Episode 351 - Inequitable Discipline w. Dr. Mawule Sevon

Summary

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ABA Inside Track, Episode 351 – Inequitable Discipline w. Dr. Mawule Sevon

Release Date: July 22, 2026
Host(s): Robert Perry Crews (Rob), Jackie, Diana Perry Crews (Diana)
Guest: Dr. Mawule Sevon

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This episode dives into the systemic problem of inequitable discipline practices in U.S. schools, especially as they impact Black students and other marginalized groups. The hosts are joined by Dr. Mawule Sevon, an expert with backgrounds in both school psychology and applied behavior analysis (ABA), to discuss critical race theory (CRT), the discipline gap, adultification of Black girls, and actionable steps for behavior analysts to address these issues within their practice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Sevon’s Journey to the Discipline Gap

Timestamps: [03:11] – [07:04]

• Grew up in Philadelphia, always interested in the power of education to address inequities.
• Transitioned from wanting to be a teacher, to studying school psychology with a focus on the achievement and discipline gaps.
• Discovered ABA as a framework that could help address disciplinary inequities.
• Merged school psychology and behavior analysis to focus research and practice on closing the discipline gap in schools.

“I feel like this merge of school psych educators, behavior analysts, is exactly where I needed to be to then investigate this problem a little bit deeper.”
— Dr. Sevon [06:13]

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2. Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education

Timestamps: [09:26] – [18:41]

• CRT originated in legal scholarship (1970s–80s), analyzing how race is intertwined with law and thus with institutions like schools.
• Misrepresentations and political attacks on CRT often obfuscate its academic origins and relevance.
• Application to education (per Gloria Ladson-Billings): Even well-intentioned schools are affected by the historical and systemic realities of racism.
• Emphasizes the importance of context, lived stories, and qualitative research in understanding and rectifying racial disparities.

"Unfortunately, we live in a society and this study really, or theory really highlights this where race is very important. And because it's a part of the fabric of our country, it seeps into schools."
— Dr. Sevon [11:55]

• CRT challenges the notion of “race neutrality” in schools, encouraging self-reflection and policy/practice analysis.

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3. Limitations of Policy-Only Approaches

Timestamps: [20:08] – [23:28]

• Policy and legislation are necessary but insufficient; without changes in practice and paradigm, disparities persist.
• Example: Suspension/expulsion bans in preschool exist, but exclusion continues via different names (e.g., “come pick up your child”).
• Schools remain largely segregated, and discipline/achievement gaps have not closed despite decades of reform.

"Because it is not allowed. But the practice hasn't changed and people haven't shifted their paradigm, the problem still persists. It just now looks different."
— Dr. Sevon [22:30]

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4. Implicit Bias: The Eye-Tracking Study

Timestamps: [23:28] – [26:49]

• Eye-tracking research (Gilliam, Yale): Teachers observed preschoolers for misbehavior; their gaze lingered disproportionately on Black boys—even if behaviors were age-typical.
• Adultification: Black children, especially girls, are perceived as older and held to inappropriate standards.
• Narratives about Black children’s behavior often driven by expectation rather than observation.

"When you're looking for something, you will find it, even if your skewed perception views something differently than what actually happened."
— Dr. Sevon [25:37]

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5. Differential Impact on Black Girls and LGBTQ+ Students

Timestamps: [32:46] – [36:16]

• Girlhood Interrupted and subsequent research highlight how Black girls are both hyper-visible (scrutinized and disciplined) and invisible (left out of research).
• Adultification bias leads to unfair expectations; Black girls punished more for “attitude,” dress code, and “disrespect.”
• Non-binary and LGBTQ+ students also face disproportionate discipline, especially compounded by other marginalized identities.

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6. Practitioner Reactions to Bias Data

Timestamps: [38:13] – [40:51]

• Parents are often emotional or shocked upon hearing the discipline realities for very young children.
• Some educators become defensive or minimize the data, citing outlier incidents (e.g., "kids are coming to school with weapons").
• Dr. Sevon stresses these are systemic issues, not isolated teacher failings.

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7. Role of Behavior Analysts: Practices and Pitfalls

Timestamps: [41:40] – [55:54]

• Behavior analysts often brought in for “fix the kid” roles, but must ensure objectivity and cultural humility.
• Objective behavior definitions and clear expectations are critical; “disrespect” or “loud” are too vague and often colored by bias.
• Analysts should focus on prevention, skill building, and evaluating whether expectations are developmentally/culturally appropriate.

“If we could better define what these particular behaviors are, then we can better come up with an intervention to address it or recognize what you’re observing and saying fits in this box doesn’t actually fit. It’s not actually appropriate.”
— Dr. Sevon [43:20]

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8. Advice for New Behavior Analysts

Timestamps: [44:34] – [47:49]

• Acknowledge: “We’re all racist,” in that everyone has implicit bias due to cultural context—recognizing this is key.
• Be reflective: Constantly examine one’s own practices, assumptions, and the environment you operate in.
• Provide immediate, honest feedback to peers, even when uncomfortable.

“Let’s get that off the table. It shows up in your work and so you want to be reflective because now you’re aware. … How are we going to move forward? I want you to be highly reflective when you’re showing up in classrooms.”
— Dr. Sevon [44:37]

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9. Action Steps & Red Flags for Practitioners

Timestamps: [52:54] – [59:24]

• Red flags:
  • Vague behavior descriptors (“disrespect,” “attitude”).
  • Expectations not clearly defined or not communicated.
  • Age-typical behaviors being treated as major problems (i.e., tantrums in pre-K).
• Actions:
  • Clarify what behaviors are truly of concern and whether they reflect real skill deficits or mismatched expectations.
  • Ensure interventions are compassionate, preventative, trauma-informed, and focus on skill-building, not just compliance.
  • Participate in systemic discussions to move away from punishment-first approaches.

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10. Scaling Up: Recommendations for the Field

Timestamps: [63:10] – [66:39]

• Stay informed about current trends in discipline disparities.
• Engage in policymaking and discussions beyond ABA circles—present research at education and leadership conferences.
• Advocate for and publish more on inequitable discipline within behavioral journals (many ABA practitioners only read field-specific literature).
• Support colleagues, foster awareness, and continually push for paradigm shifts both in policy and practice.

“If you have good ideas being a part of the decision making... start to publish, start to write about, have these conversations. ... If you work in an organization that has a school contract... maybe having a conversation with your team about this... But if you’re going to do that, you want to know what the trends are. What are we even talking about?”
— Dr. Sevon [63:59]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “All assessment processes are going to be impacted if we’re not looking at how our own biases show up in our practice.” — Dr. Sevon [30:17]
• “Adultification of these black girls where they're perceived as much older and therefore much more aware in knowing a particular adult-like things.” — Dr. Sevon [33:30]
• “If you think about three year olds, they do a lot of age appropriate things that are undesirable.” — Dr. Sevon [57:40]
• “Behavior analysts should be in the conversation... We have the skill set to change the conversation.” — Dr. Sevon [53:45]
• “As a behavior analyst, you are very equipped to help them understand, here’s our universal supports that can cultivate the prosocial behaviors we want to see.” — Dr. Sevon [60:33]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:11] Dr. Sevon’s background and focus on discipline gap
• [09:26] CRT explained in education context
• [13:04] Toni Morrison metaphor and historical context of race
• [25:33] Eye-tracking study on teacher bias
• [33:15] Specific impact on Black girls and adultification
• [38:13] Practitioner responses to data on bias
• [44:34] Advice for new BCBAs regarding implicit bias
• [52:54] Actionable steps, red flags, and safeguards for practitioners
• [63:10] Recommendations for field-wide impact

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Further Learning & Related Episodes

• Episode 104: Culturally aware assessment w/ Dr. Liz Hughes Fong
• Episode 135: Social justice w/ Denisha Jingles & Erin Donovan
• Episode 152: The ethics of cultural responsiveness
• Episode 271: Social justice research practices w/ Dr. Malaika Pritchett

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Final Thoughts

• Discipline disparities are perpetuated not just by explicit policy, but by unchecked implicit biases and a lack of reflective practice.
• Behavior analysts must engage beyond technical expertise—advocating for systemic change, challenging vagueness and subjectivity in definitions of “problem” behaviors, and supporting environments that build skills rather than impose compliance.
• Continued professional development on issues of race, identity, and context is essential, as is self-examination and humility.

