Education Commons^™

A Qualitative Study Of How Students Experienced Exclusionary Discipline Practices, Vera Veronica Holley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As a result of zero tolerance policies, a significant percentage of students who experience exclusions from schools also experience negative outcomes such as high dropout rates, academic failures, and encounters with juvenile justice agencies. While several researchers have found a relationship between unintended consequences of exclusions and juvenile delinquency, few have examined this phenomenon from the perspectives of juveniles who experienced exclusions. Guided by the framework of operant conditioning, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand how students experienced exclusions from school. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants who experienced both exclusions from schools and involvement with …