Student age and racial disparities in teachers' discipline evaluations

Racial disparities in school discipline have been previously identified, with studies like Okonofua and Elberhardt (2015) using scenarios with minor infractions indicating the role of teacher racial bias in these disparities. In this research, we sought to replicate and extend their study by adding the age of the student (child vs. teen) as an additional variable. Two studies recruited teachers to participate in this mixed-method research. The quantitative part was a mixed design with race of the student in the scenario as the between-subject variable and age as the within-subject variable. The qualitative part asked teachers to provide the possible causes of racial disparities in school discipline. We failed to replicate the previously observed racial effect, nor did we find an interaction between student age and race. Teachers were more inclined to attribute racial disparities in school discipline to teacher-related factors rather than to student-related factors. The most common factor nominated was implicit racial bias.