Implicit Bias in School Discipline Erik J. Girvan Kent McIntosh University of Oregon Handouts: http://www.pbis.org

A Multidimensional View of Bias Racial Bias Disproportionate Discipline Situation Types of Bias, emphasis on implicit bias, What situations are most likely to be affected by it What we can do to try to minimize bias from impacting decisions in schools (McIntosh, Girvan, Horner, & Smolkowski, in press)

Types of Bias Explicit Bias: Implicit Bias Overt: Subtle/Symbolic Conscious belief in superiority of a group Subtle/Symbolic Conscious belief that some groups aspire to desirable traits more than others Implicit Bias Unconscious associations regarding some groups

Explicit Bias Overt: Subtle/Symbolic: “Do you think white students and Negroes should go to the same schools or separate schools?” “Do you think there should be laws against marriages between Negroes and whites.” Subtle/Symbolic: “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be as well off as whites.” Less than 10% Results showed that 70% of White Americans thought that White and Black students should go to separate schools and that 56% of White Americans favored segregating public transportation. In 1963, 74% of White Americans responded affirmatively when asked “Do you think there should be laws against marriages between Negroes and whites.” Regular repetition of surveys on these and other similar topics over the course of the civil rights movement and thereafter revealed substantial declines in such overt, explicit racist attitudes. By 1970, just 12% of White Americans responded that they favored segregated transportation. By 1973, White support for segregated schools dropped to just 13%. And by 1973, 37% of White Americans supported laws against inter-marriage, a number that steadily declined to about 10% by 1996. Greeley, A. M., & Sheatsley, P. B. (1971). Attitudes Toward Desegregation. Large regional divisions: 98% favored segregated schools in the South, 60% elsewhere. 43%, 96% 33%, 6% (Bobo, Charles, Krysan, & Simmons, 2012); 31%, 8%

Overall Car Search Rate - Los Angeles (Armentrout et al., 2007) Armentrout, Goodrich, Nguyen, Ortega, Smith, & Khadjavi (2007), for example, analyzed Los Angeles Police Department records for the 638,732 vehicle stops and searches that LAPD officers conducted from July 2004 to June 2005. They found that over 19% of vehicles stopped with Black drivers were searched compared to just 5% of vehicles with White drivers. As in New York, searches were more likely to be successful when the driver was White (56.2%) than when he or she was Black (44.6%).

Successful Car Search Rate – Los Angeles (Armentrout et al., 2007) One year. 2004-05 35% of 25% = 8% -> 96,976

Stops and Frisks – New York (2004-2012) New York Police Department records obtained during class action litigation shows that, from 2004 to 2012, its officers conducted over 4.4 million stops, 2.3 million of which included a frisk for weapons. As shown by the bars in Table 2, the stops disproportionately included African Americans and excepted Whites. While Whites made up approximately one-third of the residents of the City during that period, they represented just 10% of those stops. By comparison, African Americans, who constitute less than one-quarter of the population, were subject to 52% of the stops. Moreover, NYPD data suggests that that its officers’ decisions were highly error prone. The vast majority of those stopped and frisked were innocent. Just 12% of the stops resulted in an arrest or summons. Overall, officers found weapons in only 1.5% of the frisks. Where weapons or other contraband were found during a frisk, the hit rate was actually higher for Whites than for African Americans. Such racial disparities in the focus of police officer’s efforts at law enforcement, and the disassociation of those efforts from the resulting hit rates, are not unique.

THE WAR ON MARIJUANA IN BLACK AND WHITE (June 2013)

Inequity in discipline outcomes across the United States Black students are referred to the office and suspended at higher rates than their White peers even after controlling for individual socio-economic status and other demographic variables. Similarly, African American students do not engage in more problem behavior. To the contrary, Bradshaw, Mitchell, O’Brennan, and Leaf found that Black students were significantly more likely to be disciplined even after controlling for how disruptive their own teachers thought they were. Further, White students are more often disciplined for problem behaviors that are easily spotted and clearly violate school rules (e.g., smoking, vandalism), whereas Black students are more often disciplined for ambiguous or subjective behaviors (e.g., disruption) the consequences of which are discretionary (Skiba, Poloni-Staudinger, Simmons, Feggins, & Chung, 2005; Wallace, Goodkind, Wallace, & Bachman, 2008) (Losen & Skiba, 2010) (2010) Source: U.S. Department of Education-Office for Civil Rights; 1972-3 data is OCR data, but taken from Children’s Defense Fund, School Suspensions; Are They Helping Children? Cambridge, MA: Washington Research Project, 1975.

