AERA Open - January-December 2025, Vol. 11, No. 1 - Bureaucratic Representation and School Criminalization

Oct 15, 2026

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Exploratory online experimental research examines how implicit racial and gender biases shape disparities in school discipline affecting American Indian and Two-Spirit youth. Using a mixed factorial design, participants judged the justifiability of disciplinary actions in preschool misbehavior scenarios, varying student race and gender identity. Across conditions, evaluations showed no significant differences in perceived staff performance, threat, or prejudice. Results suggest bureaucratic representation may mitigate discriminatory outcomes, supporting further study and structural interventions to reduce school criminalization of marginalized groups.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Study overview

Experimental design and measures

Key findings

Implications for representative bureaucracy

Historical and conceptual background

1513 Balboa and colonial punishment

Two-Spirit identity and gender criminalization

Link to schools and contemporary policy

AERA Open January-December 2025, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 1–20 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584251338847 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2025. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Bureaucratic Representation May Lead to Less Discriminatory Outcomes for American Indian and Two-Spirit Youth: Evidence from an Online Experiment on School Criminalization Da’Shay Templeton California Lutheran University 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. Keywords: equity, gender studies, American Indian education, Indigenous peoples, psychology, race, analysis of variance/ mixed-effects analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), experimental design, survey research, descriptive analysis, Indigenous education, school discipline, Two Spirit, implicit bias, experimental design, bureaucratic representation In 1513, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, a Spanish conquistador, fed 40 American Indian persons accused of dressing as women to his hunting dogs (Mogul et al., 2011) . Their dismemberment, memorialized in the engraving by Theodore De Bry in Figure 1, is the first recorded punishment for sodomy in America. At least four points are worth noting in this story. First, the Quaraca, who were American Indian peoples, were not participating in acts of sodomy. Instead, Balboa accused them of a violation of gender norms (i.e., dressing as women) . This tragic massacre is part of a larger system of dominance wherein conquerors and colonizers punish/mutilate/kill Indigenous peoples for not subscribing to European gender norms. Since 1513, a great many instances of sodomy and subsequent violence toward Indigenous bodies have centered on gender, not sexual, deviance (Mogul et al., 2011) . This is a critical distinction because (a) it confirms how American society has long since criminalized Indigenous gender identities (an act worthy of death since America’s inception), and (b) it sets the stage for gender criminalization of Native America persons today in schools and society at large. Second, long before the creation of sexual orientation constructs (e.g., LGBTQIA+) in modern-day America, there were Two-Spirits (Hunt, 2016; Pruden, 2022) . Although this term was not coined until 1990 at the third Native American and First Nations gay and lesbian conference, the notion of the sacredness of multiple, expansive genders is old (Hunt, 2016; Pruden, 2022). American Indian persons revered the niizh manidoowag (“Two-Spirits”), who were understood to connect with multiple energies, including those categorized today as feminine and masculine, typically spiritual healers, teachers, and visionaries (Jacobs et al., 1997) . Third, one cannot understand gendered or

FAQs

What was the study investigating regarding American Indian and Two-Spirit youth?

It examined whether implicit racial and gender biases influence school discipline disparities through perceptions of disciplinary justifiability.

How did the experiment vary the scenarios presented to participants?

Participants evaluated hypothetical preschool misbehavior incidents varying the student’s race (American Indian vs White American) and gender identity (Two Spirit vs cisgender).

What does the study suggest about bureaucratic representation and discriminatory outcomes?

It suggests demographic alignment between school personnel and students may mitigate discriminatory outcomes, potentially reducing school criminalization of marginalized populations.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious