This meta-analysis involved 92 studies that compared children living in divorced single-parent families with children living in continuously intact families on measures of well-being. Children of divorce scored lower than children in intact families across a variety of outcomes, with the median effect size being .14 of a standard deviation. For some outcomes, methodologically sophisticated studies yielded weaker effect sizes than did other studies. In addition, for some outcomes, more recent studies yielded weaker effect sizes than did studies carried out during earlier decades. Some support was found for theoretical perspectives emphasizing parental absence and economic disadvantage, but the most consistent support was found for a family conflict perspective.

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Parental divorce and the well-being of children: a meta-analysis.

The authors reviewed scores of primary prevention programs to identify preventive interventions that had undergone quasi-experimental or randomized trials and been found to reduce symptoms of psychopathology (aggression, depression, or anxiety) or factors commonly associated with an increased risk for later mental disorders. In this review, the authors identify and describe 34 universal and targeted interventions that have demonstrated positive outcomes under rigorous evaluation. The authors go on to examine common characteristics of successful prevention programs and make recommendations based on these characteristics for policy and practice in school- and communitybased prevention of childhood psychopathology.

The Prevention of Mental Disorders in School-Aged Children: Current State of the Field

Comparaison de cinq perspectives prenant en compte l'adaptation des enfants au divorce. Ces perspectives se referent a l'absence du parent qui n'obtient pas la garde de l'enfant, l'adaptation au parent qui obtient la garde, le conflit entre parents, les questions economiques et le stress que genere le changement de vie.

Children's Adjustment to Divorce: Theories, Hypotheses, and Empirical Support.

The term and construct “school-to-prison” pipeline has been widely used by advocates, researchers, and policymakers to describe the relationship between school disciplinary practices and increased risk of juvenile justice contact. It has been unclear whether the construct is a useful heuristic or a descriptor of empirically validated relationships that establish school disciplinary practices as a risk factor for negative developmental outcomes, including juvenile justice involvement. In this article, we examine the literature surrounding one facet of the pipeline, school exclusion as a disciplinary option, and propose a model for tracing possible pathways of effect from school suspension and expulsion to the ultimate contact point of juvenile justice involvement. Available multivariate analyses suggest that regardless of demographic, achievement, or system status, out-of-school suspension and expulsion are in and of themselves risk factors for a range of negative developmental outcomes. Recommendations ar...

More Than a Metaphor: The Contribution of Exclusionary Discipline to a School-to-Prison Pipeline

While scholars have studied the racial “achievement gap” for several decades, the mechanisms that produce this gap remain unclear. In this article, we propose that school discipline is a crucial, but under-examined, factor in achievement differences by race. Using a large hierarchical and longitudinal data set comprised of student and school records, we examine the impact of student suspension rates on racial differences in reading and math achievement. This analysis—the first of its kind—reveals that school suspensions account for approximately one-fifth of black-white differences in school performance. The findings suggest that exclusionary school punishment hinders academic growth and contributes to racial disparities in achievement. We conclude by discussing the implications for racial inequality in education.

Mientras que los eruditos han estudiado la "brecha racial educativa" desde hace varias decadas, los mecanismos que producen este vacio no estan claros. En este trabajo, proponemos que la disciplina escolar es muy importante, pero poco examinada en el factor en las diferencias de rendimiento segun la raza. Utilizando un conjunto de datos de jerarquica y datos longitudinales compuestos por registros escolares de estudiantes, examinamos el impacto de los tipos de suspension de los estudiantes y las diferencias raciales en la lectura y el rendimiento en matematicas. Este analisis es primero de su tipo y revela que las suspensiones escolares representan aproximadamente una quinta parte de las diferencias entre el rendimiento escolar entre negros-blancos. Los hallazgos sugieren que el castigo de la escuela de exclusion dificulta el crecimiento academico y contribuye a las disparidades raciales en el rendimiento academico. Concluimos con una discusion de las implicaciones para la desigualdad racial en la educacion.

The Punishment Gap: School Suspension and Racial Disparities in Achievement

Although the association between school suspension and deleterious outcomes is widely acknowledged, policy and practice need to be informed by an evidence base derived from multiple studies reveali...

Relationship Between School Suspension and Student Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

This article provides an initial report concerning the nationwide study of the impact of divorce on children. Three-hundred-forty-one children from divorced families and 358 from intact families we...

The Impact of Parental Divorce on Children: Report of the Nationwide NASP Study.

Although exclusionary discipline has been linked to a variety of negative student outcomes, it continues to be utilized by schools. This study investigates two critical variables as they relate to exclusionary discipline: School typology (i.e., urban, rural, suburban) and student ethnicity. Using data from 326 Ohio school districts, a MANCOVA followed by univariate ANCOVAS was used to examine the main effects of ethnicity and school typology on exclusionary discipline rates as well as their interactive effects. Results indicate that when controlling for student poverty level: (a) African American students are disproportionally represented as recipients of exclusionary discipline; (b) major urban very-high-poverty schools utilize these practices most frequently; and (c) disciplinary disproportionality was most evident in major urban districts with very-high-poverty and was least evident in rural districts with a small student population and low poverty. Implications for research and practice are discussed. INTRODUCTION Exclusionary discipline describes suspension, expulsion, and other disciplinary actions leading to a student’s removal from the typical educational setting. Although frequently used in schools in an attempt to punish or to promote appropriate behavior, exclusionary discipline can result in a number of unfavorable outcomes. For example, high exclusionary discipline rates are positively associated with academic failure (Gersch & Nolan, 1994; Rausch & Skiba, 2004; Safer, Heaton & Parker, 1981; The Civil Rights Project/Advancement Project, 2000), high school dropout (Costenbader & Markson, 1998; DeRidder, 1990; Ekstrom, Goertz, Pollack & Rock, 1986; Wehlage & Rutter, 1986;), involvement with the juvenile justice system (Chobot & Garibaldi, 1982; Florida State Department of Education, 1995; The Civil Rights Project/ Advancement Project, 2000), grade retention (Safer, 1986), and illegal substance use (Swartz & Wirtz, 1990). Despite these findings, the use of exclusionary discipline in schools continues to rise. As a result, researchers have increasingly become interested in identifying school-level and studentlevel factors that may relate to exclusionary discipline use within schools. Interestingly, rates of exclusionary discipline have been found to vary widely based on these factors. For example, Imich (1994) found that a small number of schools accounted for a large proportion of school exclusions, and Skiba, Wu, Kohler, Chung and Simmons (2001) discovered that 1-in-6 of Indiana’s school districts account for 50-75% of all exclusionary disciplinary actions. Such evidence of vast disparities in discipline practices highlights the need to identify school-level and student-level factors that may predict reliance on exclusionary discipline. School Factors Many school factors have been linked to rates of exclusionary discipline. Wu (1980) found that exclusionary discipline rates are more strongly influenced by school factors than by students’ challenging behaviors. For example, exclusionary discipline rates have been linked to: administrator philosophy and beliefs (Christle, Nelson, & Jolivette, 2004; Mukuria, 2002; Wu, 1980), ambiance of the physical school setting (Christle et al., 2004), per pupil spending (Christle et al., 2004), district SES (Fowler & Walberg, 1991), and public-versus-private school status (Farmer, 1999). Other school factors have been demonstrated to have no significant relationship to exclusionary discipline rates (e.g., teacher to pupil ratio, Christle et al., 2004; school size, Fowler & Walberg, 1991, and Imich, 1994; and teacher experience, Christle et al., 2004). In this study, school typology is the factor of paramount interest. School typology is a classification based on community and school characteristics. In Ohio, for example, schools are classified into nine typologies that were created to account for common demographic characteristics including population density, school size, geographic locale, and community income levels (See Table 1). Several studies have aimed to explore the relationship between school typology and disciplinary practices. For example, data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 revealed that 25% of 8th grade teachers in urban schools reported spending at least one hour per week maintaining order and discipline versus 13% of teachers in rural schools and 16% of teachers in suburban schools (Lippman, Burns, & McArthur, 1996). In addition, Brown and Payne (1992) investigated perceived changes in discipline issues from 1981 to 1991 by surveying 221 teachers on perceived changes in discipline issues. The researchers categorized the data by school typology. When asked whether the school discipline problems they encountered in 1991 were better or worse than they were in 1981, no signifPERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 27

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Patterns of Exclusionary Discipline by School Typology, Ethnicity, and their Interaction

Exclusionary discipline involves the use of suspensions, expulsions, and other disciplinary action resulting in removal from the typical educational environment; it is frequently used as a consequence for inappropriate student behavior. Because this form of discipline is associated with detrimental outcomes, it is of concern that in the United States of America the frequency of use of exclusionary discipline is consistently higher for the racial-minority group of African American students than for the majority racial group. This investigation utilized current district-level data from public schools in the state of Ohio to replicate previously documented findings of disciplinary disproportionality, to examine changes in overall use of exclusionary discipline over time, and to examine changes in disciplinary disproportionality over time. Results of repeated measures multivariate analyses confirm that African American students continue to be overrepresented as recipients of exclusionary discipline. Limitations of this investigation, implications related to public policy, and future directions for research are proposed.

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Caven S. Mcloughlin

Papers

Relationship Between School Suspension and Student Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

The Impact of Parental Divorce on Children: Report of the Nationwide NASP Study.

Patterns of Exclusionary Discipline by School Typology, Ethnicity, and their Interaction

Changes in Exclusionary Discipline Rates and Disciplinary Disproportionality over Time.

Self-modeling as an intervention to reduce disruptive classroom behavior