Implicit Bias is… …The tendency to automatically associate people (e.g., Construction Workers, African Americans, or Women) with certain characteristics (e.g., masculinity, athleticism and criminality, nurturing) or evaluations (i.e., positive or negative) based upon the stereotypical characteristics of the groups into which they are placed. Jesse Jackson: “There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Implicit Bias is… …Mostly unrelated to people’s consciously endorsed beliefs about stereotypes and evaluative attitudes. Jesse Jackson: “There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Implicit Bias and Race “There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” -Jesse Jackson 2014 – “Is everyone a little bit racist” NYT OpEd

Implicit Bias is… …fairly pervasive. (Nosek et al., 2007) IAT N % Bias (Reverse) Old/Negative – Young/Positive 351,204 80% (6%) Black/Negative – White/Positive 732,811 68% (14%) Male/Career – Female/Family 83,084 76%

Implicit Bias and Race “…the challenge is not a small number of twisted white supremacists but something infinitely more subtle and complex: People who believe in equality but who act in ways that perpetuate bias and inequality.” -Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times 2014 – “Is everyone a little bit racist” NYT OpEd

Predictive Validity (Field) Measures of implicit bias have been found to predict extent to which: Interviewers discriminated against : Arab-Muslim job applicants (Rooth, 2010) Obese job applicants (Agerström & Rooth, 2011) American Citizens voted against Barack Obama, controlling for demographics, political party identification, and ideology (Payne et al., 2010) Pediatricians recommended less pain medication for African American children than White children with identical symptoms (Sabin & Greenwald, 2012) Teachers’ expected their minority students to perform more poorly than non-minority students and the actual gap in performance of those students on standardized tests (van den Bergh et al, 2010) Arbitrators decided labor grievances in favor of women compared to men (Girvan, Deason, & Borgida, 2014) Police Officers used force when arresting African American compared to White children (Goff et al, 2014)

Solutions? Reduce Implicit Bias Effective strategies most typically involve a combination of some or all of the following: Counter-stereotypical examples linking Black people to positive attributes and White people to negative attributes High-levels of personal involvement Specific goal intentions Ineffective strategies include: Engaging with others’ perspectives Considering egalitarian values Increasing positive emotions

A Multidimensional View of Bias Racial Bias Disproportionate Discipline Situation Types of Bias, emphasis on implicit bias, What situations are most likely to be affected by it What we can do to try to minimize bias from impacting decisions in schools (McIntosh, Girvan, Horner, & Smolkowski, in press)

Implicit Bias… …Most influential in: Ambiguous judgments (e.g., deciding between two job applicants who have roughly equivalent qualifications) Snap decisions or those for which there is little time or motivation to gather and consider better information (e.g., which stranger should I sit next to on the bus?) Unconscious behaviors in socially-sensitive situations (e.g., body language in inter-racial interviews)

Interventions for Implicit Bias in School Discipline

A 5-point Intervention to Enhance Equity in School Discipline http://www.pbis.org/school/equity-pbis

Reduce Effects of Implicit Bias through Specific Training Reduce ambiguity in ODR definitions and processes Clear guidelines for classroom vs. office-managed behaviors Avoid rules that result in disproportionate exclusion Identify specific vulnerable decision points General Local (school) Teach a neutralizing routine Self-assess presence of VDP Use alternative response DELAYED ODR

Options for Identifying VDPs for Intervention Levels of specificity: All ODR/suspension decisions (general self-instruction routine) Identify VDPs through national data Use school or district data

http://www.pbis.org/school/equity-pbis

National SWIS Data (2011-12) 3,026,367 ODRs 6,269 schools 47 states, plus DC

Problem Behavior

Location

Time of Day

VDPs from national ODR data ambiguity Subjective problem behavior Disruption, defiance, major vs. minor Non-classroom areas Hallways Afternoons LACK OF contact fatigue

