Reframing the Connections between Deficit Thinking, Microaggressions, and Teacher Perceptions of Defiance

Abstract:African American students are being suspended/expelled at a greater rate than their peers, a phenomenon that scholars have come to call the “discipline gap.” As the gap has grown, so have instances of African American student suspension and expulsion for “defiance.” This article offers a revision of the Baker framework, which troubles deficit notions of overrepresentation in the disciplinary category of defiance by offering a different conceptualization of African American students being labeled defiant. The author argues that the very acts classified as defiant are often a response to microaggressions. A framework is presented to explain why African American students are overrepresented in terms of suspension/expulsion for defiance.