A comparison of active duty military dependent high school students and non-military dependent high school students and disciplinary referrals in Clarksville -Montgomery County schools

Jean Scott Murphy, Tennessee State University

Abstract

Discipline in America's schools has been a major educational concern of the public. With the steady growth of suspensions and expulsions, there was an urgent need to examine possible solutions to address increased discipline referrals. The purpose of this study was to investigate if a difference existed in discipline referrals between active duty military dependent high school students and non-military high school students enrolled in the five high schools in the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System for the academic school years 1998/99 through 1999/00. Collected data revealed that 882 active duty military dependent high school students were identified 1998/99 and 941 were identified for 1999/00. Pre-existing disciplinary referral data for the academic years 1998/99 through 1999/00 were obtained from the district's five high schools. Discipline referrals totaling 27,516 were collapsed into sixteen disciplinary codes, which accounted for suspensions, expulsions, remandment to alternative school and other discipline actions. Eight research questions and eight hypotheses were analyzed at the .01 level of significance, utilizing unpaired t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, Fisher's PLSD and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings of this study suggest that there were no significant differences between the mean ranks of active duty military dependent students and non-military dependent students and discipline referrals. Additional results revealed that a significant difference existed in gender, as males were referred for discipline more often than females. Further results also revealed that a significant difference existed between Black (Non-Hispanic) and White (Non-Hispanic) students and discipline referrals.

Subject Area

School administration|Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology|Academic guidance counseling

Recommended Citation

Jean Scott Murphy, "A comparison of active duty military dependent high school students and non-military dependent high school students and disciplinary referrals in Clarksville -Montgomery County schools" (2001). ETD Collection for Tennessee State University. Paper AAI3061759.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI3061759

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