A study of issues related to school discipline in New Castle County, Delaware

This study examined disciplinary policies and procedures of New Castle County, Desegregation Area (NCCDA), Delaware to compare them with those defined in the literature and research as "good," and assessed whether numerical overrepresentation of minority pupils in school suspensions seemed to be based (primarily) on race, or if there were other equally plausible possible causes.

The early 1982 study, was an extension of a previous study (Achilles, Campbell, et al., 1982) concerned in part with discipline practices against Black students in four new districts of NCCDA.

The study population was students and faculty of the NCCDA schools and others concerned with the educational process in the schools. A sample selection confined the study to students and faculty and other concerned with the problems of the secondary schools.

The research design had three descriptors: "field study," "quasi-experimental," and "ex post facto." The approach was descriptive, not projective, in nature. The study analyzed in isolation major variables which might affect suspension: race, sex, socioeconomic status, class rank, school size, density of minority population.

Data were collected through interviews and responses to the Discipline Context Inventory (DCI), a guide to analyze programs and identify problem areas for improvement of discipline in schools. Data Service Center, New Castle County provided statistical data.

Content analysis was used to analyze interview results and informal comments on the DCI. Non-parametric Median Test analyzed individual-item responses. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (r) determined relationships between variables which might affect the rate of suspension.

Findings indicated (1) disciplinary policies and procedures were very specific, administered in accordance with well-defined Student Codes of Conduct (which were written, however, at an average reading level of grade 13, and were lengthy and complex), (2) there was clearly an overrepresentation of minority pupils in school suspension, and (3) there was also an overrepresentation using other identified factors—low achievers, low socioeconomic pupils, and males—with only sex lower in probability than race as a factor of suspension.