THURS-007 - Exclusionary Discipline Practices and Perpetration of Violence: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Add Health Dataset
Thursday, April 17, 2025
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM PST
Location: Pacific I/II, 2nd Floor
Area of Responsibility: Area V: Advocacy Subcompetencies: 5.2.4 Educate stakeholders on the health issue and the proposed policy, system, or environmental change., 5.1.1 Examine the determinants of health and their underlying causes (e.g., poverty, trauma, and population-based discrimination) related to identifie Research or Practice: Research
Professor University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Demonstrate the association between out-of-school suspension during adolescence and engagement in violent activities in adulthood.
Demonstrate the association between expulsion during adolescence and engagement in violent activities in adulthood.
Demonstrate the longitudinal association between expulsion during adolescence and engagement in violent activities in adulthood.
Brief Abstract Summary: To identify how and whether exclusionary discipline practices, particularly out-of-school suspension and expulsion, during adolescence shape their engagement in violent activities in adulthood.
Detailed abstract description:
Background: Exposure to exclusionary discipline practices in school has been tied to several health outcomes in adulthood. However, few have attempted to consider where these exclusionary discipline practices, particularly out-of-school suspension and expulsion, shape their engagement in violent activities in adulthood.
Methods: We used panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to explore the association between early-life suspension and expulsion with the perpetration of violence on their partners. Respondents were asked about whether they had been suspended from school at or before the Wave I interview. Similarly, school expulsion assessed whether respondents had been expelled from school by the Wave I interview. Four items of violence perpetration were extracted from the Wave III interview. Participants were coded as perpetrators if they perpetrated any of these behaviors, such as made threats with violence, pushed or shoved, slapped/hit/kicked, insisted on or made sexual relations, and caused injury to their partner.
Results: Controlling for age, gender, and race/ethnicity, results from our logistic regressions suggest that being suspended and expelled increased the likelihood of perpetrating violence against their current or past partners (B=0.29, OR: 1.34 (1.16 – 1.54), p<.001; B=0.32 OR: 1.37 (1.03 – 1.82), p<.031), respectively.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that exposure to exclusionary discipline may act as an early life stressor, which might lead them to engage in violent activities instead of healthy resolutions of conflict. To reduce these outcomes of violent crimes, there is a need for thoughtful policy interventions to address conduct violations in school, thereby protecting students’ social and emotional well-being and growth.