“We know a lot of behavior analysts mostly read behavior analytic scholarship. So if this is something you’re interested in, you have a lot of information about it. Start to publish, start to write about, have these conversations.”
— Dr. Sevon [64:14]

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For further questions or to connect with Dr. Sevon:

• Email: [e-mail]
• Website: thekeyconsult.com

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Snack Pairing: Rocket Pops (in honor of summer and the July 4th season; reminder of the ongoing need for equity in fulfilling America’s promise of opportunity for all.)

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to ABA Inside Trek, the podcast that's like reading in your car, but safer. I'm your host, Robert Perry Crews, and with me, as always, are my fabulous co hosts. Hello, fabulous co host.

[A]

It's me.

[C]

It's me, Jackie.

[A]

I'm here. I'm a little hot, but I'm here.

[B]

Was your original mic running hot, Jackie? So you're using the. Sounds like you switched or it's not coming through so.

[A]

Well, I don't know. I'm on a different computer because my other computer is dead.

[B]

Ah, that makes sense then.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

It got a heat stroke or something.

[A]

We're all dying over here, so it's fine.

[C]

And I'm here, too. It's Diana Perry Cruz.

[B]

Hello.

[C]

It's also hot where I am. Oh.

[B]

I mean, the nice thing about the temperature, no matter how hot or cold it gets, there's always time for behavior analysis and behavior analytic research discussion, which is what we do every week with a brand new topic. And we thought, what would be a better thing to talk about than in the middle of July than school discipline? Because everyone wants to think about school right now. No, but seriously, folks, we are going to be talking about discipline, but not just any discipline. We're going to be talking about the real epidemic of inequitable discipline practices going on. I mean, we're going to be focusing on American educational schools. I, I, I. This is not going to be a. Oh, it's only America. This is a problem. This is going to be a problem in lots of places due to lots of factors. However, we're going to be focusing on America and American schools because that's where we are from. That's from where we practice, and that is where our special guest also practices. We're very, very excited to have on the show today Dr. Mauli. Sevan Mauli, thank you so much for being on the show today.

[D]

Yes, thank you for inviting me. And then I find that it's always a great time to talk about school. So in the middle of July, I'm excited.

[B]

I mean, the nice thing about talking about these things in July is this, when people are probably like, our educators of America are kind of at that. Like, all right, I'm feeling recharged. Starting to think about the new year. Hey, guess what? You could be thinking about your disciplinary practices. Right? Work on it now. Practice through August. You're ready to go in September. Yeah, I'm sure it only takes a month, right, to fix all the problems. Yes.

[D]

But I think the exciting part is it's Better to think about it before school starts so you can kind of set that great foundation once you're in the midst of it. It goes fast. The school year goes fast. It's true that saying of the days are long, but the years is short. They usually are referring to having children. I feel that way about the school

[C]

year, but also less in plans.

[B]

Well, we had a lot of snow days in Massachusetts this year, so the year is long at the moment.

[A]

Still going for another week as of recording.

[C]

Yeah, not in July.

[B]

You're listening in July, folks. We're recording in the past. We don't record these the day before they come out. That would be really hard.

[C]

We're no South Park.

[B]

No, I guess not. So, Mauley, if you don't mind, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you came to be interested in researching and talking about the topic of inequitable discipline practices.

[D]

Awesome. Okay, so I'm going to take it way back, and I will work my way to where we are today in July of 2026. So I'm originally from Philadelphia, and as a child, I've always been interested in schooling, education. I kind of wanted to be a teacher, but I think I just wanted to be bossing people around. And so I always played school with my siblings and stuffed animals. And as I got a little bit older, I felt that school was a great equalizer and could disrupt some of these inequities that I saw in my neighborhood because I grew up in Philadelphia. And over time, it moved from wanting to be a teacher to someone who understood the brain a little bit more. So I thought, oh, I should become a psychologist. But I was thinking, could I be a psychologist in schools? Didn't know that exist as a child. And so I went to grad school undergrad, and I majored in psychology. And I had a professor who was a school psychologist. And she introduced me to this term of school psychology and the practice of school psychology and using it as a approach to social justice and disrupting inequities that you feel are really important. In undergrad, my main concern was the achievement gap. I really wanted to address that through the lens of school psychology. And when I started my graduate training in school psych, I realized that the achievement gap, while it was pervasive, something to be investigated, I became much more interested in the discipline gap. There's a lot of conversations in literature around how they're connected, but I was just drawn to that data of children not being in class, therefore not present for instruction, therefore missing out on learning opportunities and falling behind academically. In grad school, I was in school psych program. I focused a lot on school discipline, A lot of my studies. If you had a project and you could pick the topic, I picked something related to school discipline. And while I was in grad school, I needed a job. And so I found a job as an ABA therapist. And that was like an aha moment. I was learning behaviorism in a very in depth way. In school psych, we take classes related to behaviorism, but it's really with the intention of writing fba and it's not as in depth. Once I started practicing aba, and even as a. At the time, there weren't rbts, but as a behavior ADA therapist, I felt that. That science would help me address this other concern I'm very deeply concerned about. So then I went back to school to become a behavior analyst. And so I feel like this merge of school psych educators, behavior analysts is exactly where I needed to be to then investigate this problem a little bit deeper. And so right now that's a powerhouse.

[A]

That's a powerhouse right there.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. I get really excited about it, as you can tell. And so right now I've been thinking a lot about the practice piece. I wrote an article called Schooling while Black. And it was really about awareness. When I talked at conferences before in behavior analysis, it was to bring awareness. Like, this is something we talk about on school psych. This is what is being talked about in education generally. But in behavior analysis. I hadn't heard people having this conversation that often when I was in my behavior analytic program. So at this moment, my main goal is kind of merging those two, as Jackie called the powerhouse, those two disciplines and utilizing them as a approach to address the discipline gap that's still pervasive and happening.

[B]

I sort of wish, Molly, if. If I could go back because I did special education and then went into behavior analysis, kind of similar story. But in the education piece, I sort of wish there were like a triptych of like, well, I was a school psychologist, then I became a special education teacher, Then I became a behavior analyst or maybe sandwich behavior analyst in between those. Then I feel like you could just go into a school and be like, I have every answer. I have. I know everything you would need to know. You better listen to me, because I got it all. I'm all the quadrants. You like those movies? Like, I'm all the Quadrants. I'm going to be very popular.

[C]

That's because Rob and I did our Enneagrams and he's an achiever.

[B]

I. I'm an achiever. I think. I think they put me under the, like, very loud and very certain of myself category was where they put me. So I. I don't know if that's a good thing, though.

[D]

I can't tell. But I think it works in our line of work.

[A]

It is where you are, right? It's not good or bad.

[B]

RA Just is. That's good or bad, I think. I wasn't a school psychologist. I don't.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

I'm not able to do that level of sort of, you know, present moment awareness, flexibility. It's just not. I can't do it. I gotta practice at it, I guess.

[D]

Right. And I think that works really well when someone's like, I have a problem. Help me now. And you're like, I got your answer.

[C]

Right.

[D]

We don't want to go in a circle of like. Well, what do you think? I was thinking this. No.

[B]

All right, well, now that we have a little bit more of your background, Diana, would you share our articles from. For today, your primary source of. Of discussion, as well as, you know, value your expertise in the area.

[C]

You know, I had them up, and then you lulled me into a false sense of security.

[B]

What did I do?

[C]

I don't know. I guess I thought we were just blowing past it, but I'm ready.

[B]

Okay, so if we change topic midstream to just.

[C]

Yep. We have three articles provided to us today by Molly to discuss, and those include Schooling While Black Analyzing the Racial School Discipline Crisis for Behavior Analysts. And that was published in behavior analysis practice 2022 by Sevon. Next, Girlhood Interrupted the Erasure of Black Girls childhood. That is a white paper published by Epstein, Blake, and Gonzalez out of the center on Poverty and Inequality from Georgetown Law in 2017. And finally, just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education? Great title. By Ladson Billings. That was published in 1998 in the International journal Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.

[B]

Okay. So, Mellie, I was hoping we could kind of start with, through the bigger picture, discussion of sort of critical race theory in education. Now, my own background is someone that I think the first I started hearing about critical race theory specifically in education, or kind of in more like the popular discourse, was a lot of sort of at some of the more nasty. Not that these periods are, like, really polite and nice in the political sphere, but sort of some of the, like, the nasty design of, like, critical race. Ooh, that Sounds scary and mean and bad and, and the more I would read and learn about it, I don't, I don't know if it's me. It just sounded like one of those things of. Yeah, there's a lot of context, there's a lot of complicated issues and there's a lot of history in our country. And for us to just like, nah, don't worry about it, is really just, just so cruel and insulting to, you know, so many minority and, you know, previously disenfranchised groups. So I think this is an important context we should be taking into account. And I don't see how it is hurting anyone other than people who are in power and would like to stay in power by nefarious means, but that's just me. You know, would you mind just for listeners if maybe they. That's the only time they'd heard about it as well as sort of in, in the discourse of like, oh, that's a scary thing. Don't pay attention to that. You know, what, what exactly. Critical race theory is sort of where it came from in terms of our discourse before jumping over to our education discussion.

[D]

Yeah, I, I remember that time you're referring to where there was an attack on crt. Critical race theory. And the way people argued against it often was inaccurate and misrepresentation of what it actually is. It was started by attorneys and it comes from the, the legal profession. And it was really their way of analyzing and critiquing the legal system through the lens of race and how race runs through all components of the law in the United States. It's pretty old. This legal scholarship started, I think, in the 70s, 80s, and so for it to resurge in the 2000s and for it to be under attack is pretty interesting because it's been around for so long. That article from Gloria Lassen Billing is a. More is a newer approach from, I believe, the 90s. And I love the title because it's taking something that comes from the legal, legal scholarship and applying it to education. And this part where she says, Gloria Lasting Billings, this nice field, like education, it really captures this important piece of. Most people enter the profession of education because they want to serve children and they really want to do good things. No. 1. This is a, A, a huge statement. But in my years, I've never met anyone who went into schools, into practicing education to do bad things. Most people do it out of the love of children, out of the love of teaching. I met so many people who played school at home like I did. And they have all their stuffed animals set up for school. Unfortunately, we live in a society and this study really, or theory really highlights this where race is very important. And because it's a part of the fabric of our country, it seeps into schools. And Gloria Lassen Billing is highlighting that piece. And one of the quotes that's highlighted in that article is from Toni Morrison, around racism metaphor. And it's really analyzing. It's not just about how people look. It's also what qualifiers and descriptors are attached to race and then how that shows up in schools.

[B]

I really did appreciate and thank you for kind of sharing this as an article to add to our discussion today that, that, that idea from, from, from Toni Morrison, you know, that, that metaphorical idea of race. Because I think one of the challenges I know I've had as we've been more, you know, try to become more fluent in talking about race is so much of that, like, pseudo scientific reasoning behind race. And then sometimes having that period, you know, as, as some folks are able to have, they have the privilege of having kind of in their 20s of like, well, we know that thinking about race as, as biological construct and better than and worse, that's wrong. Therefore race shouldn't exist. And now I've solved the problem and then really missing how it's like, that's not good job for you. Like, you said that. But it doesn't change the fact that we have these historical patterns and that it's not necessarily about like, you know, some sort of biogenetic marker. It is about a history. It is about a context, is about how those systems of oppression have continued to punish certain behaviors in certain groups in a way that then normalizes that behavior to the majority group. So it was, it was really, really great to kind of have better, better words than, than I was just able to come up with. But that was my own sort of, you know, know, experience with, with the process. It was kind of nice to have it condensed in, in the article, the other one. I know the, the truths only exist for this person in this predicament at this time in history. And the idea of stories, I know, like Ladson Billings really starts that whole article with let me tell you a story, which is a much more fun way to talk about contexts and history without it sounding like, oh, professor, no, thank you, I don't want to hear your lecture on the subject. And then I realized I didn't have a question. I just really liked all that stuff in the article.

[A]

I have a comment too about that Article while I was reading it, it made me come back to how we as behaviorists, as behaviorists and behavior analysts should see the world. Right. Not just as a person, but as the context that the person is living in and the variables and the historical circumstance that have led them to that situation. And it just made me appreciate our field more that we should be doing that. Right. Because if we were doing that across the board, we might not be in the situation where we are in now.

[D]

Yeah. And you both are bringing up these important pieces because there was a time we all aim to be what I consider race neutral. As if we don't see race, therefore it's not real. And we are treating everyone the same. Like, I don't see color. I'm just treating everyone the same. But that's not possible. And when you walk through life or within a school building with that framework, that assumption that's actually inaccurate, you are potentially going to do a lot more harm because you're not going to critique your assumptions that you're jumping towards. We all make snap judgments. Bias exists. It's really important for survival and just making decisions and safety. And because you're making those snap judgments, if you don't think they're bound to race, then you're not going to analyze them, critique them, self reflect and move differently. And that's really important, which is why we're trying to move away from a race neutral approach.

[B]

So when we're talking about CRT in general, we also want to talk about CRT in terms of education. And of course, what's CRT doing in the nice field of education, as the title of the paper describes? Do you mind speaking a little bit more specifically as to CRT and education? Like what. What is the major point of relevance that we should, you know, whether behavior analysts, school psychologists, educators. We should really be thinking about education and sort of CRT combined.

[D]

Yeah. Jackie highlighted this piece around storytelling and using context to inform our next steps. And there's a lot of work from indigenous methodologists and indigenous methodology around the value of storytelling as data that can inform next steps and decisions that we make. And so when we think of CRT in education, historically, it's been around higher ed, which is interesting when you think about the critique. Oftentimes people were like, oh, I don't want my child to learn this in kindergarten. It's like, this isn't taught in kindergarten. This is applied in often graduate course classes.

[A]

And.

[D]

And it was really about how we do research. We know that marginalized people were often excluded from research. However, research. The findings of research was often applied to their communities while they were not included in the studies. And so this really especially the storytelling, showed that qualitative research was valuable and could provide much more information. That's that higher ed piece of how CRT was initially applied. But I find that it's also important to think about it from a PK to 12 setting where it asks us to also gather our student stories and let that inform schooling and that experience so we can better shape and edit how we allow schools to operate for them. But also that race is important and it's running through the school halls every day, all day. And to aim to be race neutral in your approach, you're not going to even critique the powers and the structures of society that are existing in school.

[C]

And it doesn't lead you to challenge your own perceptions or any implicit biases that you may have.

[D]

Yeah. Because you don't believe that you have them.

[B]

So in terms of thinking about stories and context, I know that for a lot of practitioners can be a really great sort of entry into developing better cultural humility. And sometimes I think it might be easier for behavior analysts and behaviorists to do that because a lot of times we are thinking about the individual, we are thinking about the environment, we are thinking about learning history. So as long as we're kind of keeping our eyes open to that, we're listening to what our clients are saying now that it makes us immune to bias. But it's, you know, we can. We can often use other, you know, the biases or individual experiences to hopefully do a better analysis. But I think when we're talking about the school system as a whole, and I know that's in Ladson, Billings brings us up and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. It does seem like there's a focus on the. Well, we'll make the big piece of legislation like Brown versus Board of Education. That was a great one. We all love that one. Yeah. And that'll solve all the problems and sort of just people. I don't know if it's a complacency or if it's a. We did a thing. Let's move on to the next thing. Nature of politics, a little bit of everything. But it's not like. And 19, 54, 55, we're good. And then in the 60s, it's been great since then.

[C]

Every.

[B]

No problems in school. I mean, what does that mean when we're talking about things like how to make policy changes and then changes to practice because it's not a one to one correspondence as much as boy, wouldn't it be easier if it were? What are we missing in these sort of like big policy, these big picture discussions?

[D]

Yeah, this is a great question and I think this is a question that we don't often have. The end goal oftentimes is policy, which is very important. We need the policy piece, but it stops there at times and we don't change our practice. And so we can name lots of legislation policy that has shifted over time. However, if we look at the data, if we listen to students, if we listen to families, we see that disparities still occur. Students don't feel safe in school, children still feel hyper surveilled in school settings. Young children are still being arrested in school. All of that's still happening. Schools are still racially segregated. We know that. There's still an achievement gap, there's still discipline gap, and lots of legislation has been passed. I want to highlight the legislation and some of the policies that have happened in different states around exclusionary discipline, particularly for young children. When I first started talking about school discipline, it was with maybe elementary school children and up. And then I read an article about preschool exclusionary discipline. And little preschoolers 3 and 4 are getting excluded from school at a very high rate. And it's actually a bigger problem than it is in the K to 12 setting. Some would argue lots of legislation has been, and I'm going to be honest, I'm not an attorney, I don't know legal terms. So legislation, policy, they all mean the same thing to me. It's like they made some rules legally around preventing people from using exclusionary discipline for young children, for preschoolers. Many states have those rules in place. However, it's still happening. And what it looks like is that instead of it being called suspension or expulsion, it'll be carried out in different ways. A parent will be asked to pick up their child from school every day. They're not suspended, they just aren't having a good day. So they should stay home tomorrow and you should come pick them up today. Or they're placed in a different classroom, or they're in the principal's office or they spend their time somewhere else. And so because it is not allowed. But the practice hasn't changed and people haven't shifted their paradigm, the problem still persists. It just now looks different. And we see the same thing with Brown versus education. It did aim to integrate schools and schools are legally integrated. But if you look at many schools around the country, they are still racially segregate it in a way that creates disparities.

[B]

So just having the do this doesn't result in the necessary changes.

[D]

No, it's not enough, because we really need a paradigm shift. And if we think about specifically this conversation around discipline, we have to shift how we view children and their actions and how we respond to those actions is what I think is a big part of the work. Yeah.

[C]

I don't want to jump ahead in the. In the question order, but I was just going to note that the study that you referenced where they did the eye tracking for the teacher with. I think it was with preschoolers, right? And it had four. Four different preschoolers. And they said monitor for any discipline issues that might come up. And the teacher spent much more time looking at the black boy than the other three kids. That was really powerful and such a powerful way to. To get at that information. Because anyone might not think that they're doing that. Right. They're like, no, no, I'm. I'm monitoring all kids equally. And I would never. I would never do that. Right. But those biases come through in unconscious ways. And that teacher was probably appalled to realize that that was happening. But without that realization, she can't then correct some of that behavior on her part that that's occurring. And it was. That's like a heartbreaking story to me that, that it starts at that such a young age. And the more eyes you have on a kid with the IND with the intention of finding something wrong, the more likely you're going to find something wrong. And then that just puts kids on a path towards more and more disciplinary action taken against them. And in the flip side of that, too, is that black children are more likely to be identified for behavioral concerns rather than going on to receive like, an autism or ADHD diagnosis instead. And I put in a graphic in our notes for us to look at that said it was like five times more likely that came from neurodivergent insights. That is, I know, like, the whole. The whole, like, what you're trying to get at. So I don't mean to, like, steal the show, but that, for me, was just really powerful to read about.

[D]

I appreciate that you. You share that because that article was so profound to me when I found it. So it's by Gilliam and some colleagues from Yale and the fascinating piece about this eye study. First of all, the idea of using eye tracking technology is brilliant. I wish I came up with that idea.

[A]

That's a shower idea. That is a shower idea, yes.

[D]

Because you it's so subconscious. You ask someone, did you look at the black children more? Yes or no? Who's gonna say yes? I did. I'm fine. I watched them the whole time. Most people wouldn't and they didn't even know. Potentially they might not even know they did that. And so to track the eyes were really was really smart. The interesting piece of that study also is those were children actors. Anytime I hear that, I think that's so cute. They're just little. They're on the job. And all of the children engaged in behavior that was developmentally appropriate. So actually there was no problem behavior. However, black students in the study were There were reports that they were engaging in problem behavior. And to your point, Diana, you brought this up. When you're looking for something, you will find it, even if your skewed perception views something differently than what actually happened.

[A]

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[B]

Hey everyone. Sorry to interrupt our conversation with Dr. Savant, but I wanted to remind you all that ABA Inside Track is ACE and Quaba approved. And by listening to this episode, you're able to earn one cultural slash ethics ce.

[D]

Ooh.

[B]

Ah. All you need to do is finish listening to the episode and then go to our website, ABA Inside Track. Or click the link in your podcast player. That'll take you right to the site where you can answer some key information and you can take a little quiz that we have about the episode. But that quiz is going to include two code words that even if you've read the articles and are masters of the material. You're not going to know unless you listen to the episode itself. And these are special authors that have a special place in Dr. Sivan's heart. So the first of those authors is Ladson Billings. L A D S O N B I L L I N G S Ladson Billings, the author of one of the articles we actually discussed today. So you're going to put that in. But before you do that, you probably want to hear rest of the show, which is coming up right now. So when we talk about bias against black students, certainly we, we kind of mentioned a few of them. They're much more likely to be referred for disciplinary referrals like an office. An office referral. They're much less likely to be identified as potentially having special needs or requiring special services for disability. Molly, are there like other ways that are, you know, either more subtle, more pernicious that you know, you have either seen, reported or observed firsthand where that subconscious bias, let's call, you know, it's called, is impacting how teachers do their job or how teachers perceive what's going on in ways that then result in more disciplinary practices?

[D]

Yeah. So in schools there are so many players, not just teachers. And in every area of schooling there's a different way that these educators are practicing differently and it's connected to bias. And so I'm going to add this piece for School Psychology because we talked about this a lot in our profession. We often over or under identify students for particular special education categories. And so it's this differential evaluation process or even the determinants of their eligibility category. So there's 13. I'm talking to a sped person. But yes, there's 13 categories in most states. And which category they're determined eligible for is also sometimes different based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and gender also come up where there's some disparities. And so while that isn't specifically about discipline, it shifts how you view the particular child and the behaviors that show up and then it impacts how you respond. That's for school psychologists. We can also take into account a speech pathologist. Not going to talk in too much detail around them, but that also impacts their assessment process because all assessment processes are going to be impacted if we're not looking at how our own biases show up in our practice. And then we think about school leadership. They make a lot of decisions around how to respond to students behavior when it gets to a higher level of exclusionary discipline. There's also bias there because you asked a Question about teachers. I want to add this one piece that I talk about a lot, but it wasn't one of the articles that I shared with you. During 2020 there was a lot of attention around police officers and their well being and burnt out police officers are more likely to engage in excessive force and also rely on implicit bias in their decision making. Same exists for medical professionals and for teachers classroom teachers. My dissertation research was around teacher well being. I want to highlight stressed teachers often result in hostile environments for students and often rely on implicit bias in their decision making which often makes students of color black students receive much harsher classroom experiences than other children. So it's pretty much a cycle and we live in a society right now where teachers are pretty stressed and we have to take care of them and we're not doing a great job as world. And so I I'm just plugging that in because we often talk about this from the lens of like teachers are doing all these things. Yes. However, we're not taking care of them and it's all of us doing the things no one's exempt, calling everyone to the rug.

[B]

Now in one of the articles the Girl had Interrupted article you shared that brings up a and it was really shocking how they sort of had one survey, but one survey felt like it captured such a specific bias against black girls when it comes to inequitable discipline. Would you mind sort of talking about how that impact can result in almost the worst levels of inequity for black girls in education when it comes to discipline practices? Sure.

[D]

When I found that article Girl interrupted I just felt like it was information that I had never heard before, but almost plugged all these pieces of information together to illustrate a big problem that exists that people weren't talking about. There's an article by I don't remember the Scholar, but it's called, it's about black girls and how they're hyper visible and invisible at the same time. And Girlhood Interrupted highlighted that we often exclude black girls in the research around school discipline, but they're often hyper surveilled in schools for their dress code, the way they present themselves, how they speak, just the way people perceive them as disrespectful. And in this particular study from these researchers at Georgetown, they use a term called adultification. And it's the adultification of these black girls where they're perceived as much older and therefore much more aware in knowing a particular adult like things. And so the expectations for how they should behave are very different and developmentally inappropriate for their actual age. And so we think about a child who's maybe six and we're perceiving them as much older. Yes. If they engage in six year old behaviors, you will perceive them as problematic because they should not engage in six year old behaviors if you think they're much older than that. And so it started a conversation, I think, for other scholars. Monique Morris, who is a scholar educator who wrote a book called Push Out, I think this book was very famous when it first initially came out. She's written subsequent pieces of work, but she used that study and kind of moved to asking students and black girls about their experiences in school and how they're often criminalized in school. And it illustrates different ways. Her TED Talk is really good. It illustrates it in a way where you can see it and it's easier than reading the entire book. Even though I think it's a great book to read, this article is pretty sure you should read that. But if you wanted to just get a snapshot, it's a great video to watch on YouTube.

[C]

Great. It's a tasty tidbit.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

You can move on to the book.

[D]

Yeah. I also want to add one other thing that often gets left out of the conversation. We talk about boys, we talk about girls, and we talk about gender from this very binary lens. The data is gathered that way. So that's unfortunately how it has to be discussed. But children who are gender nonconforming, who are anywhere within the LGBTQIA community, also experience differential discipline, impunitive responses to their behavior or their existence. I like to say, because sometimes it's not any type of problem behavior. They're just being kids. Right. And then there's this added layer of when you add on any intersectional identities to their gender or sexual orientation, their gender expression and sexual orientation, such as race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, where their parents are from, it adds more complexity and they're more vulnerable.

[B]

It was so tragic to think about the idea that, I mean, any group, specifically in this case girls in the study, from pretty much 5 on, I think 0 to 4, whew, less bias. That's great. Little kids are treated like little kids. But from five on, everything has that tenor of, oh, well, they should do better. Well, they need to get over it. Oh, well, that's not appropriate. And therefore there needs to be punishment rather than soothing or mentorship or teaching or calming. And to just imagine generations of children being told, from 5 on, that's not appropriate. You should do better. I mean, talk about setting up aversive environments where children don't feel heard or seen or everything is your problem. I mean, it's not surprising that many of those students would not want to be in a school setting and might therefore start engaging in other. They might actually start engaging in some, you know, inappropriate behavior. Because what's the point? I don't want to be here. No one is listening to me. Whether I'm doing something right or wrong, I'm probably going to get the same amount of punishment placed upon me. I mean, just how, how, you know, thinking about what adolescents are looking for. Like what if you give no power whatsoever and nope, you have to learn this because I said so. Nice white teacher said so. That's just got to be just, just the most harmful environment. And to think about a place that we build to create equity for our future citizens and just think, no, this place is awful. And it teaches you terrible, terrible lessons about how you are not valued by others. Just, it was just heartbreaking to think that that could be. I'm not sure if you've shared this with other professionals or other teachers. Was their response sort of similar, of like, I don't do that or was it defensive? Was it, oh my God, I'm going to be looking much more closely at that. What's been sort of the feedback when you bring up some of these data points and some of these studies?

[D]

Yeah. So my data to answer this particular question is skewed because if someone's talking to me or they've come to my presentation or they've read something I've written, they probably agree with me.

[C]

So

[B]

maybe they came to be mad or something. You know, you never know. There's a lot of people do things for odd reasons.

[D]

I have had some people who were very upset, but most people are like, this is very interesting, interesting. I'm glad you're sharing this. When I talk about young children, a lot of people who have young children get really emotional because when you're talking about a three year old that's a

[C]

baby,

[A]

even a nine year old is a baby.

[D]

My nephew graduated high school this week. He's a baby.

[C]

Yeah, right.

[D]

But you're right, a nine year old, Jackie is a baby. I always like to say, think about the skills they have. They haven't been on the planet for a decade yet. Nope, they, they are missing so many skills and yet they're expected to just push through a lot of expectations and not misbehave at all. And so that. I get that a lot from parents finding it really hard to hear this is the experience of young children. And then I get some people who push back, like, these kids are problematic. They shouldn't be in school. I'll never forget someone said to me, well, we have to do something about these children. And it wasn't just about girls. It was all genders of children. But we had to do something about these kids. They're coming to school with guns and knives. It was like, that's not happening. And so as a person from Philadelphia, I'm petty. So I came back with my facts and I did some research. And when we think about exclusionary discipline, about under 2% of these incidents are because of weapons or involving weapons. This, the bulk of them are not related to any type of physical harm that's happening to other. Other people. And so some of the pushback is pushback because it doesn't feel comfortable to hear this. And oftentimes people think I'm saying like, oh, we shouldn't have white teachers. This is actually regardless of race, all groups of people, if you live in. You said this at the beginning of the conversation, Rob. If you live in the United States, even if you live abroad, we're all experiencing messaging about people based on their recent identity. You're going to have. That's going to show up in the classroom when people are just interacting and existing. So, yeah, I get some pushback. It's usually because of misinformation.

[B]

Yeah. And I know girl had interrupted didn't go into like the exact statistics, but it did appear that many of the common, you know, quote unquote concerns being brought up had more to do, at least with black girls of things like, oh, they're loud or they're bossy or they're disrespectful. I know things like PBIS systems in which we have to put more objective definitions can be very helpful. Because when someone's like, oh, this kid's always so bossy, or they think they know better than me, I'm like, what is that? Is that a problem? I mean, did you say something stupid? Maybe they should have known better than you. Like, I like, that's not. You're making a pro. Like, why do you want to make a problem arbitrary straw strawman teacher. I just created for. For our conversation. But it does appear to be so much of that, well, disrespectful. They're too too loud telling me what to do.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And I could again, I could see as someone who has been told like, please be quiet or you're much too loud. I've probably only been told that a few times in my life. I've been very privileged in that. Usually I've been rewarded for coming and being like, I'm allowed. Look at me, everybody. I picked podcasting as a second job because that's, that's what you're supposed to do. But it, it hurts. And it, it, it's, it's this visceral emotional response. So you, you almost see this perpetuating cycle. Whereas if you're a child being told over and over, like, you need to stop talking so loudly, at some point you probably are going to yell at someone or tell them, leave me alone. And now you've got the. They were disrespectful. Because I was just asking that and missing that whole kind of going back to critical race theory in context. That whole context of like, why would that seemingly simple instruction be so mean and result in, be so aversive and potentially result in such a, either emotional or kind of an escape or avoidance response? And you know, those aren't the kinds of decisions that the average teacher is either trained to make or potentially even interested in making in some cases.

[D]

Yeah, you're right. When you look at that article, they highlight disrespect and then it has these vague descriptors of what that looks like. Loudness, bossiness. And then dress code. Dress code is a huge one for girls in general, dress code, so big. And then for black girls, dress code is huge and often a result of exclusionary discipline or some type of punitive response to their behavior. We also know. So I love that you highlighted. As behavior analysts, we're very good at defining behavior. And I think that's why I think this science is a great option for working to address this big issue. Because if we could better define what these particular behaviors are, then we can better come up with an intervention to address it or recognize what you're observing and saying fits in this box doesn't actually fit. It's not actually appropriate. And so the definition is really important, but we're not there yet and we need to do some work to get there.

[B]

It feels like a good segue to talk a little bit more specifically about how behavior analysts can be more aware of implicit bias, how they can take action that is going to work to sort of support anti inequitable disciplinary practices in their schools specifically, but really anywhere that they're, that they're called upon. Before we get into that, though, Mallory, I'd love to hear kind of from your perspective, sort of what would you've got the behavior analysts, you know, new behavior analysts, you want to give them the shoulder, like grab and shake and be like, I'm going to tell you something important about how to deal with, how to respond to, how to avoid falling into the trap of implicit bias and pay attention. Like, what kind of those words of wisdom be just the basics of acknowledging changing behavior around implicit bias that you would most recommend.

[D]

I, I initially chuckled because I think my first thing would say, I would say to them is, we're all racist. Okay? All of us, everyone. We're all, you know, indoctrinated in some bigotry and some harmful thoughts. Let's get that off the table. It shows up in your work and so you want to be reflective because now you're aware I'm, you can be mad at me, whatever. Okay, let's not argue. But how are we going to move forward? I want you to be highly reflective when you're showing up in classrooms, when you're talking to people. When is it showing up? Because I promise you it exists. It's going to show up. That's not a question is how and when and what are you going to do about it? So the first step would be acknowledging it and then being reflective. Because once you're much more reflective, then you can start to problem solve how to address it. We have great skills as far as practice. If you practice with evidence based approaches, promising approaches, all that you learned in school without analyzing that, you could fall into some traps and cause some harm. If you practice with all those skills you have, but also critiquing, analyzing, reflecting on your practice, you can really make some, some big change.

[B]

Okay, so that's our good, that's our baseline. Start off with a good we're all racist statement and then go, I don't. Your mileage may vary. If that's how everyone's going to go, I'd be a little nervous starting off a conversation.

[A]

So I did know.

[B]

But Joe, you, Jack, you did it at a dinner.

[A]

So someone said something that was like mildly racist. And I said, hey, that's pretty racist what you just said. I don't know if you should say it like that. And she got so offended and she still brings it up to this day. And I was like, we're all racist. I'm just, I'm, I'm letting you know that that is like offensive to me. And that is not even my, like, group. So I just, so I'm still doing it though, because I don't care.

[D]

Well, yeah, I think the difference is I Call people out before it happens when you call people out when, when they're engaged and it happens.

[A]

Yeah, I know, right?

[D]

They really, they're like, oh, I gotta be defensive. Which is why. And I do it a lot in presentations. It's like, just get it out the way. We all have these ideals. And then I'll pull up a quote from why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? Which is like 20 something year old book. So if you don't agree, you can read from this scholar. Think about like all the messaging and because they're already in a calm state, like people don't receive messages very well when they're already escalated emotional.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So every come you're in a presentation, we're at a conference. You're in New Orleans if you're at apba. Right. And so you're pretty calm. You had a couple beignets. And I say, oh, we're all racist. And you're like, yeah, probably because it's all hypothetical at that point. Like nothing happened. But if something happens, like if I'm coaching a teacher and we're in the middle of a crisis, I would not say that.

[A]

I was at dinner though, and it was a friend. So I was just surprised that she was so defensive. She still brings it up three years.

[D]

And it's great that you did that because you can't just bring it up one time and never bring it up again. You have to keep bringing it up and it's feedback. That's how we change our behavior is getting some immediate feedback. So you're absolutely right, Jackie.

[B]

I think I will second the. I love going to a conference and having someone start with like the big. Here you go. This is the place to hear something that's uncomfortable because yeah, I'm there to learn. I almost at this point, frankly, if I pay to go to your conference and I don't feel a little uncomfortable and like question my practices, I. I want my money back. You're not doing your job. Like that is a great place to be. Kind of, you know, have it in your face of like you're not doing everything right. There's things you need to be aware of and you need to change. So I, I'm, I'm always, I'm. I'm down for it. Molly, if I, if I come to see your talk, I, I don't even care what the talk's about. I expect that. I would love that to be the starting, starting statement. Just, just get me right on my toes. Get me right in the Mood for it. I love it.

[C]

Cool. Yeah. If we want to, you know, go back and break down like Hughes Fong 2016. Right. Like there's two steps to their process and that you have to start with cultural awareness of self before you can then do a good job of being culturally aware towards others. And a lot of that self work is going to be identifying various unconscious biases and your own place and from which you are interacting with the world and recognizing what privileges you may have starting from that place. Right. So I think that that fits in with this. And then if we think about, you know, kindy and how to be anti racist, it is an active approach. So you can't just be like, well,

[A]

I, I mean, well, and that's all. And that's all that matters.

[C]

That's really not all that matters. Right.

[B]

I have a true heart. So you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like you said, like that's how we all got into this field is we want to do right and help other people, but you can end up causing harm if you're not aware and careful in that approach. So I've been trying to find this other article that I really like, but it's a little bit old and I've failed. So that's a non starter sentence I just made. But that article I think would sort of tie in nicely to what we're discussing here is too, if you are a behavior analyst and you get referred a student that someone else says, hey, they have this behavior problem, you don't have to immediately jump in and treat it as a behavior problem. You can step back and sort of culturally evaluate what could additionally could be going on here that might have some, you know, some built in other, other layers to, to the situation before just, you know, having yourself like drilled down so tightly on. I got to do an FA right now. I got to make a behavior plan there, there may be some back, back steps to take before you jump right into that.

[D]

Yeah. And then also you're working in partnership with other adults who are in this child setting.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And how do you work alongside them is really important.

[B]

I know. Molly, in your, in your paper, one of the things that most resonated with me was kind of like you were just, just mentioning Diana. This sense of the behavior analysts in schools. What is your job? Well, your job is there's a problem. Fix the kid with your fba. Okay, thank you. I'm glad that's in the episode, folks. We did it. We were sort of brought in to, you know, fix that kid with your assessment and with Your intervention plan. And like you mentioned, you know, just a few moments ago, the idea that, like, well, I'm using objective measurement data points, and I'm using best practice, evidenced practice is not a shield against putting a bias into the procedure. However, I also want to be mindful of many behavior analysts working in schools are either there as maybe contracted provider, which means the only reason you are here, I am paying you, is because you're going to fix this kid right here. And if you tell me that actually there's not a problem, and the issue is we're just a bunch of racists and we're seeing problems where they don't exist, well, you're fired. Get out of here. I'll hire somebody else who can fix this problem. I've decided, because I'm guessing they're not going to hear that message super well right off the bat. Or you are a behavior analyst working with a teacher, and you know, you're just going to not. You're going to find yourself in that same situation of like, no, you're legally mandated now to do this assessment because we've made it part of an IEP process, potentially maybe for the wrong disability category, but now you have to do it. So you're saying, I refuse to do it on the grounds of this isn't an appropriate target. This is a socially appropriate behavior the child is engaged in. These are inequitable practices at play. It's not going to stop you from needing to write down something. So I would kind of love, you know, and now in a paper, you're not always able to, like, get into, like, the nitty gritty of every piece. But that was one, like, section of the paper. I'd love to hear your nitty gritty of all of those variables. And just even just being able to boil it down to, like, what are our red flags and what are some of the steps that we can take to protect our students, our clients, and sadly, to some extent ourselves in our field of getting embroiled in some of these practices for maybe a school district or teacher that is not ready or not interested in hearing that there's an implicit bias at play.

