Suspended Attitudes: Exclusion and Emotional Disengagement from School. Issue 1 (January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pyne, Jaymes
• Is Part Of: Sociology of education. Volume 92:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 59
• Page End: 82
• Publication Date: 2019-01
• Subjects: school discipline -- social psychology -- student attachment to school -- at-risk students -- adolescence; Educational sociology -- Periodicals; 306.43
• DOI: 10.1177/0038040718816684
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0407

Abstract

We know far less about the unintended social-psychological consequences of out-of-school suspensions on students than we do of the academic, behavioral, and civic consequences. Drawing on theories of socialization and deviance, I explore how suspension events influence students' emotional engagement in school through changes in their attitudes. Using longitudinal middle school survey data connected to individual student administrative records, I find that students who receive out-of-school suspensions are psychologically vulnerable prior to their removal from school. Accounting for demographic characteristics of students, prior year disciplinary involvement, and students' beginning-of-year attitudes, I find suspensions might further harm students by negatively changing their academic identities and perceptions of adults in school. A series of robustness checks add nuance and strengthen the claims I infer from the main analyses. I close by discussing how the engagement-related consequences of suspension inform social theory and educational policy.