Examine the role of socio-economic status in student discipline disparities

Recently there has been a series of newspaper articles focusing on statistics showing that in Iowa schools Black students are disciplined more frequently than White students. The most common form of discipline is removal from class due to behavior that disrupts the class. These articles have focused on race and have ignored the important role of social class (socio-economic status, SES; usually measured by education and income). Many things that at first glance appear to be race-related turn out on closer examination to be related to social class.

In the state of Iowa as a whole, during the 2013-2014 school year, 18 percent of Black students were removed from class for disruptive behavior, compared to only 4 percent of White students and 2 percent of Asian students. If these statistics were presented separately for the different social classes, these differences would certainly be much smaller and might even completely disappear. Sociological studies have repeatedly shown that middle class students of all races are better behaved and more respectful of authority than lower class students. Yet this kind of more complete analysis has not been presented in the recent articles on the discrepant discipline statistics in the schools. Instead, the hypothesis of 'institutional racism” has been invoked. The disciplinary rate for White students (4 percent) is twice as high as that for Asian students (2%). Does that mean there is institutional racism against White students in Iowa schools? Not likely. What it probably means is that Asian students on average are better behaved, more obedient to teachers, less defiant, and more respectful of authority than White students on average. It is also the case, at least nationally, that Asian students on average come from homes of somewhat higher social class than the White average. This is likely true in Iowa too.

Closer to home, in our Iowa City Community School District, Black students as a percentage of all students removed from class is the highest in the state - 53 percent of those removed from class are Black while only 18 percent of all students are Black. It is also true that the average socio-economic status (SES) of White families in our school district is higher than is the case elsewhere in the state of Iowa and higher than the national average as a whole. We have all seen the articles about the high educational and income level of our area. The higher social class average means that fewer White students will display disruptive behavior and so fewer will be removed from class. The result will be that a large percent of those removed from class will be Black. A large percentage of Black student come from lower SES homes. Again, analysis by social class is what is needed to reveal the reality.

This same analysis applies to the disproportionate incarceration rates in Iowa for Blacks in comparison with Whites. Black Iowans make up 3.3 percent of Iowa's population but 25 percent of prisoners, for a ratio of 7.5 to 1.00, said to be the highest in the U.S. If these statistics were broken out by social class, this discrepancy would either be much smaller or would perhaps disappear, as with the case of school discipline rates. Another contributing factor to this disproportionate ratio is that the White Iowan crime rate is lower than the national White crime rate, leading to a lower imprisonment rate, which increases the 7.5 to 1.00 ratio. In order to have full understanding of the meaning of such social statistics, more analytical data analyses are needed. Yet we do not see such analyses in the media, including the newspapers. Such analyses seem to be confined to the scholarly research journals.

One reason I tend to be aware of the important role of social class is that before my retirement in 2012 I taught the course 'Individual and Group Differences in Traits and Abilities”. This is a Ph.D. level course, and one of the topics included is social class differences. Social class differences are just as large among Blacks as among Whites. Middle class Blacks and middle class Whites are alike in that both attempt to avoid the lower class members of their own race (and other races too). The reason is mostly the fact that crime rates of all kinds and other social pathologies are higher among the lower class of each race. A recently published book by a Black professor examines the conflict between middle class and working class Blacks, on the one hand, and lower class Blacks, on the other: The Black Silent Majority, by Michael J. Fortner (available at Prairie Lights). Professor Fortner states that the lower class, with its high crime rates and social pathologies, creates a stigma that many Whites unfairly apply to middle class and working class Blacks. Also, the middle class and working class Blacks are often the victims of lower class crimes. One of the surprising things revealed in this book is that it was middle class Black people who pushed (successfully) for longer federal prison sentences for crack cocaine usage than for regular cocaine usage, because it was the crack users who were destroying their neighborhoods. This discrepancy in penalties has often be attributed to White racism.

In connection with discipline in the schools, I do not here address the practice of school officials of calling the police when students get into fights. Principles and other school officials should be able to handle discipline for fighting without bringing in law enforcement and the juvenile justice system. That is one of their responsibilities. I saw a lot of fights when I was in school - and I engaged in some of them. But the police were never called.

' Frank Schmidt is an industrial and organizational psychologist and professor emeritus of the Department of Management and Organizations in the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. Comments: frank-schmidt@uiowa.edu