[D]

Great question. I really appreciate this question because early on in my career around this particular topic, I think it was so big. It was like, this is a problem. We need to know it's a problem. But it wasn't. It didn't include action steps for people to follow, and so they just often left the conversation not knowing what to do. I had a student, I teach a few School psychic behavior analytic classes or behavior analysis classes at Temple for grad students. And I had a student ask me, okay, you keep talking about culturally responsiveness, but like, what is that? Like what? Tell me what you want me to do. I was like, it's a paradigm, it's the way it's going to be. She did not like that answer. And I yeah, I think that's a big problem. We can't answer it from, from that lens. And so this is a really good question because a lot of school psychologists, not a lot of school psychologists, school psychologists, behavior analysts. This was my job when I worked in private practice. I was consulted to go to a school, complete fba, add a bit, coach the teachers on how to use it, and go to the next place and do the same thing. One of the things that happens often is when we see black students and we observe behaviors that are age appropriate or atypical or problematic, we often rely on highly punitive responses to their behavior. We know as behavior analysts, punishment is not the most effective way of changing behavior. And so because of that, we can, our interventions are going to be a lot more preventative and about skill development. That's already how we're trained. Which is why I think behavior analysts should be in the conversation around addressing this. We have the skill set to change the conversation. It can be system levels approach in the classroom of how to make this classroom feel safe and inviting and inclusive because we know problem behavior occurs more when the classroom doesn't feel like a safe place to be for kids across the age continuum in schooling. That's a preventative approach. It acknowledges the humanity of students. It also acknowledges the experiences of children. It also acknowledges bias because we know when we have a bias towards who we're observing, we perceive them as more dangerous and that the behavior is more malicious and all these things. And so the big piece is making sure that our work, our solutions, our BIPs, our FBAs, our consultation with teachers, all of that is coming from a much more compassionate lens. And so this ties in another theory that we've been talking a lot about compassionate aba. It also brings in trauma informed approaches because we see people as wanting to do really well, but these are the skills that they have. We need to replace those skills because they're just trying to make sure they are safe and feeling safe. And it shifts the conversation to this person is a problem. More to how can we shift the environment so they can be successful Here that's a different conversation. And that falls more into what culturally responsive practice requires analysis of us.

[B]

Mali, I want to, I want to push a little bit more on that idea because certainly focusing on our skill building, on our own, you know, exploration of our implicit biases, I do see that as, of course, like a great step one, and I appreciate how well you described those steps in that process. So we're coming at this from a skill building lens. But I do still have the concern of what are the things that I need to be looking out for in terms of my own processes to avoid going from one implicit bias to another. So we're going to focus on your skills. We're going to focus on how to help you navigate the world, your context. Ideally, I'm including the child in the assessment. So I have some of those contexts, I have some of those stories. But if it's a student who maybe has a communication disability or a cognitive disability that they can't necessarily share those stories, how can I also then avoid going from one trap to the next month? Because I'm picking these skills and they're great skills and hey, surprise, those skills have an implicit bias in them. You've chosen those skills because that's how you, maybe a white man or a white woman or even a person of color are bringing from your history to say, these are important skills you need and forgetting to take into account whether they actually were that useful to the student because of maybe the origin of everything. Where am I looking for there? Is it just that continual process is there? It would be great if you just had like, here's two great tips that you could quickly do in five seconds. But I know that's not going to be the case. It's a complex issue.

[D]

Yeah, it is. And there are some things we can think about. Like you said, the red flag. So if we look at the data, it illustrated for us some trends. We know that vague descriptors of behaviors are challenging. So if someone says like, oh, this child's the target behavior is disrespect, can you tell me more about what that looks like? And if it sounds like behavior that's age appropriate, asking more questions, following up the way the tone that they speak is what's the challenge? Like just unpacking more, what specifically is the behavior of concern? And so having better definitions for those particular behaviors of concern, which also falls back into is the expectation for what it's required clear? Because maybe you're expecting something that actually hasn't been outlined and you assume that this child is not engaging in the expectation because they should just know how to do it or they should just do it because it's the right thing to do. You don't have an agreement. So I always like to have expectations be very clear and you say them and then make sure a child can understand what they are. The other big piece that goes with the adultification, another theory that comes up around how children, black children particularly, aren't perceived as children, is determining is this particular behavior age appropriate? Is this what we would. Even if it's undesirable, that often happens. If you're talking about three year olds, they do a lot of age appropriate things that are undesirable. We want them to stop. But if it's age appropriate and we are perceiving as this huge problem that needs to be punished away, the big example of that is like tantruming, then we can shift how we're thinking about it and it's probably tied to some bias. If we're like, oh, we just got to punish this, this tantrum away, there's probably bias. You probably perceive the child as a lot older, more capable, differently than other three year olds, and you're not going to come from the lens of skill development. Like they need to learn how to regulate their emotion, problem solving, all those things.

[B]

Okay, all right. I think, I think, I think that covers a lot of the fears I know I have when I, when I see anyone mentioning and I recognize, like, oh yeah, fba and a lot of these processes are going to have an implicit bias just like anything else. So I, I do, I do appreciate you taking, taking extra time to hear my fears out and not necessarily make me feel like now everything's better, but giving me more tools that I, as a practitioner, I hope a lot of our listeners find helpful as well to continue working to break down a lot of this implicit bias and not find behavior analysts complicit. Because I think we are in a field that it would be so easy to just go along, get along. A lot of people hate behavior analysts and the value we have is make this kid stop being dad. Sure, whatever you say, I can do, I can do whatever, you know, we can do an fa, we cannot look into it too deeply. We cannot question biases, and we can just say, here's a plan that works and you like punishment, great, here's some punishment that'll totally work. We can just throw that in there without caring about context and make a lot of friends that way. But is that ethically how we want to move our field forward or how we want to make friends? I don't think I Don't think any of us want to. Let's all say no together.

[D]

And I think since so many practitioners are in a space where they're not able to make system level change, this is also call to action for behavior analysts to join those conversations. To be in the room where the decisions around the school's discipline, how the system looks at children, you're a part of. Because I can think of many schools that I've been with, worked at, consult with where their school discipline practices are all connected to punishers, what they perceive as punishing of particular groups of behavior. All of the targeted or problem behaviors don't have great definitions. They're all very vague. And so as a behavior analyst, you are very equipped to help them understand. Here's our universal supports that can cultivate the prosocial behaviors we want to see. And then how can we better define these particular behaviors? Helping teachers understand, like punitive responses are not the most effective way or even. I worked in the hospital at one point and I had a student who was skipping school a lot. He was a adolescent, and this was right after global lockdown. So there was a lot of school refusal. He was pretty anxious. But he skipped the school. He skipped school a lot. And his school's consequence for skipping school was suspension. You've heard of this, right, Jackie?

[A]

I knew it was coming. I knew.

[D]

Makes perfect sense. He was like, he doesn't come to school. Kick him out. Yeah. So thinking about it from the lens of I always like to ask people when they're using a lot of punitive responses, how has it impacted the behav year? Oh, you should probably stop because it keeps happening.

[A]

That guy was so jazzed. He was like, yes, it's exactly what I wanted.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I think his parents were like, I don't know why he. He want to go. They. They keep suspending him and he just won't go to class. And I know why.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, boy. Well, I think this is a good time to move into the next section of our show, the dissemination station. Oh, we got a long. We got a long train that.

[A]

Because I was scared that you couldn't hear me.

[B]

Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

[C]

The train was coming in.

[B]

It was coming in hot, hot. So this is the section of the show where we typically do one of two things or both. We've sort of already gotten to do one of them, which was very exciting, which is sort of summarize a lot of the pieces of the literature and talk about how that can be put into practice. But since that was A huge component of what we wanted to talk about today. We already did a lot of that because that was the meat of the show. So I think since, you know, we can't just skip it. We're not just going to skip it. We can't do it.

