The implementation of exclusionary school discipline practices such as suspension, expulsion or zero-tolerance behavior policies were intended to help students learn appropriate school behaviors and deter students from engaging in violence, illegal activities and other inappropriate behaviors. Unfortunately they often have the opposite effect. Exclusionary practices often exacerbate student involvement in inappropriate behaviors, leading to negative student outcomes. My research with my faculty mentor Dr. Wasburn-Moses pertains to all educators but especially those with an educational administrative background who can influence school policies. Our primary research question was to identify research-based interventions within education or related fields that were both positive for all participants and practical for the majority of public schools to implement. Our research is relevant due to the prominence of exclusionary school discipline across the American educational system leading to the coining of the term “School to Prison Pipeline” describing how exclusionary practices in schools can push a student towards activities that lead to jail time.
This research was conducted over the summer and fall of 2019 and consisted of searches through various library databases, compiling key discoveries into a categorized and annotated bibliography, constructing an outline of a manuscript for publication and submitting the finished manuscript to a prominent journal for educational administrators. During my research I found four promising interventions, each of which offered a practical, positive and research-based approach to discipline : restorative practices, check-in/check-out, mindfulness-based interventions and cognitive interventions. These findings allowed me to create a practitioner friendly manuscript and led to the discovery of an intervention tool, the Muse that has greatly influenced my future research path. This project and the research that has come through it has helped me understand the process of completing research and will assist me in going to graduate school for school psychology come 2021.
Author: Jack Komer
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Leah Wasburn-Moses, Department of Educational Psychology
You must be logged in to post a comment.