Student and school factors associated with school suspension: A multilevel analysis of students in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, United States

Highlights

• Both student level and school level factors were related to school suspension.

• Student factors were student behavior, rebelliousness, and academic failure.

• School factors were school socioeconomic status and aggregate low school commitment.

• The findings were similar in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, USA.

• To reduce suspension rates, both student and school factors need to be targeted.

Abstract

One of the common issues schools face is how best to handle challenging student behaviors such as violent behavior, antisocial behavior, bullying, school rule violations, and interrupting other students' learning. School suspension may be used to remove students engaging in challenging behaviors from the school for a period of time. However, the act of suspending students from school may worsen rather than improve their behavior. Research shows that suspensions predict a range of student outcomes, including crime, delinquency, and drug use. It is therefore crucial to understand the factors associated with the use of school suspension, particularly in sites with different policy approaches to problem behaviors. This paper draws on data from state-representative samples of 3129 Grade 7 and 9 students in Washington State, United States and Victoria, Australia sampled in 2002. Multilevel modeling examined student and school level factors associated with student-reported school suspension. Results showed that both student (being male, previous student antisocial and violent behavior, rebelliousness, academic failure) and school (socioeconomic status of the school, aggregate measures of low school commitment) level factors were associated with school suspension and that the factors related to suspension were similar in the two states. The implications of the findings for effective school behavior management policy are that, rather than focusing only on the student, both student and school level factors need to be addressed to reduce the rates of school suspension.

Introduction

Most schools find it difficult to manage effectively challenging student behaviors including violence, antisocial behavior, bullying, talking back to the teacher, disruptive classroom behavior, and truancy. One management tool available is exclusion from school through the use of suspension. Expulsion from school is also used although is much less common than suspension (Skiba and Rausch, 2006a, Skiba and Rausch, 2006b). Research on the impact of school suspension has been growing, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) where it has been documented that the rates of school suspension are increasing (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health, 2003). School suspension has been associated with negative consequences for suspended students including a higher risk of academic failure and school dropout (Arcia, 2006, Moskowitz et al., 1979), disengagement from school (Butler, Bond, Drew, Krelle, & Seal, 2005), and failure to graduate on time (Raffaele Mendez, 2003), as well as student alienation, alcohol and drug use, and future antisocial behavior (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health, 2003, Costenbader and Markson, 1998, Hemphill et al., 2012, Hemphill et al., 2006, Hemphill et al., 2009).

Countries differ in their policies and approaches to handling challenging student behavior at school; this inter-country variation provides a valuable opportunity to examine similarities and differences in the student and school factors related to school suspension. The present study used a cross-national comparative student sample from two states (Washington State, United States and Victoria, Australia) to investigate whether there were state differences in the student and school factors related to school suspension using multilevel modeling. These two states were selected because they are similar in terms of population size and student demographic characteristics (McMorris, Hemphill, Toumbourou, Catalano, & Patton, 2007) but have different policies concerning the management of challenging student behavior.

Consistent with the US policy setting, Washington State schools adopt zero tolerance approaches to managing challenging student behavior such as violence and alcohol and other drug use (Skiba & Rausch, 2006b). Such approaches seek to reduce challenging behaviors primarily through deterrence by purporting to send a clear message to students that certain behaviors will not be tolerated and will incur serious consequences. This ‘get tough’ approach to challenging student behavior may have intuitive appeal as a means of deterring offenders. At the time of the current study (2002), Victorian schools emphasized ensuring that disciplinary actions do not negatively impact on students' studies and suspension from school was not usually implemented unless other disciplinary measures had been unsuccessful (Directorate of School Education, 1994). The emphasis was on discipline rather than punishment. The code of conduct for students in Victoria set out ways of highlighting and promoting positive student behavior, as well as detailing discipline procedures (Directorate of School Education, 1994). Despite policy differences, rates of suspensions are only slightly higher in Grades 7 and 9 Washington State males (16%) than their Victorian counterparts (11%), whereas rates for girls are 6% in both states (Hemphill et al., 2006).

Conducting studies such as the current one within two states in different countries with different school policy contexts provides greater power due to increased variation in the main variables of interest. Comparative studies of these different states can help establish cross-national similarities or differences in the student and school factors associated with school suspension.

