of School Psychologists Graduate Student Research Grant and the Support to Promote Advancement of Research and Creativity (SPARC) research grant awarded to the first author at the University of South Carolina. Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies acknowledged.

Notes on contributors

Charity Brown Griffin

Charity Brown Griffin is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Winston–Salem State University.

Isha W. Metzger

Isha W. Metzger is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia.

Colleen A. Halliday-Boykins

Colleen A. Halliday-Boykins is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Claudia A. Salazar

Claudia A. Salazar is an undergraduate student at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina.