THE EFFECTS OF SCHOOL READINESS ON SUSPENSION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Open Access
Author:
Freelin, Brittany Nicole
Graduate Program:
Criminology
Degree:
Master of Arts
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
March 16, 2018
Committee Members:
Corina Antohi Graif, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor David M Ramey, Committee Member Eric P Baumer, Committee Member
Keywords:
School Readiness Suspension Exclusionary Discipline
Abstract:
There is an increasing interest in the importance of social-emotional skills and school readiness for youth and a growing concern about the frequent use of exclusionary discipline in schools, yet there has been no systematic investigation of the relationship between social-emotional and academic school readiness and suspension. Additionally, suspension for children in elementary school has not been thoroughly studied, where school readiness is likely to matter more because young children have not been in school long or had the chance to catch up if they started with lower levels of readiness. Furthermore, previous studies of suspension often use measures of behavior problems that limit our ability to disentangle the effects of minor, disruptive behavior versus serious, delinquent behavior on a child’s likelihood of being suspended. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, results from logistic regression models suggest that certain school readiness variables at age 5 are related to the likelihood of suspension from school by age 9. Results also highlight the importance of child and family characteristics in predicting suspension for young children.
