Year

2026

Season

Summer

Paper Type

Master's Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree Name

Master of Science in Psychological Science (MSPS)

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Committee Chairperson

Dr. F. Dan Richard

Second Advisor

Dr. Angela R. Mann

Department Chair

Dr. Jack Shelley-Tremblay

College Dean

Dr. Kaveri Subrahmanyam

Abstract

This study explores the School-to-Prison Pipeline (STPP) framework through the lens of Ecological Systems Theory (EST), using structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine relationships between socioeconomic status (SES), school resources, discipline, and achievement in Florida’s public high schools. Analyses use a blend of data from the Florida Department of Education, U.S. Census American Community Survey, and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Results suggest that the constructs of achievement, discipline, resources, and SES are interconnected, but conclusions are limited by poor model fit. The findings further suggest that greater resource availability could have the power to mitigate the effect of socioeconomic disadvantage on achievement; and that the consideration of contextual factors can explain away some of the relationship between discipline and achievement. Future directions include the addition of a latent factor for school characteristics, further testing the synthetic cohort method by including more time points, and an expansion of the SES and resource latent factors.

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