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Primary Submission Category: Life-course/developmental
School Policy Punitiveness and Midlife Cardiometabolic Risk: Gender, Race, and Health in the Zero Tolerance Era
Authors: Sylvie Tuder,
Presenting Author: Sylvie Tuder*
In the US, youth racialized as Black (“Black”) are sorted into disproportionately punitive schools and punished at disproportionate rates than their peers racialized as White (“White”). Black-White disparities in school punishment are larger for girls than for boys. Research shows that exclusionary school discipline harms numerous social and health outcomes, and increasingly draws links between school socioeconomic and racial context and health. Still, little is known about whether school policy punitiveness is associated with stress-related physiological dysregulation at the intersection of racialized social status and gender. Using nationally representative data from Waves I and VI of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 2,768) and an intersectional, life course approach, I ask: (1) is exposure to school policy punitiveness during adolescence associated with midlife (ages 39-51) cardiometabolic risk? and (2) does this association vary by race and gender for Black and White adults?
I create a latent construct of school policy punitiveness (SPP) via confirmatory factor analysis. Negative binomial regressions suggest that exposure to higher levels of SPP in adolescence is associated with higher cardiometabolic risk at midlife for Black women [Count Ratio = 1.10, 95% CI = [0.99, 1.22]) but not for Black men, White women, or White men. Next steps include refining the SPP measurement models; multiple imputation with chained equations; considering effect modifiers (i.e., skin tone or sexual identity); and exploring mediators. I aim to shed new light on the life course health implications of school policy, an overlooked yet contested political terrain. Finalized results may contribute to a growing evidence base arguing that abolishing zero tolerance in education is a population health imperative. A world with zero tolerance for educational injustice is one where all adolescents, and particularly Black girls, live long and healthy lives.