School Punishment, Special Education, and Childhood Behavior Problems

学校惩罚、特殊教育和儿童行为问题

• 批准号: 1823632
• 负责人: David Ramey
• 金额: $ 25.78万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823632&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Punishment; Special; Education; Childhood; Behavior

There is growing public and scholarly attention given to changes in school discipline and special education policies in the United States. Some researchers suggest that school discipline policies have become increasingly severe, resulting in a growing number of students receiving school suspensions at all grade levels. At the same time, as schools expand special education plans to provide services for children with medically recognized behavior disorders, a growing number of children are receiving diagnoses and treatment for conditions such as ADHD. School disciplinary and special education practices are intended to allow adults to recognize and respond to perceived child misbehavior. As such, experiences with school punishment, special education, and diagnoses or treatment for behavior disorders should be appropriate and improve future behavior. However, there is growing concern that school discipline and special education practices and interventions intended to improve the learning environment for all youth are instead applied unevenly across children from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. NonHispanic White children are more likely to attend schools with robust special education programs and lower rates of school punishment than racial and ethnic minority children. Consequently, racial and ethnic minority children have higher rates of suspension and are less likely to receive quality special education or medical treatment than White children. As evidence continues to demonstrate the harmful effects of early school punishment on academics and behavior, there is a growing push for schools to adopt approaches to perceived misbehavior that consider underlying behavior problems and disorders. Understanding how school discipline, special education, and diagnoses/treatment for behavior problems affect all children, including marginalized and at-risk youth, will help to craft policies that best serve children with behavior problems in the United States. There is disagreement regarding whether school discipline and special education improve or disrupt educational progress. Additionally, few studies consider school punishment and special education or therapy/medication as opposing or collaborative approaches to child social control. This project combines data from a sample of at-risk households in large U.S. cities (Fragile Families Child Wellbeing Study) and district- and school-level data on disciplinary and special education practices (e.g. Civil Rights Data Collection). The project uses two broad statistical approaches to answer multiple questions. First, standard linear and non-linear regression models and matching models (e.g. propensity score weighting) will be used to estimate how school discipline and special education policies and practices affect (1) adult perceptions of child behavior; and (2) child experiences of school suspension and/ diagnoses/treatment. This will be achieved by comparing children attending schools with different suspension and special education enrollment rates. Second, mediation and moderation models, including interaction terms, will be used to examine whether caregiver and/or teacher perceptions of child behavior explain the relationships between school discipline and special education practices, childhood social control experiences, and future behavior problems and academic achievement. The project will address issues of selection in mediation and moderation models by using matching techniques, fixed-effects estimation, and placebo regression.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

公众和学者越来越关注美国学校纪律和特殊教育政策的变化。一些研究人员认为，学校的纪律政策已经变得越来越严厉，导致越来越多的学生在所有年级都被停学。与此同时，随着学校扩大特殊教育计划，为患有医学上公认的行为障碍的儿童提供服务，越来越多的儿童正在接受ADHD等疾病的诊断和治疗。学校的纪律和特殊教育做法旨在让成年人认识到儿童的不当行为并对其作出反应。因此，在学校惩罚、特殊教育和诊断或治疗行为障碍方面的经验应该是适当的，并改善未来的行为。然而，越来越令人关切的是，旨在改善所有青年学习环境的学校纪律和特殊教育做法和干预措施却不均衡地适用于不同种族和族裔背景的儿童。与种族和少数民族儿童相比，非西班牙裔白人儿童更有可能进入特殊教育项目强大、学校惩罚率较低的学校。因此，与白人儿童相比，种族和少数民族儿童的停课率更高，接受优质特殊教育或医疗的可能性更小。随着证据继续显示早期学校惩罚对学业和行为的有害影响，越来越多的人敦促学校采取方法来处理被感知的不当行为，考虑潜在的行为问题和障碍。了解学校纪律、特殊教育和行为问题的诊断/治疗如何影响所有儿童，包括边缘化和高危青少年，将有助于制定最好地为美国行为问题儿童服务的政策。关于学校纪律和特殊教育是促进还是破坏教育进步，存在分歧。此外，很少有研究认为学校惩罚和特殊教育或治疗/药物是儿童社会控制的对立或合作方法。该项目结合了来自美国大城市高危家庭样本的数据(脆弱家庭儿童福祉研究)和地区和学校一级关于纪律和特殊教育做法的数据(例如，民权数据收集)。该项目使用两种广泛的统计方法来回答多个问题。首先，将使用标准的线性和非线性回归模型和匹配模型(例如倾向分数加权)来评估学校纪律和特殊教育政策和做法如何影响(1)成年人对儿童行为的看法；以及(2)儿童停学和/或诊断/治疗的经历。这将通过比较不同停课和特殊教育入学率的学校儿童来实现。第二，调解和调节模型，包括互动术语，将被用来检验照顾者和/或教师对儿童行为的看法是否解释了学校纪律和特殊教育实践、儿童的社会控制经验、以及未来的行为问题和学业成就之间的关系。该项目将通过使用匹配技术、固定效果评估和安慰剂回归来解决调解和缓和模型的选择问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。