Bureaucratic Representation May Lead to Less Discriminatory Outcomes for American Indian and Two-Spirit Youth: Evidence from an Online Experiment on School Criminalization

This exploratory online experimental study examined the role of implicit racial and gender biases in school discipline disparities impacting American Indian and Two-Spirit youth. Using a mixed factorial design, I investigated public perceptions regarding the justifiability of school disciplinary actions involving hypothetical scenarios of preschool student misbehavior. Participants, oversampled to include American Indian individuals, evaluated incidents varying by the student’s race (American Indian vs White American) and gender identity (Two Spirit vs cisgender). Contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found in the evaluations of school personnel performance, perceived threat level of students, or perceived prejudice across conditions. These findings suggest the potential mitigating impact of bureaucratic representation, wherein demographic alignment between school personnel and students may reduce discriminatory outcomes. Implications emphasize the importance of enhancing representative bureaucracy in educational institutions to address systemic biases and reduce the school criminalization of marginalized populations, underscoring the need for further research on structural interventions.