Award Date
May 2023
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education
First Committee Member
Federick Ngo
Second Committee Member
Doris L. Watson
Third Committee Member
Blanca Rincón
Fourth Committee Member
Norma Marrun
Number of Pages
177
Abstract
Discipline disparities have been widely reported in the K-12 school system, yet no published research has investigated disparities in higher education student conduct processes. This research project addresses this gap by asking: to what extent are racism and sexism evident in the student conduct process? This study was framed using the Focal Concerns and Loose Coupling perspective to analyze the four different stages of the student conduct process (referral, charging, determination of responsibility, and sanctioning). Focal Concerns suggest student conduct administrators will focus on a just outcome consistent with the respondent’s blameworthiness, community protection, and mitigating negative social consequences, and therefore will not bias the decision-making process. Loose Coupling suggests bias can enter the student conduct process when the concerns of organizations and their representatives involved in the process are different from the focal concerns of the decision-maker. This study used a novel dataset from a state system of higher education to analyze decision making at each stage of the student conduct process. Key results indicate that Asian respondents are more likely to be charged with policy violations, females are more likely to be assigned a warning, and Black respondents are suspended/expelled at higher rates compared to White respondents, even when comparing cases with the same types of violations. The results of this study indicate that bias enters the student conduct process differently at each stage.
Keywords
Discipline; Disparities; Focal Concerns; Higher Education; Loose Coupling; Student Conduct
Disciplines
Education | Higher Education Administration
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Graff, Lucas J., "Inequities in the Student Conduct Process: An Analysis of a State System of Higher Education" (2023). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 4689.
https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/4689
Rights
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