School suspensions
Description
Out-of-school suspensions (OSS) are an exclusionary disciplinary practice that impact urban Black students disproportionately, as compared to their White counterparts, in the United States. The disparities in their rates of suspensions have been associated with negative outcomes such as reduced time in the classroom, school drop-out, and exposure to the criminal justice system. There is evidence to suggest that youth who are exposed to community violence are at a greater risk for exhibiting overt and relational aggressive behaviors at school, which may lead to OSS. The current study tested the relationship between exposure to community violence (ECV) and OSS with overt and relational aggression mediating this relationship with a sample of 3rd-8th grade students in New Orleans. Additionally, student perceptions of safety and gender were entered into the model to determine if these variables have moderating effects on the pathways. Results indicated that there was no direct (β = .02, SE = .02, p = .241) or partial (95% CI [-.0003, .0100]) mediation effect of aggression on the ECV−OSS pathway. However, there were significant main effects of ECV on aggression (β = .09, p = .030) and aggression on OSS (β = .30, SE = .08, p < .001). Additionally, although perceptions of safety did not moderate the ECV−aggression pathway (β = -.04, p = n.s.), there was a significant main effect of perceptions of safety on aggression (β = -.17, p < .001). Finally, there was no direct effect of gender on OSS (β = -.27, SE = .15, p = .060) and it did not have moderating effects on the aggression−OSS pathway (β = .27, SE = .16, p = .087). Results suggest that high rates of ECV can lead to aggressive behaviors, and those behaviors can lead to OSS. Also, perceptions of safety have stabilizing protecting effects for students who experience community violence with regards to aggressive behaviors. The study findings have implications for mental health research, treatments, and programming in schools.