Multidimensional View of Bias Racial Bias Disproportionate Discipline Situation This theory has two advantages over the unidimensional view. First, it is more predictively accurate (Jones & Nisbett, 1972; Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004). Second, it facilitates identification of solutions to seemingly intractable problems (Caplan & Nelson, 1973; Lai et al., 2013). Discuss judge and lemonade bias research Vulnerable Decision Points Subjective Behavior Hunger Vague Discipline System Fatigue Prior Incidents Unfamiliar with Student

Two-step Neutralizing Routine for Staff: When you see problem behavior, stop and ask yourself: Is this a VDP? Situation Decision state If so, use an agreed-upon alternative response

Neutralizing Routines for Reducing Effects of Implicit Bias Self-assessment “Is this a vulnerable decision point?” Setting event Antecedent Behavior Consequence Lack of positive interactions with student Fatigue Loud complaints about work (subjective behavior) Send student to office (ODR) Student leaves class (Escape social interaction) Alternative Response “See me after class.”

What makes for a good neutralizing routine? Brief If-then statements Clear steps Doable

What makes for a good alternative response? Delay “See me after class” Pause Think it through Use least exclusionary choice Delayed ODR Ask State your confidence in them Discuss privately What do you do if it’s going to be a hard meeting? Bring food! Step down – is this the hill you want to die on?

Neutralizing Routine Examples “If this is a VDP, am I acting in line with my values?” “If defiance, keep in class” “If I am tired, delay decision until I can think clearly”

Two-step Neutralizing Routine for Administrators: (Susan Barrett) When you have to handle problem behavior, stop and tell yourself: Don’t just do something, stand there! Be sure you are ready to act in line with values Get information from student and staff Assess student-teacher relationship Whenever possible, use an agreed-upon instructional response Teaches missing skills Connects student to school and staff

Contact Information Erik J. Girvan girvan@uoregon.edu Kent McIntosh kentm@uoregon.edu @_kentmc Cannon Beach, Oregon © GoPictures, 2010

References Gailliot, M. T., Peruche, B. M., Plant, E. A., & Baumeister, R. F. (2009). Stereotypes and prejudice in the blood: Sucrose drinks reduce prejudice and stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 288-290. Girvan, E. J. (2014). Wise restraints?: How learning the law affects socially-biased decision-making. How Learning the Law Affects Socially-Biased Decision-Making (June 4, 2013) (available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2274314) Girvan, E. J., Burns, R., Whittaker, J. D., & Borgida, E. (2014). Regulatory depletion exacerbates racial bias. Manuscript submitted for publication. Greenwald, A. G., & Pettigrew, T. F. (2014). With malice toward none and charity for some: Ingroup favoritism enables discrimination. American Psychologist, 69, 669-684.

References McIntosh, K., Girvan, E. J., Horner, R. H., & Smolkowski, K. (in press). Education not incarceration: A conceptual model for reducing racial and ethnic disproportionality in school discipline. Journal of Applied Research on Children. McIntosh, K., Barnes, A., Morris, K., & Eliason, B. M. (2014). Using discipline data within SWPBIS to identify and address disproportionality: A guide for school teams. Eugene, OR: Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. University of Oregon. Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751.

References Skiba, R. J., Chung, C. G., Trachok, M., Baker, T., Sheya, A., & Hughes, R. L. (in press). Where should we intervene? How infractions, students, and schools all contribute to out-of-school suspension. In D. J. Losen (Ed.), Closing the school discipline gap: Research for policymakers. New York: Teachers College Press. Skiba, R. J., Michael, R. S., Nardo, A. C., & Peterson, R. L. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34, 317-342. doi: 10.1023/A:1021320817372 Staats, C. (2014). State of the science: Implicit bias review 2014. Columbus, OH: Kirwan Institute. Vincent, C. G., Swain-Bradway, J., Tobin, T. J., & May, S. (2011). Disciplinary referrals for culturally and linguistically diverse students with and without disabilities: Patterns resulting from school-wide positive behavior support. Exceptionality, 19, 175-190. Wallace, J. M. J., Goodkind, S., Wallace, C. M., & Bachman, J. G. (2008). Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in school discipline among U.S. high school students: 1991–2005. Negro Educational Review, 59, 47-62.