Does Anyone Benefit From Exclusionary Discipline? An Exploration on the Direct and Vicarious Links Between Suspensions for Minor Infraction and Adolescents’ Academic Achievement

The intended purpose of exclusionary discipline is to improve the learning environment by removing disruptive students; however, emerging evidence has suggested that these practices may have the opposite effect. Exclusionary discipline—especially policies that use suspensions as punishment for minor, developmentally normative behavioral infractions—is a known threat to suspended students’ academic achievement, but few have examined whether and how these suspensions may vicariously affect nonsuspended classmates’ academic achievement. This article uses a two-study approach to examine the mechanisms linking suspensions for minor infractions and educational outcomes in science (N-student = 558; N-classroom = 41; M_age = 12.83; age range = 10–16; 40% Black, 55% White, 5% other race; 51% girls; 62% eligible for free/reducedpriced lunch) and math (N-student = 1,302; N-classroom = 64; M_age = 13.00; age range = 10–16; 41% Black, 53% White, 6% other race; 50% girls; 64% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch) classrooms among both suspended and nonsuspended students. Results showed that students who received a suspension for aminor infraction weremore likely to have poorer academic achievement in both studies. In classrooms where suspensions for minor infractions were used more frequently, students had lower academic achievement, with student engagement partially mediating this relation. These results add to a growing body of school discipline literature that advocates for replacing exclusionary discipline with more developmentally responsive policies and practices.