Saturday School Detention programs

Does the existing literature provides reason to believe that the use of detention on Saturday is generally effective as well as specifically effective in terms of reducing schools' overall rate of suspensions? The purpose of the literature review presented here is to examine research that relates to this question. To answer this question, the chapter presents a review of studies investigating for the effects of Saturday school detention programs; the review emphasizes those studies that have used school suspension rates as one of their outcome measures.

Further, in order to provide historical background and context to the proposal, the review begins with a brief exploration of literature related to the general effectiveness of suspension as a disciplinary method; this because current educators claim that Saturday detention is a better alternative to this traditional method of dealing with disciplinary problems, and that a substantial part of its value is that it reduces the need to resort to suspension at all (Thorbahn, 1995; Winborn, 1992). The review ends with a series of conclusions about Saturday detention and its effects that are formulated based on the examined literature.

Historical Background:Impetus to Saturday Detention

Lack of proper discipline in schools has long been a major concern of the public; and proposals on how to improve discipline have ranged from the bizarre to the cruel (Nor, 1996). In many insta

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previous research findings which were that neither expulsion or suspension had decreased student misbehavior; indeed, misbehavior was said to be increasing in Kansas schools. Moreover, it was found that students in special education were disproportionately represented in the number of students suspended or expelled. The foregoing studies clearly show that out-of-school suspension is not an especially effective form of discipline, although it may serve the purposes of helping non-misbehaving students to learn in a safer and/or less disruptive atmosphere. On the other hand, alternative forms of discipline have shown some fairly positive outcomes. For example, in-schools suspension programs (some of which are very similar to Saturday detention programs) have been found to help students learn more responsible school behavior (Huff, 1988); and improve students attitudes (Whitfield & Bulach, 1996). Given the foregoing, it can be seen that investigating for more effective forms of discipline than suspension is a necessary research effort. Moreover, if these alternative methods can be used to actually reduce suspension rates for schools/school districts, this would be most desirable. In the next section of the review, an examinat

Category: Psychology - S