Behavioral Support Should be Culturally Responsive

September 3, 2013

A practice called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) aims to help students—and schools—by offering a supportive and predictable schoolwide social and academic environment. PBIS emphasizes the social and academic benefits of creating common, shared understanding of desirable behaviors among members of school communities.

In PBIS schools, teachers and students discuss and agree on desired behaviors and corresponding incentives and reinforcements for demonstrating these behaviors. In turn, families, teachers, and local leaders develop action plans for implementing a systemwide PBIS.

Aydin Bal, a professor in Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education at UW–Madison, says PBIS is one of the most important innovations in special education to address discipline issues. He notes, however, that much of the original development of PBIS was done in suburban schools where assumptions about appropriate disciplinary methods are tied to the dominant, White culture.

Racial minority students bring to school valuable life experiences and cultural and linguistic practices. Yet, these practices are often devalued, and these students’ ways of knowing, behaving, and being are considered deficiencies. Too often, the preconception in schools is that these minority students are disruptive, resistant, and unlikely to succeed. This can lead to a great disparity in who is punished for certain behaviors, held back a grade, or even assigned to special education classes.

The cultural practices of schools are often entrenched institutional processes generating long-lasting effects, both positive and negative. They may reinforce structural systems of oppression in local neighborhoods and the larger society. For example, schools often keep children back a grade as a way to help struggling students, despite overwhelming evidence this practice is disproportionately used with racial minority students and that it produces damaging outcomes.

Multi-tiered system of supports The effectiveness of PBIS is grounded in prevention. A multi-tiered framework shapes the delivery of services and supports. The first tier addresses the needs of all students. Educators teach social skills and expected school behaviors, create opportunities for students to practice those behaviors, and reinforce compliance. This tier emphasizes monitoring potential risk factors, such as low achievement, truancy, high student mobility, and histories of suspensions or expulsions.

The second tier addresses students who do not respond to the universal supports provided in the first tier. Teachers apply behavioral analysis and empirically supported behavioral interventions in smaller groups.
The third tier addresses students who don’t respond to the first two tiers. It provides highly specialized interventions from teams of special educators, behavioral interventionists, school psychologists, and counselors.

PBIS teams determine which students require more intensive behavior interventions and supports by monitoring a number of data sources and outcomes, such as office discipline referrals in a given time period and location, student attendance, tardiness, suspension, and academic outcomes. These measurements focus PBIS on the social organization of the entire school as well as on individual student behavior.

Research has shown that racial minority students, especially African Americans, tend to be disproportionately punished more severely for less serious, more subjective reasons. Bal stresses, therefore, that PBIS must be sensitive to different cultural practices.

Culturally Responsive PBIS (CRPBIS)

Cultural assumptions in the U.S. education system—reproduced year after year, decade after decade—shape the climate, rituals, and routines of every school. CRPBIS helps teachers and other stakeholders develop a critical awareness of how they think about—and assess—student behavior and interaction. The following shifts in cultural practice are vital components of CRPBIS.

PBIS is culturally neutral. Yet, effective implementation should reflect the cultural context in which teaching, learning, and student behaviors take place. As percentages of students from non-majority cultures increase, there is growing concern among teachers and researchers about behavioral outcome disparities. This has led to calls for "culturally appropriate" PBIS models. To date, however, few PBIS models incorporate cultural considerations. Bal's research intends to help PBIS practices become culturally responsive and socially just.

From teaching desired behaviors to creating opportunities to learn. CRPBIS encourages educators to create student-centered learning environments. Teachers give students opportunities to assess interactions with each other. Educators determine areas of strength and need. They create solutions that make sense in the context of that particular setting.

From understanding culture as a variable to exploring school cultures as contextual mediators. Educators, students, and families come together to discuss cultural patterns in the school and how they relate to student discipline and behavior. Stakeholders examine authentic student-student and educator-student interactions that are deemed desirable or undesirable. They explore how individual and group cultural experiences shape these perspectives.

From local fairness to local to global justice. CRPBIS is grounded in "local to global justice." This perspective endorses more progressive and participatory forms of democratic politics and social activism. It encourages new ideas about regional confederations of grassroots and justice-oriented social movements. Stakeholders discuss equitable social interactions and outcomes across the classroom, school, community, and beyond. They work to improve these relations and their consequences within and outside school walls.

From cultural assimilation to student, family, and community empowerment. CRPBIS celebrates the power of the student, family, and community to determine what kinds of social interaction are desired in education settings. This perspective represents a shift away from the assumption that educators know best about behavior that is in the best interest of student learning and interaction. Preferences for student behavior should not be shaped solely by the educators’ cultural beliefs, values, and practice, nor the status quo for what is expected in schools.

CRPBIS involves students, families, and community members in identifying (1) interaction patterns necessary for student engagement and learning, (2) which interaction patterns are problematic, and (3) how students and families can participate in teaching and modeling desired behaviors.

Changing the culture of a school requires teachers, families, and students to commit to a continuous cycle of reflection and action in an open dialogue, not a top-down prescriptions of interventions. The goal is to eliminate oppressive and marginalizing institutional practices and jointly develop and implement contextually valid solutions from the ground up.

For more about Aydin Bal’s research see http://www.crpbis.org/