Sandilya (Maithreyi) Gopalan Job Talk - SSRI cluster hire candidate

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Sandilya (Maithreyi) Gopalan, Ph.D. Doctoral Candidate, Indiana University

Candidate for Open Rank Professor of Education, Education Policy Studies/Educational Theory and Policy Program, with an emphasis in disparities in education throughout the life course

Job Talk: “Disentangling the Racial Disciplinary Gap in the Us”

Over the last few years, racial disciplinary gaps—differences in the rates of adverse disciplinary outcomes such as school suspensions and expulsions between Black/Hispanic and white students—has received significant attention as a critical educational inequality issue in the US. Yet, no studies have estimated the magnitudes of these racial disciplinary gaps or characterized the geographical variation in these disciplinary gaps across the US in a consistent manner. Additionally, there is a dearth of information regarding the factors that drive these racial disparities. This study merges newly available data from the Stanford Education Data Archive with recent data on school discipline from the Office of Civil Rights to characterize the geographic variation and correlates of racial disciplinary gaps across the US. Furthermore, I use a statewide, student-level, panel dataset of all Indiana public school students, Pre-K through 12th grade, from 2008-2014, to further disentangle the racial disciplinary gaps. I use a decomposition technique that sheds light on the various mechanisms that exacerbate these racial disparities both within and across school districts. In all, this paper provides a comprehensive methodological examination of racial disciplinary gaps that have plagued the American public education system for the last several decades.

All faculty and students are welcome to attend!