There are substantial racial disparities in school discipline but little agreement on how best to measure them. The choice of metric can influence conclusions about the magnitude of racial discipline disproportionality and intervention effectiveness. This article describes 2 common (risk ratio, risk difference) and 3 relatively novel (standardized effect size, raw differential representation, discipline rate) approaches to evaluating racial disproportionality, with illustrations of their strengths and weaknesses. Its concludes with a discussion of the metrics and a recommendation that researchers and policymakers consider the raw number of students of color differentially disciplined, as among the easiest to understand, the most stable, and capturing the widest range of information. Even so, no metric captures all relevant aspects of disproportionality. Accordingly, researchers and policymakers should be deliberate in their specific aims in measuring discipline disproportionality and select a combination of metrics that provides information most responsive to their goals.

中文翻译：

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尾巴，象牙和躯干：关于学校纪律中种族比例失调的不同度量标准揭示了什么

在学校纪律方面存在很大的种族差异，但是在如何最好地衡量它们方面却没有达成共识。指标的选择会影响有关种族纪律不成比例和干预效果的结论。本文介绍了2种常见的（风险比，风险差异）和3种相对新颖的（标准化效应量，原始差异表示，纪律率）评估种族不成比例的方法，并举例说明了它们的优缺点。它以对度量的讨论为结尾，并建议研究人员和政策制定者考虑对不同颜色学科的原始学生进行区别对待，以使其最容易理解，最稳定并收集最广泛的信息。尽管如此，没有度量标准可以涵盖不成比例的所有相关方面。因此，研究人员和政策制定者应在衡量学科不成比例性时认真考虑其特定目标，并选择能够提供最能响应其目标信息的指标组合。