Classroom discipline experiences and Black youth student-teacher relationships and classroom engagement

Black youth experience discipline at substantially higher rates than White youth, both within and outside of the classroom, and especially for subjective reasons. These disciplinary experiences may cascade into further challenges for Black youth. We explore how Black students' experiences of classroom discipline for behaviors that teachers perceived as disruptive, disrespectful, or defiant relate to the students' classroom engagement and relationships with their teachers as well as how child gender might moderate the association.

Fourth- and fifth-grade elementary school teachers (N = 38; 86% female) in four school districts and their 130 Black students (50% female) completed surveys at school.

Accounting for students nested in classrooms, we applied multilevel modeling. Discipline for disruption and disrespect had little association with Black students' feelings about school. However, discipline for defiance was associated with less emotional and less behavioral classroom engagement and more conflict with teachers.

These findings highlight the distinct impact of discipline for defiance on Black students' school experiences, underscoring the need for educators to critically examine how disciplinary practices shape engagement and teacher-student relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).