2017/03/01 by Constance A. Lindsay, Cassandra M. D. Hart · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Education Discipline and Inequality #School Choice and Performance
paper · doi:10.3102/0162373717693109
openalex publication_date 2017/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Using student-level administrative data from North Carolina, we explore whether exposure to same-race teachers affects the rate at which Black students receive exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, in-school suspensions, and expulsion. We find consistent evidence that exposure to same-race teachers is associated with reduced rates of exclusionary discipline for Black students. This relationship holds for elementary, middle, and high school grade ranges for male and female students, and for students who do and do not use free and reduced-price lunch. Although we find reductions in referrals for a number of different types of offenses, we find particularly consistent evidence that exposure to same-race teachers lowers office referrals for willful defiance across all grade levels, suggesting that teacher discretion plays a role in driving our results.