Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Policy and Administration

Advisor

Hilda Shepeard

Abstract

Disciplinary practices in California result in minority boys receiving a high rate of disproportionate discipline in the public-school system requiring those students to decide whether to return to school to achieve their high school diploma. The purpose of this case study was to explore what impacts the expelled student’s education decisions from the perspective of individuals who have experience with the California disciplinary system and counseling students who were expelled. The theoretical foundation used was critical race theory by Derick Bell and a conceptual framework of intersectionality and race context developed by the Combahee Initiative and Crenshaw. The study used snowball and purposeful sampling to identify school leaders with experience counseling expelled students on completing their education. Eight high school staff from California public high schools completed three researcher-developed questionnaires via a Delphi data collection technique. Three rounds of narrative data synthesizing of responses were coded and categorized for thematic analysis using In Vivo coding. The findings from this study indicated an agreement that an expelled student’s decision on whether to return to school was influenced by feelings of racial and leadership inequity in administering discipline. Positive social change may be accomplished by establishing programs for students and school staff teams working together to remodel perceptions about race and its impact on returning to school discipline’s disproportionate outcomes for boys of color.

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