Identifying the Depressive Subgroups Among Adolescent Black Boys and Adolescent White Boys Who Have Been School Policed and School Disciplined

Objective: Identify and compare the nuances in depressive symptoms among adolescent Black boys and adolescent White Boys who experienced school policing and school discipline. Methods: Data from 1,099 adolescent boys (803 Black boys and 296 White boys) from the Future of Families & Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) were used to identify depressive subgroups among adolescent Black and White boys. I conducted a latent class analysis to examine the subgroup differences among respondents regarding school policing, school discipline, and depressive symptoms. The categorical indicators, school policing and school discipline, were measured by the following questions: “police officer or officers regularly stationed at school?”; “some other security guard regularly stationed at school?”; “stopped by police at school”; “ever seen someone stopped by police in your school?”; and “ever been suspended or expelled in the past two years?” The continuous indicator, depressive symptoms, was measured by using the CES-D 5. Covariates included demographic and school-level connectedness variables. Results: Four depressive subgroups were identified: (1) ecology of policing and discipline, (2) school disciplined, (3) no regular security and never been stopped by police, and (4) security regularly stationed. The subgroups had an incremental decrease in depressive symptoms mean scores. Conclusion: School policing and school discipline influence adolescent Black boys and adolescent White boys differently, such that Black boys were school policed and disciplined more and had higher depressive symptoms than White boys. Therefore, each group of boys experiences similar educational environments in different ways.