The Relationship between Community Educational Attainment and the Discipline Implementation of Fourth Amendment Legal Principles in Public Schools

Abstract

This chapter examines the relationship between community educational attainment and Fourth Amendment legal principles being implemented in public schools. Using education attainment data obtained from the U.S. Census, this study examined the influence of educational attainment on how searches of students were conducted and the relative legal and judicial outcomes. The results of this study offer insight on issues related to forms of discipline in public schools and contribute to knowledge bases in the fields of economics, law, social theory, and educational leadership and administration.

Prior studies regarding the Fourth Amendment in schools focused largely on administrative decisions, judgments, and practices, but the aspect of educational attainment has been minimally investigated. Findings suggest community educational attainment has little to no predictive influence on aspects related to student searches examined in the study, which include the intrusiveness level of the search and the number of searches occurring during a single search event. Implications for future research and leadership are discussed.

Citation

Burke, J. and Torres, M. (2015), "The Relationship between Community Educational Attainment and the Discipline Implementation of Fourth Amendment Legal Principles in Public Schools", Legal Frontiers in Education: Complex Law Issues for Leaders, Policymakers and Policy Implementers (Advances in Educational Administration, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 147-163. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-366020150000024035