A Culturally Responsive Approach to Understanding How High Performing Teachers Realize Inclusive Practices to Prevent Disproportionate Discipline to African American Students

Background: Discipline gaps between African American and white students have existed for many years. High numbers of educators have initiated or condoned disproportionate discipline of Black students to maintain order and perceived successes in the classrooms. A variety of attempts to stop this consistent disproportionate discipline typically only show improvement for white students with little or no change for African American students. However, there are culturally aware professional educators that create high academic expectations and low discipline rates of African American students. Purpose: This study was guided by two questions: How do certain high achieving teachers in ethnically diverse schools determine and use inclusive culturally responsive teaching practices that keep African American students engaged? How do educational leaders engage/support these high performing teachers? Methods: This qualitative study examined three high achieving teachers with no discipline referrals for African American students. Additionally, their peers, leaders, and students’ parents were interviewed to deeper understand the discipline culture and the main participants’ philosophies. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with three teachers selected from a pool of 15 teachers who had never written a referral on an African American student: three of their teacher peers, three of their administrators, the Dean of Students, campus principal, and district assistant superintendent. Five of the 15 teachers not selected agreed to be in a teacher focus group, and two parents of the three “main” teachers answered questions together as well. Results: All three teachers demonstrated their use of culturally responsive techniques in classrooms without being told to do so. And although educational leaders are aware of the disproportion, each seemed to struggle with how to influence other teachers who over-discipline African American students. Conclusion: The three teachers are exemplars of how culturally responsive pedagogical practices can engage students academically and reduce the discipline disproportion. Their classroom strategies and relationships could be an example for other classroom teachers. Educational leaders can be instrumental in disrupting disproportionate discipline by using these exemplars and having courageous conversations This study can provide hope to change the system for these communications, opening ideas to reduce disproportionate discipline to African American students.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Professional Leadership, Education

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• DeJohn, Dave

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peters-Hawkins, April

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Klussmann, Duncan
• Latting, Jean
• Goree, Tonya

• Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Culturally Responsive School Leadership, Critical Race Theory, Disproportionate Discipline

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/17706

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/17706