Racial and Ethnic Identity, Gender, and School Suspension: Heterogeneous Effects Across Hispanic and Caribbean Subgroups

• Author: Peter S. Lehmann,Ryan C. Meldrum
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00224278221120689
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Racial and Ethnic

Identity, Gender, and

School Suspension:

Heterogeneous

Effects Across

Hispanic and

Caribbean Subgroups

Peter S. Lehmann

1

and

Ryan C. Meldrum

2

Abstract

Objectives: This study explores the effects of racial/ethnic identity on youths’

likelihood of receiving a suspension from school as well as whether these

disparities further vary by gender. In light of recent demographic shifts

within the U.S., alternative theoretical rationales emphasizing such issues

as “exotic threat,”“stereotype lift,”and “ref‌lected race”present conf‌licting

expectations regarding whether and how the disadvantages in school disci-

pline experienced generally by minority students might extend to youth in

certain Hispanic and Caribbean subgroups. Methods: We analyze data from

1

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville,

TX, USA

2

Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida International University, Miami, FL,

USA

Corresponding Author:

Peter S. Lehmann, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State

University, P.O. Box 2296, Huntsville, TX 77341, USA.

Email: psl003@shsu.edu

Thematic Issue: Centering Race in the Study of Crime and Criminal Justice

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2023, Vol. 60(2) 167–212

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00224278221120689

journals.sagepub.com/home/jrc

the 2018 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, which provides a large

statewide representative sample of youth enrolled in Florida public middle

and high schools (N=54,611). Results: Youth who are Black/non-Hispanic,

Haitian, West Indian/Caribbean, and Dominican are most likely to receive a

suspension from school, and these effects are particularly pronounced

among female students. Mixed evidence of Hispanic-White differences in

suspension is found, except for a heightened risk among Puerto Rican

youth. Conclusions: Some of the f‌indings imply the importance of skin

tone and appearance over subgroup-specif‌ic perceptions of cultural or

criminal threat. However, the disadvantages experienced by Puerto Rican

students may represent an institutional response to their unique status as

recent migrants to Florida.

Keywords

school discipline, race/ethnicity, stereotypes, group threat, FYSAS

Over the past several decades, profound changes have occurred within the

racial and ethnic composition of the United States due to a notable inf‌lux

of immigrants from Latin American and Caribbean countries. Many scholars

have observed that these trends have been attended by hostility toward

members of minority groups (Brader et al. 2008; Chavez 2013; Wang

2012) and a desire to respond by mobilizing various social control mecha-

nisms, including the criminal justice system (e.g., Baker et al. 2018;

Buckler et al. 2009; Pickett 2016). These concurrent trends in demography

and public sentiment are salient for broader issues concerning racial/ethnic

stratif‌ication in the U.S.; indeed, emerging evidence suggests that traditional

distinctions between “White”and “non-White”increasingly are becoming

replaced by a more f‌luid and pluralistic social order where gradations of

Whiteness are paramount (Bonilla-Silva 2018; Gonlin 2020). Thus, in an

effort to measure race/ethnicity not solely as an immutable individual attri-

bute but rather as dependent on group dynamics and social contexts, schol-

ars have argued in favor of expanding conventional representations of race

that consider such issues as national origin and skin tone (e.g., Hirschman

2004; Khanna 2012; Morning 2018).

These transformations to the racial terrain of the U.S. have important

implications for how racial and ethnic identity are conceptualized by

researchers and, in turn, how punitive responses levied against minorities

by the criminal justice system and other institutions are understood. Of

168 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 60(2)

particular interest to scholars in recent years has been the pervasive expan-

sion of out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and other forms of discipline in

American middle and high schools (Hirschf‌ield 2018; Kupchik 2010),

which has occurred despite declining rates of juvenile delinquency and vic-

timization both in and out of school (Wang et al. 2020). The vast literature

on inequalities in the application of school discipline consistently has

revealed that minority youth are at disparate risk of receiving these out-

comes, even after accounting for a wide range of student- and school-level

factors (e.g., Anyon et al. 2014; 2018; Owens and McLanahan 2020;

Rocque 2010). In spite of these important developments, however, most

scholarship on youths’unequal exposure to this “new disciplinology”

(Rocque and Snellings 2018) fails to adequately consider the nuances of

racial, ethnic, and national identity, which increasingly are becoming

central to discussions of race more broadly.

Given the complexities surrounding race and ethnicity in the U.S., the

possibility of heterogeneity in the effects of minority status on the likelihood

of receiving punitive school sanctions represents an important line of inquiry

that heretofore remains unexplored. For instance, it is unclear whether the

disciplinary disadvantages associated with being Black are similar to, are

amplif‌ied among, or are mitigated for those with Caribbean ethnic identities,

including Haitian, Dominican, and West Indian youth. Relatedly, prior

scholarship has yet to establish whether the school discipline penalties expe-

rienced by Hispanic youth are consistent across all such subgroups or

whether differences might emerge among Mexican, Central American,

Puerto Rican, and Cuban students. Further, given the evidence regarding

the interactive relationship between race/ethnicity and gender in school

sanctioning (e.g., Carter et al., 2017; Morris and Perry 2017), the extent

to which the effects of racial/ethnic identif‌ication might vary between

male and female youth represents an unstudied dimension of these relation-

ships. Recent shifts in scholarly understandings of racial and ethnic identity

in the U.S. have highlighted the salience of these questions, and for this

reason the deconstruction of conventional, monolithic conceptualizations

of race represents a new direction for research on disparities in application

of institutional social control.

The aim of the current study is to address these issues by investigating (1)

whether there is heterogeneity in the likelihood of receiving a suspension

from school according to youths’racial or ethnic identity as measured

using 13 subgroups, and (2) if the effects of membership in these racial/

ethnic groups on the likelihood of suspension vary by gender. In the pro-

ceeding discussion, we f‌irst provide a review of the literature on school

Lehmann and Meldrum 169