Concern about the use of school suspension stems from research that shows it can have serious unintended negative consequences for the suspended student across a range of domains including educational outcomes and problem behaviors (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health, 2003, Arcia, 2006, Butler et al., 2005, Costenbader and Markson, 1998, Hemphill et al., 2012, Hemphill et al., 2009, Hemphill et al., 2006, Raffaele Mendez, 2003, Skiba and Rausch, 2006b). Suspension is not effective in reducing future office referrals for problem behavior (Tobin & Sugai, 1996) and increases the likelihood of future suspension (Raffaele Mendez, 2003). In two papers, it has been shown that school suspension increases the likelihood of the student engaging in antisocial and violent behavior 12 months later, even after controlling for a comprehensive range of established influences, including factors such as academic failure and low commitment to school (Hemphill et al., 2009, Hemphill et al., 2006). In another similar paper, school suspension increased the likelihood of tobacco use at 12-month follow-up for Grade 7 but not Grade 9 students, again controlling for a range of established risk and protective factors (Hemphill et al., 2011).

Studies have also shown that the negative impacts of school suspension affect not just those who are suspended, but also others within a school. For example, suspension is associated with student and teacher reports of feeling less safe at school and a less appealing school climate (Skiba & Rausch, 2006b). Detrimental effects on the families of suspended students have also been reported, including parents' feelings of powerlessness and anger as a result of being excluded from the decision making process which affects their child (McDonald & Thomas, 2003).

It has been consistently found that students who receive school suspension are often already disadvantaged. Suspended students are more likely to belong to an ethnic minority or are of low socioeconomic status. The majority of suspended students are male (Hemphill et al., 2009, Hemphill et al., 2006, Skiba et al., 2002, Skiba and Rausch, 2006a, Skiba and Rausch, 2006b, Vavrus and Cole, 2002). In the US, it has been shown repeatedly that students of African American or Hispanic background are over-represented in school suspension rates (Skiba and Rausch, 2006a, Skiba and Rausch, 2006b, Skiba et al., 2002, Vavrus and Cole, 2002). Studies have shown that these higher rates of suspension, particularly for African American students in the US, are not due to differences in student behavior (Skiba and Rausch, 2006a, Skiba and Rausch, 2006b).

In addition to these economic and demographic characteristics, there are a range of other characteristics of students associated with school suspension. These include clinical levels of problem behavior such as antisocial behavior (Morgan D'Atrio, Northrup, La Fleur, & Spera, 1996), academic failure (Arcia, 2006, Gottfredson et al., 1993), less commitment to school (Costenbader & Markson, 1998), and rebelliousness (Gottfredson & Gottfredson, 1999). Given these demographic, economic, and student factors related to suspension are also linked to mobility (i.e., how regularly the student has changed schools and how regularly the family has moved residences), the authors of the current paper expected that mobility will be related to school suspension. School suspension is one of the most severe consequences available to schools to handle student behavior; therefore it is expected that student violent and antisocial behavior, as well as rebelliousness will be linked with suspension.

School factors are also associated with school suspension. Many of these factors are ones over which students have no control and may be strong influences on suspension. These include the overall school suspension rate, teacher attitudes such as thinking students are incompetent to solve their problems, administrative centralization of discipline (rather than distribution of authority across staff) and the school's inability to govern fairly, firmly and consistently (Wu, Pink, Crain, & Moles, 1982). As an example of the importance of teacher behavior, research in the US has shown that 25% of teachers are responsible for 66% of office referrals (Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 1997), often a precursor to suspension. The overall level of commitment of members of the student population to the school is also likely to be related to suspension, with schools with many students not committed to school more likely to use suspension.

To address the lack of studies of associations between both student and school factors and school exclusion, Theriot, Craun, and Dupper (2010) examined both student and school factors using multilevel modeling. They found that student level predictors were poverty, previous suspensions and severity of the last suspension incident, and that a school level predictor was the school's percentage of annual suspensions relative to the student population. However, the study by Theriot et al. (2010) included a limited selection of school level variables (i.e., a measure of poverty and measures of suspension).

An understanding of the relative impact of student and school level influences is crucial to guide the development of new school policy approaches that may include a judicious reduction in the use of school suspension to reduce negative effects on students. The authors are also not aware of any other studies that have measured in detail student risk factors including student problem behavior, rebelliousness, and academic failure. This paper will examine the relative impact of these student factors and school factors (school size, school type [private or public school], number of students on free lunch/educational maintenance allowance, and aggregate scores for schools on student reports of low school commitment and supportive relationships with teachers) in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, US using multilevel modeling. Here, ethnicity is not included in the analyses because it was measured differently in the two states. Aside from measurement of ethnicity, the same methods (study design, measures and procedures) were used in each state to survey state-wide representative samples of students in Grades 5, 7 and 9 (see McMorris et al., 2007 for details). The current study has two research aims: 1) to examine the student and school level factors related to student-reported school suspension; and 2) to investigate whether the student and school factors associated with student-reported suspension differ in the two states. The two main hypotheses in the current paper are: 1) consistent with Theriot et al. (2010), both student and school level factors will be associated with student-reported school suspension; and 2) similar student and school factors will be associated with suspension in Washington State and Victoria despite the policy differences in the two states.