[C]

I know, I know what you're about to say. Okay.

[B]

Do you know what I'm about to say?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, okay, well, I'm going to say it and then you tell me if that's what you thought it's going to be. All right. Since we started with a really big kind of topic and talking generally about critical race theory, I kind of want to end with a giant big topic and really talk about how behavior analysts, you know, we talked about a few specific examples in the schools, but how going forward as the field as a whole, we can become much more aware and become more allies in the struggle against inequitable discipline. So not just from the moment to moment school based level, but talking big picture, whether it's legally or policy or just those rules that somebody out there is writing or making. I know there's no one answer there, but, but I'd love to sort of hear your, your kind of, your big take on that, that, that big topic, that big question.

[D]

The first thing that comes to mind is connected to what we just talked about, knowing what are the trends that currently happening related to school discipline and behavior in school? Because if you know what the current trends are, then you can better start to conceptualize. How can I address these particular things? If you have good ideas being a part of the decision making. Many behavior analysts practice independently, but are there ways we could be more active in the policy making or informing schools? There are a lot more researchers thinking about inequities in school from the heater analytic approach in the last several years. And that's exactly where we need to go. We need to start writing more about this because this has been investigated and discussed in other professions for quite some time, but not in ours. And we know a lot of behavior analysts mostly read behavior analytic scholarship. So if this is something you're interested in, you have a lot of information about it. Start to publish, start to write about, have these conversations. If you work in an organization that has a school contract component, so maybe you're in a private practice and they consult with schools, maybe having a conversation with your team about this department meeting or however you all discuss big topics. So you can start moving the conversation to awareness about this particular topic. But if you're going to do that, you want to Know what the trends are? What are we even talking about? I know when I started to investigate this, like I said, I thought about this from K to 12. And when I learned it was pre K and up, I got really sad and I was like, that's what we need to talk more about. And then I learned about girlhood interrupted. So it kept getting more and more sophisticated and in depth the information I was learning about this particular topic. The other thing I think behavior analysts could also start to do to move this work forward is be the only behavior analyst in particular rooms, is what I'm thinking. If there are spaces, conferences that are usually geared toward different profession, don't go to the speech pathologist conference. But like educators, principals, early childhood, we should be presenting there as well and talking to them about our science, the work we can do, the skill set that we have, and then making them aware that if they want to be more equitable in their approach. Here are some ideas. But there's this problem that exists that we need to think about.

[C]

That's good advice.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Well, Dr. Mali Sevan, thank you so much for being on our show today. We really appreciated you taking the time and bringing these articles to our attention, giving us a chance to discuss them with you, ask some questions and get to get to hear, you know, so much of your expertise in this area to improve our practice and improve the practice of our listeners. We really appreciate it.

[D]

Yeah, this was great. I appreciate all the questions and the time you took to investigate the information I shared. And I can just tell you really were thoughtful with the questions that you provided. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

If folks want to reach out to ask other questions, things we didn't think about or things we just, you know, based on the show, don't always have time to go over. It's such a small issue we're talking about here. You think we could get it all done in an hour?

[C]

Right.

[B]

But they want to reach out with, you know, other questions or other, you know, questions about whether there's critical race theory, about discipline, inequities, about practice. Is there a place that folks could, could reach out to get more information or to kind of ask you some, some questions about the subject?

[D]

Yes. So you can always email [e-mail] My website is thekeyconsult.com so you can always schedule a brief conversation with me. I'm on social media, but I don't know any of my handles.

[C]

That's okay.

[D]

Yeah. But I have such A unique name. If you look up Maoli Sivan, you'll probably find me. If you find someone else, please also let me know. I would like to know that other Maui Savon.

[C]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Same.

[C]

I'm the only Diana Perry cruise in the world as far as I know.

[A]

There's so many Jackie McDonald's, including an Australian TV show, Morning Host.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

She's my favorite from the 70s and 80s.

[C]

I hope you get to want to be here.

[D]

She's good.

[B]

I think she's okay. A huge thanks once again to Dr. Mali Sivan for coming on the show and talking to us all about inequitable discipline practices. Very important issue, especially for behavior analysts because it is not very hard to get sucked into a situation where no matter how much you are trying to be an anti racist practitioner, you might be reinforcing these implicit biases and these practices going forward. So I think it's a very important topic for anyone working in schools or anyone really who is working with individuals in which bias is going to be an issue, which is going to be all of us at some point. So very, very excited to have Dr. Sevan on to talk about all of this. We're going to do our last section of the show though before we wrap things up. And that's pairings.

[C]

Ah, it's my turn. Yeah.

[B]

Where'd you come from?

[C]

Ah, I'm here. It's time for pairings. Pairings is the part of the show I was scared.

[B]

Usually you do the horns that you know.

[C]

Do you want me to do the horn again?

[B]

No, no, no. I got it the first time. I know it's pairings now.

[C]

Yeah, it's the part of the show where I tell you about past episodes that you might want to check out if you found this one of interest. So we have several past episodes to reference and they include episode 104 where we discuss culturally aware assessment practices with Dr. Liz Hughes Fong. Episode 135, social justice with Denisha Jingles and Erin Donovan. Episode 152, the ethics of cultural responsiveness. And finally, episode 271, social justice research practices with Dr. Malaika Pritchett. I also like to recommend a snack to go with this episode. And so our snack for today is Rocket Pop. We had those, Rob.

[B]

I had one just this past Wednesday.

[C]

Oh my goodness. Well, I chose Rocketpaw because as you, as we have noted, it's very hot here in the studio today and it's going to be probably even hotter when this episode comes out in July. So Rocket Pops are always great. I also know that this episode's coming out kind of around July 4th, and they're usually red, white and blue. So there I want to acknowledge that. But also I'd like to acknowledge that our country has a lot of work to do in the process of helping everyone achieve the American Dream. And we can't forget that for us to be a great country, it has to be a great country for everyone who is here. That's it. And that's the end of pairings. Please enjoy.

[B]

All right, thank you very much, Diana. Thank you all so very much for listening as well. If you like ABA InsideTrack. Thank you. Or if you have feedback for us, we'd really love it if you subscribe so that you can always be up to date with what we're doing and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to your podcast. We'd really appreciate that. If you want to get CES for listening to this episode, you can do that on our website aba insidetrack.com where you can find links to the articles discussed here with Dr. Sevon as well as guest bios and all of the other 350ish episodes that we have done in the past. If you want even more ABA Inside Track or a place just for our some of our kind of closest listener friends, you can join us on [e-mail] Aba inside track you can subscribe for free to get access to polls and notices as soon as they go out. If you subscribe at the $5 level, you're able to get access to our listener choice episodes. Everyone gets access to those, but listeners get to vote on those and get a free CE for listening to those. We have one coming out very soon. On a related topic policies, I believe that's coming out next month, so you're going to want to get access that as well as our other listener choice episodes and at the $10 an up level for even more bonuses and discounts at the CE store. You can also get access to our book club podcast as soon as they come out. We have a lot of book clubs that are coming out in the new year. We just had our book club poll and you can get the two CES for those book club episodes, no additional charge as well as for all of our previous book clubs. You're not going to want to miss [e-mail] adainsidetrack and you can always just email us if you want to say [e-mail] before we wrap up, I want to make sure that we get that second secret code word. It is Morris. M O R r I s that is another writer very dear to Dr. Sevon's heart. Morris is the code word there. And then to wrap things up again, one more big, big thank you to Dr. M.A. sevan for coming on the show. Also thanks to Dr. Jim Carr for recording our intro outro music, Kyle Sturry for his interstitial music, and Dan Thabit of the podcast Doctors for his amazing editing work. We'll be back next week with another fun filled episode, but until then, keep responding. Bye.